Music...music...music...and people..people...people

Brent Ellison sent us his "In This Moment..." cd that he self-published and that is available through www.cdbaby.com (the link should take you there, otherwise search for his name if you want to learn more about him or if you want to hear samples.) He also sent three other cds. To this one's relatively untrained ear, it sounded like one of the three had some studio time and the other two were labeled as one-takes. All were wonderful.

He said that I didn't have to become his fan just because he sent me some music. I haven't told him yet that I never stopped being a fan of his!! His parents, Ken and Mary, were really good friends to our family and I enjoyed going west to Solo--where just the Ellisons were stationed--as much as I did going east to Kediri where we had the largest mission station supporting the Baptist hospital there. His sister Melissa is one of the sweetest people I've ever met and she and Brent even got along most of the time!!

I wrote about Brent in More on Tough Questions and Cheap Answers. As we were growing up together (think early to mid-teenage years and then reacquaintance in college--he went to Baylor and I went to Texas A&M) he was the talented one and I was...well...me. I've had a knack for doing things my own way pretty much my entire life. One of my favorite stories of Brent and his family is going with them to a spring-fed stream near their house that flowed through a small dam and hydro-electric generator (SMALL...really SMAL) and over a nearby cliff.

Uncle Ken (missionary kids traditionally call other missionaries "Uncle" and "Aunt" in an effort to establish a family away from family) would lure people into the spring with "Come on in, the water's fine!!" with a look that made you wonder what he had in mind. Those who "took the plunge" at his advice were in for a surprise.

Because it was spring-fed, the experience of jumping in the water could be accurately compared to jumping into the Arctic Ocean. I'm not sure that the generator was wired properly, either, and I could swear I saw the water glow and sometimes felt like I was being shocked when I got in. If you weren't in the right frame of mind when you jumped in, you would shiver for hours.

So, when I heard Floatin', I thought back to that spring. I think I can still see Uncle Ken grinning at me. It makes me think why we were there and of the impact of his work and of my dad's work.

Indonesia is in the tropics. More accurately, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn...the band along the globe of the earth where the sun meanders from summer solstice to winter solstice. The lengthening of the day is far less pronounced in the tropics than it is in contiguous 48 states. The day tends to be about 12 hours (ignoring dawn and dusk glow) and the night is the same.

Indonesia is an archipelago of islands that is approximately as wide and as tall as the contiguous 48 and is also the fourth most populous nation in the world with approximately 241 million people. The island of Java is the size of Tennessee. But Tennessee has 5.5 million residents and Java holds almost 60% of that 241 million or 144 million. Java is 26 times as densely populated as Tennessee.

Most of the island is within 50 meters of sea level, but there are numerous vocanic peaks--both active and inactive--that dot the island. Bandung--where the language study occurred when Brent and I were there together--is in a mountainous region and is quite comfortable year round. Most of the island is warmer (high 80s to high 90s) and humid.

The humidity and the year-round sun and almost daily showers create a verdant vibrancy that seems like a well-funded insurgency against the human occupation of the land and the hills. The Indonesians can be very diligent and mostly win that war for the land. Their spoils are rice paddies as far as they eye can see, broken up only by desas and towns and cities. We ate fresh fruit year round...bananas, rambutan, pineapples, and even strawberries (though only in the mountain regions)...all plunder from the struggle with the rainforests. Brent describes it in one of his songs as "greener year round than our lawn is in spring."

My dad and his dad were field evangelists during that time. This meant they would go village to village seeking permission to help those with needs and to teach to those that would listen. I remember my dad riding off on his Vespa at dawn and coming back as the sun was going down...day after day. I was so proud of him!! I knew he was ministering the Gospel in a land that was outwardly green but that was a desert inside. Mom would stay home and teach all four of her kids. Her classroom was frontier-like in its span: from Kindegarten through eighth grade all in a screened-in, un-air-conditioned porch.

Indonesia was home for our family...if just for a little while. It sings its siren song to me still and I want to go back. It is unbelievable that some place I lived for only three years could overwhelm every other place. And, as time has passed, the longing has faded. I know it isn't the same as it was...that it moved forward and "grew up." I grieve when I hear of the the bombings in Bali and Jakarta, of the gang murders under the control of the military when East Timor declared independence, of the infighting around Ambon between the transmigrated, militant Muslims and the Christians defending their lives and their livelihood in a traditionally Christian area.

And I was horrified with the rest of you, but in a more personal way, at the tsunami that struck Banda Aceh. My parents considered an assignment in Medan--where the Stuckey's worked--just outside of Banda Aceh. The Acehnese people are one of the most stridently Muslim of all of the people groups in Indonesia. They would have been the target of my parent's mission activities.

We have prayed for them--the Acehnese--for decades...asking that God would allow us to evangelize them...asking that they would be saved. I cry out to God in agony that so many were lost to him that horrible way before we could reach them.

But...but...but...we have had our most effective ministry among the Acehnese people ever. More of our missionaries and more of the Good News!! has reached them in the past two years than in the past 100. God redeems even the worst situations for his glory!! Pray for the Acehnese that revival would sweep them.

Pray for those that serve them that they would have endurance and courage and strength. Pray that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit and that the harvest would be white for them. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest that the harvesters would be plenty.

Thanks, Brent, for reminding me--through your songs--of the land we shared and of the peoples there and of their great need. I'll invite our readers to pray for ALL of the 241 million Indonesians, who probably are 90% Muslim. While they admit that Jesus was a good man and a prophet, they don't know him as The Way, The Truth, and The Life...YET. But--if God is willing--with enough prayer and enough going, they can. Will you pray? Can you go?

I know of an organizationthat is headed by a missionary that worked as a field evangelist in Jember on the far eastern end of the island of Java. His organization can help you get ready to go and might be able to support you in going.

If God has given you a heart for any land, even if you don't believe you're ready to go today, nurture that calling. Water it and feed it with information and statistics. Learn about the people and the languages and the geography. Get prepared just in case the opportunity presents itself to you. Often God will grow a passion within us that turns into a bonfire before he sets us loose. Maybe that little spark is his gentle, soft whisper to you.

If you'll take the first, small steps of faith towards a calling, God will meet you there and get you the rest of the way. He offers power to you through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Not an agenda...not a program...not a committee to serve on...POWER. Take one step and see if he won't enable all of your steps.