Climbing For Christ’s Budi Yuwono, center, with his family and our friend Agus near Mount Rinjani.
We first met Agus on Mission: Indonesia 2012. He was one of our guides on Mount Rinjani on the island of Lombok, where the majority Sasak people are 99.51 percent Muslim and 0.00 percent Christian, according to the Joshua Project.
Yes, you read that right: 0.00 percent Christian. The Sasak – with 3.25 million people – are one of 224 unreached people groups in Indonesia.
But prayerfully that is changing.
Mission: Indonesia 2012 was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Agus and Budi Yuwono, Climbing For Christ’s Indonesia leader. Budi has visited him many times, including with us in January on Mission: Indonesia 2017 and again this month.
I’ll allow Budi to explain:
“Indonesia is known as the most populous Muslim country in the world [82.1 percent of the 260 million Indonesians follow Islam], but Indonesia is not a religion-based country. God gives grace for Indonesia, which has the ideology Bhinneka Tunggal Ika – the slogan (meaning) ‘Different but still one.’ Although there are many tribes, languages and religions, Indonesia remains one.
“In this way we are still able to give the gospel of salvation to all who have not believed in Jesus.
“In serving the souls with Muslim background (beliefs), in particular, we do it in various ways. The most basic is with friendship – friendship evangelism.
“On the occasion of Ramadan this year, I and my wife and child had the opportunity to be able to visit souls on Lombok. In this trip, I wanted to instill a mission heart for my wife and child with what we have done in service with C4C. We met Agus and his extended family. Agus and we are like brothers. They were so glad we came, and we have told Agus about salvation and we believe that they can believe in God.”
Budi believes faithfully, as do we, that God will capture the heart of Agus – and others.
On Feb. 27, after a period of discipleship, Budi was honored to baptize a 21-year-old Muslim background believer. “And there are many more souls from Muslim backgrounds who believe in God these days,” he said. “The fields are (white) and ready to harvest.”
There is some opposition in Indonesia. Never mind that the country’s constitution officially recognizes six religions (Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism). Last month, three churches were closed in West Java, where C4C also has served since 2007, after Islamic education leaders protested to the government about their existence in the area.
Pray for: