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Jesus in Indonesia
Missionaries to Muslims
Profiles in faith from Indonesia
First in a series
By Called and Sent Staff
Missionary names have been changed
WESTERN INDONESIA—Java, 1992: Silas, a young new convert to Isa al-Masih (Jesus the Messiah), rides his bicycle home from church.
Suddenly he’s yanked off his bike by two Muslim men looking for a fight — or worse. Silas manages to squirm free and run home.
It isn’t the last religious trouble the family will face. Two years later, one by one, Silas’ parents and his five siblings turn from Islam to Christ. Their conversions turn their all-Muslim village against them. At night, villagers often pelt their house with rocks.
Today, the village accepts the family’s conversion, perhaps due to the father’s past position as a village leader. But Silas, now in his 30s, has taken things a step further. He and his wife now work as full-time missionaries on another island, dedicated to leading other Muslims to embrace Christ, just as he did 15 years ago.
It is not an easy proposition.
Religious tolerance is the law in Indonesia, but not the practice. The Indonesian government officially recognizes five major religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism. If someone from a non-Muslim people group wants to be a Christian, fine. But Muslims are off-limits to missionaries, and people who convert from Islam to Christianity will pay — in some corners of the country, with their lives.
Another missionary, Simon, tells the story of a man on Java telling him to leave his village—at knifepoint. The standoff ended peacefully, but not before Simon told the man to “go ahead and kill me.”
“This is the Christian life in Indonesia,” Simon says. “If you want to work with us, you have to be prepared for this.”
The world’s largest archipelago (more than 17,500 islands), Indonesia has more Muslims than any other nation, about 202 million out of a population of 234.7 million, according to the CIA World Factbook. More than 86 percent of people declare Islam on their mandatory national ID cards.
Some demographers estimate the Christian population in Indonesia to be more than 34 million, as of 2000. Using CIA numbers, about 13.5 million (5.7 percent) consider themselves Protestant Christians. Another 7 million (3 percent) are Catholics.
To be born into one of the almost 130 indigenous people groups here is almost always to be born Muslim. Ethnic and racial divides deepen the religious chasm between the Muslim majority and Christian minorities.
Silas says that when he introduces himself to people, they recognize him as belonging to a certain people group that is virtually all Muslim, and they welcome him. But when they discover he has abandoned Islam for Christ, they’re shocked. Sometimes, if the situation is right, that shock can be a tool.
“They always ask, ‘How can you change religions like that?’” Silas says. “It becomes an opportunity for me to tell my story, my spiritual testimony.”
That story begins with Silas’ mother, who, before she got married, followed Christ after a pastor cast a demon out of her. But when she married a Muslim man and moved to an all-Muslim village, she reverted to Islam.
It might have been that mixed religious background that led Silas to question who God is from a young age. From elementary school until his second year of high school, Silas studied Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, looking for God. Having a Hindu holy man for an uncle added to his confusion.
“I went and did my worship, my Salat [Muslim prayers], and I would also talk to important people in Islam,” Silas says. “I also went to a temple, but I just didn’t get an answer, because everyone was offering a god that was special to them. They were all saying, ‘This is God, this is God, this is God.’”
One day, utterly frustrated, he went to his room, got into his closet and said, “God, show me—I want to know who you really are.” He sang a couple of songs he had heard at a Christian church. He read and prayed. And then “I felt the presence of God like I had never felt it before,” he says. “From that point on, I knew that only through Isa al-Masih was there salvation for souls.”
But when he told his friends of his conviction, they only made fun of him, knocking his fragile faith back a step.
“I saw around me that Muslims were actually good people,” Silas says. “I was still really confused, really uncertain. I had had seen these people around me and saw that they were good and that they trusted this religion [Islam] —maybe this religion isn’t so bad after all. Maybe it is the right thing.”
So Silas went back to his original question, version 2.0: “Jesus, are you really the Savior?”
That question got answered when he visited a sick friend at home and prayed to Christ for his healing. The next morning, the young man had recovered completely.
“It was proof to me,” Silas says of his friend’s healing. “It gave me the conviction that Jesus wasn’t just for saving people, but could also heal people; and if he could heal people, then he could save people.
“After this, I cried like a baby, and it felt like my heart was released form something that had bound me for a long time,” he says. “Through this event, God answered the questions I had since I was young — that it was only through Jesus that people could be saved.”
Today Silas meets regularly with several local Muslim leaders to study the Qur’an and the Bible comparatively (in Surah 10:94-95, the Qur’an urges Muslims who are confused about it to study the Book that came before, particularly the Torah and the Injil, or Gospels).
“These people know the Qur’an,” Silas says. “But when I ask them, ‘After you do all these things, will you be saved?’ And they say, ‘No, you can’t be certain.’
“Generally speaking, most Muslims are asking me all these questions because they’re trying to do good works to secure their salvation, but … they don’t think it will.”
Profiles in faith from Indonesia
First in a series
 | |
|
Missionary names have been changed
WESTERN INDONESIA—Java, 1992: Silas, a young new convert to Isa al-Masih (Jesus the Messiah), rides his bicycle home from church.
Suddenly he’s yanked off his bike by two Muslim men looking for a fight — or worse. Silas manages to squirm free and run home.
It isn’t the last religious trouble the family will face. Two years later, one by one, Silas’ parents and his five siblings turn from Islam to Christ. Their conversions turn their all-Muslim village against them. At night, villagers often pelt their house with rocks.
Today, the village accepts the family’s conversion, perhaps due to the father’s past position as a village leader. But Silas, now in his 30s, has taken things a step further. He and his wife now work as full-time missionaries on another island, dedicated to leading other Muslims to embrace Christ, just as he did 15 years ago.
It is not an easy proposition.
Religious tolerance is the law in Indonesia, but not the practice. The Indonesian government officially recognizes five major religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism. If someone from a non-Muslim people group wants to be a Christian, fine. But Muslims are off-limits to missionaries, and people who convert from Islam to Christianity will pay — in some corners of the country, with their lives.
Another missionary, Simon, tells the story of a man on Java telling him to leave his village—at knifepoint. The standoff ended peacefully, but not before Simon told the man to “go ahead and kill me.”
“This is the Christian life in Indonesia,” Simon says. “If you want to work with us, you have to be prepared for this.”
The world’s largest archipelago (more than 17,500 islands), Indonesia has more Muslims than any other nation, about 202 million out of a population of 234.7 million, according to the CIA World Factbook. More than 86 percent of people declare Islam on their mandatory national ID cards.
Some demographers estimate the Christian population in Indonesia to be more than 34 million, as of 2000. Using CIA numbers, about 13.5 million (5.7 percent) consider themselves Protestant Christians. Another 7 million (3 percent) are Catholics.
To be born into one of the almost 130 indigenous people groups here is almost always to be born Muslim. Ethnic and racial divides deepen the religious chasm between the Muslim majority and Christian minorities.
Silas says that when he introduces himself to people, they recognize him as belonging to a certain people group that is virtually all Muslim, and they welcome him. But when they discover he has abandoned Islam for Christ, they’re shocked. Sometimes, if the situation is right, that shock can be a tool.
“They always ask, ‘How can you change religions like that?’” Silas says. “It becomes an opportunity for me to tell my story, my spiritual testimony.”
That story begins with Silas’ mother, who, before she got married, followed Christ after a pastor cast a demon out of her. But when she married a Muslim man and moved to an all-Muslim village, she reverted to Islam.
It might have been that mixed religious background that led Silas to question who God is from a young age. From elementary school until his second year of high school, Silas studied Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, looking for God. Having a Hindu holy man for an uncle added to his confusion.
“I went and did my worship, my Salat [Muslim prayers], and I would also talk to important people in Islam,” Silas says. “I also went to a temple, but I just didn’t get an answer, because everyone was offering a god that was special to them. They were all saying, ‘This is God, this is God, this is God.’”
One day, utterly frustrated, he went to his room, got into his closet and said, “God, show me—I want to know who you really are.” He sang a couple of songs he had heard at a Christian church. He read and prayed. And then “I felt the presence of God like I had never felt it before,” he says. “From that point on, I knew that only through Isa al-Masih was there salvation for souls.”
But when he told his friends of his conviction, they only made fun of him, knocking his fragile faith back a step.
“I saw around me that Muslims were actually good people,” Silas says. “I was still really confused, really uncertain. I had had seen these people around me and saw that they were good and that they trusted this religion [Islam] —maybe this religion isn’t so bad after all. Maybe it is the right thing.”
So Silas went back to his original question, version 2.0: “Jesus, are you really the Savior?”
That question got answered when he visited a sick friend at home and prayed to Christ for his healing. The next morning, the young man had recovered completely.
“It was proof to me,” Silas says of his friend’s healing. “It gave me the conviction that Jesus wasn’t just for saving people, but could also heal people; and if he could heal people, then he could save people.
“After this, I cried like a baby, and it felt like my heart was released form something that had bound me for a long time,” he says. “Through this event, God answered the questions I had since I was young — that it was only through Jesus that people could be saved.”
Today Silas meets regularly with several local Muslim leaders to study the Qur’an and the Bible comparatively (in Surah 10:94-95, the Qur’an urges Muslims who are confused about it to study the Book that came before, particularly the Torah and the Injil, or Gospels).
“These people know the Qur’an,” Silas says. “But when I ask them, ‘After you do all these things, will you be saved?’ And they say, ‘No, you can’t be certain.’
“Generally speaking, most Muslims are asking me all these questions because they’re trying to do good works to secure their salvation, but … they don’t think it will.”
© 2007 Called and Sent Magazine. All rights reserved.