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Visions of Multiplication
“I think actually because my wife is not very familiar with the area, she feels like it’s a very difficult situation,” he says. “As long as we keep praying, I’m sure that God will protect us and be with us. This ministry is where the Lord has been calling us this whole time.”
Pramana says the shared vision of the team he will be working with encourages him, as does the vision of taking Christ's love to people who have never heard of it.
“In some ways, perhaps we have a greater motivation,” he says of himself and his wife. “Now that we are freed by Jesus, and we have the freedom and the joy and the hope that He gives, we have a strong desire to pass that on to our people. We know what they are experiencing.”
Visions of multiplication
Missionary's dream caps years of longing for Muslim ministry
Second in a Series
By Called and Sent Staff
Missionary names have been changed
WESTERN INDONESIA—A somber mood fills the room as a couple says farewell to a group of close friends gathered to send them off.
The wife, Suri, begins to cry. She and her husband, Pramana, have been serving as missionaries in this community for five years. Now they are moving to evangelize an all-Muslim village about 100 miles away.
Suri’s tears come partly from fear of the unknown, partly from fear of not knowing what to do. For example, if they ever ran out of money in the past, they had their friends. That familiar safety net won’t be there now.
“I am still blind—if something happens to us, I don’t know what to do,” she says. “If we don’t have money, I don’t know where to escape. I earnestly ask you to pray for us.”
Pramana and Suri’s new home is dominated by his native people group, a group with very few known believers that has resisted Christian influence for hundreds of years. More than by blood, Pramana feels pulled by years of conviction that his people need to know Isa al-Masih (Jesus the Messiah) as their own savior.
Two recent events cemented that.
The Pastor and the Math Lesson
The first was a dream — a vehicle, ironically, that God is using with increasing frequency to lead Muslims to Christ (see “Muslim wake-up call” and “Dreams & Visions Move Muslims to Christ”).
Missionary's dream caps years of longing for Muslim ministry
Second in a Series
By Called and Sent Staff
Missionary names have been changed
 | |
|
As Suri and Pramana kneel in the middle, a group of friends prays over them the night before their move to their new home.
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The wife, Suri, begins to cry. She and her husband, Pramana, have been serving as missionaries in this community for five years. Now they are moving to evangelize an all-Muslim village about 100 miles away.
Suri’s tears come partly from fear of the unknown, partly from fear of not knowing what to do. For example, if they ever ran out of money in the past, they had their friends. That familiar safety net won’t be there now.
“I am still blind—if something happens to us, I don’t know what to do,” she says. “If we don’t have money, I don’t know where to escape. I earnestly ask you to pray for us.”
Pramana and Suri’s new home is dominated by his native people group, a group with very few known believers that has resisted Christian influence for hundreds of years. More than by blood, Pramana feels pulled by years of conviction that his people need to know Isa al-Masih (Jesus the Messiah) as their own savior.
Two recent events cemented that.
The Pastor and the Math Lesson
The first was a dream — a vehicle, ironically, that God is using with increasing frequency to lead Muslims to Christ (see “Muslim wake-up call” and “Dreams & Visions Move Muslims to Christ”).
The dream had two parts.
In the first part, the pastor who led Pramana’s family to Christ in 1976 was preaching. The pastor told Pramana to open his Bible to Genesis 12. In the passage, God tells Abraham (then Abram) to leave his pagan home of Ur and move to present-day Israel on the assurance that God would keep his promise to make him the father of a great nation.
When Pramana woke up, he read the passage and noticed striking similarities to his current assignment.
“It was something that seemed to be impossible, but God strengthened him,” Pramana says of Abraham. “Because of that, he followed through and did what God said to do, going through circumcision, even though he was old. The people around him were unbelievers, yet he believed in the promises of God.”
Later in his dream, Pramana remembered overcoming his difficulty with math in elementary school. He asked the pastor, “What’s the relationship between math and the ministry?” The answer stuck with him.
“In my dream, my pastor said, ‘The relationship is, you have to be very accurate—you can’t just shoot like a shotgun,’” Pramana recalls. “I realized that what he’s saying is that I need to be careful to obey exactly what God is telling me to reach these people.
“In mathematics, as you move forward, you have to be careful that you have the right answer,” he says. “If you’re working with open people groups, you can do anything. But when you’re working with groups like this, you have to be very accurate and careful.”
‘Please Come to My House’
A second event—a survey trip to his new village—stiffened Pramana’s resolve to move.
While there, he met other missionaries who had the same vision for ministry to the village, even though they work for a different organization.
More memorably, a woman he did not know walked up and said, “Please come to my house and pray for my son. He’s sick.”
So Pramana went. While he was there, he told the woman about Jesus, who Muslims believe to be a great prophet.
“I told her that there are many other prophets, but Jesus is the only one who can help us right now,” Pramana says.
‘A Greater Motivation’
Though Suri is ready to move, hearing a visiting pastor tell the group of friends gathered to send them off that a certain number of people at the meeting are likely to suffer for their faith frightens her.
“I don’t know what will happen in [our new village],” Suri says. “But when I hear there will be one or two people who will experience persecution, I feel the ministry will be very hard. I asked my husband if people there die. He said, ‘Not yet.’
“In the past few days, I’ve just been crying and crying, and I don’t know why,” she says. “I believe God’s promises will strengthen us, and God will accompany us, too.”
Pramana says that though Suri is struggling, his dream, and the positive experiences on the survey trip, makes him believe that God is leading them to their new assignment.
In the first part, the pastor who led Pramana’s family to Christ in 1976 was preaching. The pastor told Pramana to open his Bible to Genesis 12. In the passage, God tells Abraham (then Abram) to leave his pagan home of Ur and move to present-day Israel on the assurance that God would keep his promise to make him the father of a great nation.
When Pramana woke up, he read the passage and noticed striking similarities to his current assignment.
“It was something that seemed to be impossible, but God strengthened him,” Pramana says of Abraham. “Because of that, he followed through and did what God said to do, going through circumcision, even though he was old. The people around him were unbelievers, yet he believed in the promises of God.”
Later in his dream, Pramana remembered overcoming his difficulty with math in elementary school. He asked the pastor, “What’s the relationship between math and the ministry?” The answer stuck with him.
“In my dream, my pastor said, ‘The relationship is, you have to be very accurate—you can’t just shoot like a shotgun,’” Pramana recalls. “I realized that what he’s saying is that I need to be careful to obey exactly what God is telling me to reach these people.
“In mathematics, as you move forward, you have to be careful that you have the right answer,” he says. “If you’re working with open people groups, you can do anything. But when you’re working with groups like this, you have to be very accurate and careful.”
‘Please Come to My House’
A second event—a survey trip to his new village—stiffened Pramana’s resolve to move.
While there, he met other missionaries who had the same vision for ministry to the village, even though they work for a different organization.
More memorably, a woman he did not know walked up and said, “Please come to my house and pray for my son. He’s sick.”
So Pramana went. While he was there, he told the woman about Jesus, who Muslims believe to be a great prophet.
“I told her that there are many other prophets, but Jesus is the only one who can help us right now,” Pramana says.
‘A Greater Motivation’
Though Suri is ready to move, hearing a visiting pastor tell the group of friends gathered to send them off that a certain number of people at the meeting are likely to suffer for their faith frightens her.
“I don’t know what will happen in [our new village],” Suri says. “But when I hear there will be one or two people who will experience persecution, I feel the ministry will be very hard. I asked my husband if people there die. He said, ‘Not yet.’
“In the past few days, I’ve just been crying and crying, and I don’t know why,” she says. “I believe God’s promises will strengthen us, and God will accompany us, too.”
Pramana says that though Suri is struggling, his dream, and the positive experiences on the survey trip, makes him believe that God is leading them to their new assignment.
“I think actually because my wife is not very familiar with the area, she feels like it’s a very difficult situation,” he says. “As long as we keep praying, I’m sure that God will protect us and be with us. This ministry is where the Lord has been calling us this whole time.”
Pramana says the shared vision of the team he will be working with encourages him, as does the vision of taking Christ's love to people who have never heard of it.
“In some ways, perhaps we have a greater motivation,” he says of himself and his wife. “Now that we are freed by Jesus, and we have the freedom and the joy and the hope that He gives, we have a strong desire to pass that on to our people. We know what they are experiencing.”
© 2007 Called and Sent Magazine. All rights reserved.