1) The power of COMMUNITY. Prior to the actual on field experience, our team shared our “Life Stories” with one another. It was a powerful way to build community because we vulnerably shared our testimonies. It gave me greater insights to the team members lives; but most of all, it gave me more compassion for each person. Then when we got to Indonesia, we shared our Life Stories with the teams from Singapore and Jakarta. It helped in bringing all of our lives together. We were amazed to hear how the power of the Gospel could transform a person’s life. As we experienced this biblical community, it enabled us to experience God’s love in a tangible way.

2) The power of the CHURCH. In the past, whenever we participated in missions, we would partner with churches that we got introduced to for the first time or with churches that we had a good relationship with; but on this trip, we partnered with HMCC-JKT, a church that we planted two years ago. This gave our missions project a difference experience. Not only was the DNA of the churches the same, but we were able to unite together instantly under the same vision and mission. I felt this strong sense of partnership with the different HMCC churches. As we worked together, I knew that we were actually building up the church in Jakarta. The partnership was very noticeable as we were able to work together with the national Indonesians who were part of HMCC-JKT. Missions should always be done in the context of the local church.

3) The power of CHRIST. We saw how the message of Jesus Christ powerfully made a difference in the lives of people that we encountered, as well as in our own lives. In the mornings we would study the Book of Ephesians together. Every morning there was something in Ephesians that reinforced the power of the Gospel through Christ’s sacrifice. Then, we would minister to the various churches through the different revival meetings and church gatherings. In every single one of the gatherings, we witnessed Jesus’ healing power come down and minister to the people. It just reminded us that we had no power on our own, but rather it was Jesus’ power flowing through us.

4) The power of CONNECTIONS. One thing we can all testify to is how God sovereignly opened up many doors for us. When we find favor with God and with people, there will always be many divine connections that are made, as well as many opportunities to share Christ. For example, we had the privilege of ministering in a Muslim village in Lampung with the blessings of the government leaders who were all Muslims. We found favor with them as we served them and that connection opened up a door for us to minister to the children of that village. It is through relational connections that God uses to spread the message of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

1) LAUGHTER. It is amazing how humor opens up the hearts of people. Our time in Lampung has been good as we have been able to build relationships with the members of the churches, people in the neighborhood, and the different pastors. Even though we are different, humor has been bringing us together. Humor is transcultural. We are able to laugh about the same things; and now, we are even poking fun at each other.

2) LANGUAGE. I find it interesting how people find it endearing when we are able to speak their language. Even though it is just several phrase (with horrible pronunciation), they are encouraged when they see us trying. It shows that we want to enter into their “world” and there is an instant connection. Recently, with the youth of Lampung we taught them the word, “holla!” (bringing a little bit of gangsta flavor). Then we made it into a response to “Pugi Tuhan” (praise the Lord). It was an instant hit!

3) LOVE. The language of love is universal. It comes in all different forms – love for the host country’s food, love for the people, love for the culture, and etc. It is incredible to see the things that God accomplishes when this language of love is spoken. It becomes a bridge for strong relationships. It becomes the avenue for new opportunities. It becomes the gateway to a person’s heart. This is one language we need to be fluent in.

4) LIFE-GIVING. Whenever we go into a country and meet various people, we want to be a life-giving missions team. To be “life-giving” is to simply be an agent of bringing the hope of the Gospel and the blessings of God to an area or to a person. As we come with this kind of attitude, it has always brought a kindred spirit with people. People want to always be around other people who are living with hope, faith and love.

1) God is STRENGTHENING the church. It was great worshiping with HMCC-JKT on Sunday. This time around I did not have to preach therefore, I was able to just enjoy everything that was happening in the room. I was struck with the fact that there were many new people in the congregation. A good portion of the new members were students. As the church has been praying for more students, God answered their prayers with open doors to UPH (Universitas Pelita Harapan). I was also encouraged to hear that they will be growing in their leadership team, which will be made up of more Indonesians. The church cultural is slowly being built and people are experiencing God in powerful ways.

2) God is SANCTIFYING His servants. God’s desire is to make His people more holy and more like His Son, Jesus Christ. As the initial honeymoon stage of church planting is slowly fading, now the reality is setting in, as people are dealing with various things in their lives – for some people it is interpersonal relationships and for others it deals with different issues that were not addressed (or at least superficially addressed) in the past. This is the process of purification, which God puts all His children through. It is never pleasant at the time, but it produces fruits that bring glory to God.

3) God is SENDING His people. It has always been our dream to see Indonesians go out and reach other Indonesians. I have always said that we (those from the States) do not make the best missionaries because: a) It takes a long time to learn the language; b) It takes awhile to fully understand and learn the culture; c) It takes some time to get use to the food and way of life. But if you look at the Indonesians who are committed to doing missions, then they don’t have to learn a new language or learn the culture because it comes natural to them. On HMCC-JKT’s first missions trip, it was encouraging to see the reality of this. Half of the team was made up of national Indonesians. I saw how they were able to communicate so freely with the people that we visited in the villages. They knew how to interact with the people and it came very natural. It is my prayer that all the Indonesians in our church will be able to catch a vision and grow a burden to reach their own people in the various islands.

4) God is SOVEREIGN in all things. One difficulty that we faced was trying to enter into a village where we wanted help rebuild houses due to the devastation from Mt. Merapi’s eruption. Towns were literally decimated and many people lost their lives and their possessions. When we arrived in a village called Srunen, we were warmly greeted because a local pastor was able to establish a relationship with one of the elders of the village. But we quickly found out that the door was closing and that we were no longer welcomed by higher level officials because some radical Muslims were afraid that we were going to proselytize (this is a side note, but whenever a religion is controlled by fear then it loses all power to bring forth genuine transformation from the inside out). Once the door was closed, we started praying more desperately before God and seeking His will. In the morning, as we were praying, the Lord gave me this passage in my heart, “Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (Acts 16:6-10). After Pastor Andrew had a meeting with some leaders from another village, a door opened up for the team to go in and show the love of Christ. Although, there are times when there seems to be no way, God always makes a way. God is in control and we have trust that He knows what He is doing.

5) God is STRATEGICALLY linking people together. I don’t think we would have been able to enter into various villages without partnering together with local pastors and leaders who are like-minded in bringing the Gospel to the Indonesian people. We are living in a time where we need to link together with people in order to fulfill the Great Commission. In amazing ways, God is bringing Kingdom minded people together. This is when we know that God is up to something big. We, as HMCC want to do our small part in building God’s Kingdom. The more we partner together with other like-minded people, the more we will be able to finish the task of sharing the Gospel to all nations.

1) RELATIONSHIPS. Even though, Singapore is one of the greatest cities in the world, I am coming to the realization that what I find most enjoyable about a city are the people that I have built a relationship with over the years. Sure, there are many culinary experiences that would make any person envious. There are spectacular sceneries that take your breath away, but ultimately, a person can get quickly bored and become indifferent to the sensory overload. However, when a love for a city is rooted in a love for the people in the city, then it is a whole different story. When I get to see the leaders of HMCC of Singapore, my heart is just overflowing with gratitude and thankfulness for the partnership we have in the Gospel. I love it when I am able to just sit down with the key leaders and hear all that God is doing in the church. I also love meeting new people – whether they are new to the church or people just off the streets. There is something about special about the unique people that God brings our way. More particularly, in the last few months HMCC-SGP has seen more international Chinese students coming out to church. They are from mainland China on a scholarship program that will keep them in Singapore for 10 years (4 years of school, 6 years of service to the Singaporean government). This was one of the greatest highlights for me because I was able to talk with them and share the love of Christ.

2) RENEWAL. As we get older and as we understand more of who we are, we have a clear idea of knowing what energizes us or what exhausts us. It is very apparent that I am not a meeting (formal) kind of guy. I am more free-flowing and I like to take life in the moment. I love the quintessential teaching moments where life lessons are learned as we do life together. The more structured the times together, the more I feel as if things are forced, rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to guide and dictate where things should go. With all this being said, I was renewed in my spirit as I was hanging out with people in Singapore. In fact, times of spontaneous conversations and discussions of various things were phenomenal as we just allowed the Spirit to direct our time together. Another thing that energized me was hanging out with the Chinese national students. I was shocked to hear that some of them have never heard of the name of Jesus. Yes, we are talking about people who have never had a witness of the Gospel in their lives. I don’t know why but this excites me. I guess it fuels the passion that I have for evangelism. An interesting thing happened as I was talking with these Chinese students. I told them that in very movie that they have ever watched, where they were moved (emotionally) or even cried, there is a Gospel message. I was a bit discombobulated when they asked, “What does the word, ‘Gospel’ mean?” Therefore, I rephrased it and said, “When movies are very good, there is a Christian story behind it.” Then they prodded them to test this theory. After a bunch of movies were names, I proceeded to make the connection for them (i.e. forgiveness, unconditional love, acceptance, redemption, hope, etc). Sometimes I don’t do very well with people who have been churched, but when it comes to doing ministry on the frontlines, where some people have either turned away from God or do not know about who God is, I find myself being energized in my spirit. Even though on this trip, I have been averaging about 4 hours of sleep, there is nothing that compares to the strength that God is providing.

3) REAFFIRMATION. As I have been talking with people in HMCC-SGP, I am just thankful that the global pastors and I took the step of faith and decided to lay down the foundations of this church plant. There are many good churches here in Singapore, but some things that are not emphasized as much are: non-superficial biblical community, non-shallow accountability, non-programmatic discipleship, and non-reproducing evangelism. I don’t know what it is but I think the region of Asia just has a preoccupation with things being “bigger and better.” This is why when we decided to get things moving, there were some raised eyebrows as they heard that we were going to initially start the church as a “house church.” After this trip to Singapore, I am more confident and 110% sure that starting the church when it did (which went against all human conventional wisdom) and in the manner of how we started (house church model) was the will of God. When I heard the two testimonies during the baptism service, my mind started racing – “What if we didn’t start this church when we did?” “Would we have heard these testimonies of God’s powerful work in a person’s life?” I love it when God affirms (and reaffirms) things in our lives. It is as if God is saying, “keep at it, you are headed in the right direction!” God’s timing is impeccable. In fact, it is meticulous and matchless. When we live our lives with an unrivaled trust and faith in an awesome God, then we open the doors of opportunity for God to do incredible things.