We thank and praise God who has protected and blessed our UBF Indonesia ministry so abundantly through the year 2009. We pray that we may look back into history which God has made, praise him, and take the right direction in the year 2010 through our New Year’s key verse.
1. Review 2009
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love; remember the height from which you have fallen! “ Rev. 2:4
God gave us, Revelation Chapter 2 “Recover Your First Love,”, Zachariah Chapter 4 “Only by the Spirit of God,” and Hebrew Chapter 10 “The Three things we have to do” as new year messages of 2009, and helped us to start up the new year with a full spirit. We have struggled by praying to remember our first love with God, hold the relationship, love God and make him happy by relying on Him rather than doing many other works. We thank God for hearing our prayers and sincere hearts, loving each of us and training us to be the humble servants of God who always rely on His power.
1. The work of God through his word.
The thanksgiving topic when we review 2009 is that God gave His abundant living words. We thank God for letting us experience His grace through Mark’s Gospel, II Timothy, Titus, I Samuel and Christmas Message. We thank God for letting us learn how to be spiritual leaders and to have faith to praise God. We thank God for giving us a great hope to become like Timothy, Samuel and David who loved God in this generation. We pray that God may train us to be the spiritual leaders according to our faith and prayers.
2. The work of the Holy Spirit through Bible Conferences
Even though it’s easy to get tired in this hot weather, we thank God for helping us to love him and to have our graceful feast of God’s word in 2009. We thank God for blessing our Easter Conference and for granting us resurrection faith within our heart. We thank God for allowing us to have the Union Summer Bible Conference with Indonesia’s 4 centers in August which is usually held every four years and help us to meet Jesus, who is The Key Answer to every problem. God worked so powerfully that many people have repented of their sins. In December, God allowed us to have our Christmas Worship Service near Salemba Center, and has helped us to learn about the three Magi who invested everything for the truth. We pray that we can enjoy the true happiness from God by studying the truth and dedicating everything we have for the truth, just like the three Magi in this generation.
3. Raising House Churches
We have prayed that God grant us five new house churches in the year of 2009, and God has established one house church between MSN. Tommy and Shepherdess Inang. We thank God that although there were many difficulties in the middle of the marriage preparation, He has established a precious house church. We pray that God uses this family as the source of blessings for Indonesia campus ministry and other Muslim countries. There are many aged shepherdesses and we pray that may God have mercy on them and establish house churches. Brothers in our ministry are still immature spiritually and physically, however we pray that God may bless them and help them to establish a house church by faith.
When we think of 2009, the thanksgiving topic is a wonderful co-working between Missionaries. Also we thank God for the spiritual growth of native House Churches. Although there are always material problems in most families, we thank God that they still love God and feed the flock of sheep with Word of God faithfully. We thank God for the inward growth of the leaders, although the general growth in number of 1:1 bible study and Sunday worship service remained almost the same.
II. 2010 New Year’s Key Verse and Direction
Isaiah 29:3 “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor. “
God gave us Isaiah chapter 49 as our New Year’s message when we were about to start 2010. God helped us to study the words of God which are: first lecture, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor’, the second lecture ‘I have engraved you under the palms of my hands.’ And the third lecture ‘The Gospel, The Power of God’ and the fourth lecture ‘Live by the Spirit.’ God helped us who can live without real identity as God’s people in the world full of materialism and postmodernism, to have new faith and new vision through the New Year messages. We can hold on to the hope of God who chose us to be His servant to reveal His glory. At the end we could hold on to God’s hope although there is no hope and seems tough when we see ourselves and the world.
In 2009, we received a lot of training through many problems. However, God helped us to realize that all of them were God’s plan to turn us into sharp swords and polished arrows, and to use as his servants to reveal his glory. We pray that our ministry can be sure of the power of the gospel and be a ministry that can be a precious tool of God. We hope that for this, we can love the word of God more and make more effort on praying. We praise and thank God who will give us the victory of faith in 2010. We want to make every effort in our aim, to have 120 Sunday worship attendants and 120 one-to-one bible study teams. Also we want to establish many new house churches in this year. We believe that God will help us and reveal his glory.
