The year 2020 was challenging for Indonesia Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism (IAFCOE), but it pushed them to make adjustments for the glory of God. IAFCOE was unable to conduct many of the programs they carefully planned for the year. Instead of the usual 2 batches of in-person training, they conducted 1 batch—though students were not able to finish their On the Job Training (OJT). Praise the Lord, the lockdown made IAFCOE focus more on social media. They also used Zoom as their main form of media to share the gospel.
Despite the pandemic, IAFCOE conducted two weeks of prayer for children (with over 200 children in attendance), two weeks of prayer for youth (with nearly 100 in attendance), and two adult weeks of prayer (with around 200 in attendance).
Many invitations to speak still came to IAFCOE from churches all over Indonesia and from Indonesian communities in the US. They used Zoom to conduct these meetings.
God made it possible for IAFCOE to conduct 3 batches (over 5 weeks) of the Amazing Disciple Training online with 70 students in each class. They worked with the West Indonesia Union Mission Youth Director and they sponsored 30 students and plan to sponsor more in this coming year. The Mission hopes to sponsor up to 1,000 youth and adults to attend this online training.
IAFCOE also started a new ministry called Simply Health as a way of reaching more people in the community. It provides vegan catering of salads, smoothies, and juices. They recently began accepting orders online. It’s a wonderful way to help support IAFCOE and to meet new people. By God’s grace, this new part of the work has grown tremendously and has given them a chance to share the health message. They now have 257 happy followers on Instagram. They also provide a limited number of free lunches to needy people in the community.
IAFCOE also started a small, organic farm next to our dorm. It supplies fruits and vegetables for salads and smoothies for the Simply Health ministry. It also supports local health workers in hospitals and clinics by providing gifts to COVID patients and people without money. So far they have given away 500 packages of food with Amazing Facts materials inside.
Translation of all the Amazing Facts sharing magazines is nearly complete and, praise the Lord, IAFCOE has been able to distribute around 11,000 books and magazines. We are so grateful for the supporters of our work in Indonesia that make this possible. This coming year, they plan to print even more magazines and also the Amazing Adventure children’s study guides.
Klub Kehat Indonesia (KSI) is a small medical clinic run by IAFCOE and it’s been busy as they’ve helped many people in the community improve their health and boost their immune systems in order to fight against the viruses.
IAFCOE also has plans this coming year to build our Bible school website in order to teach the Bible to more people. They are cooperating with Hope Channel Indonesia in gospel work and will be using IAFCOE materials from the website for people to take online Bible studies.
The needs in Indonesia are so great! We need so many more workers. Please pray that God will send them to help finish His work before He comes.
A Little Evangelist with A Big Vision
When the Amazing Facts Indonesia team held a Bible camp program for children called “The Final Generation,” one attendee was moved to become a light for Christ to her peers.
Leony was a grade 5 elementary school student with “extraordinary enthusiasm” to become God’s servant. Camp attendees were encouraged to see themselves as one of the last generations on earth before Christ returns and to share God’s truth with their friends.
Not long after the camp ended, Leony decided to ask her friends to an after-school study group to do their homework. Then, at the end of their school studies, she would invite the group to stay for a Bible study. Within a few days, she carried out her evangelism plan and soon she had eight classmates taking Bible studies from her.
Leony used Bible bookmarks that she received at the Bible camp—resources that you helped to create for Amazing Facts Indonesia. She taught her friends the basic truths of Scripture outlined on these easy-to-read cards.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic made it necessary for Leony’s group to stop meeting. However, this little evangelist kept thinking of new ways to share Christ with others. She decided to reach out to her grandfather with two Amazing Facts sharing magazines that you helped translate into her language—The Truth about The Sabbath and Hidden Truth.
Leony’s grandfather responded positively to her appeals and began to read the magazines. Sometimes the two of them would read together. For decades, other church leaders tried to reach this grandfather with Bible truth, but the old man was never interested in getting baptized. But after his own granddaughter reached out to him, he finally accepted the Sabbath message and was baptized.
Please pray for Leony’s care group to be able to start up again in the near future. Thank you for helping spiritually equip this young evangelist. May we all have the fervor for witnessing like this little girl.
Retrieved by God
One day, a 38-year-old homeless man from Solo in Central Java, Indonesia, was walking through a mall and peered into a trash bin. The attractive cover of a discarded magazine caught his eye. It was an Amazing Facts sharing magazine called The Afterlife Mystery. Gifts from people like you translated this resource into the Bahasa Indonesian language.
Though the magazine was quite worn and wet from garbage piled on it, he pulled it out of the bin. The subtitle, “Decoding Death, Hell, and Eternal Life,” intrigued him, so he took it to the place where he was temporarily staying, laid it out to dry, and taped together the torn pages.
Then he began to read the material. He was so fascinated by the content and convicted by the truths he discovered that he went back over the magazine at least 70 times. He eventually began sharing what he learned with other homeless people.
In the back of the magazine was an advertisement for other Amazing Facts resources, including a book called What the Bible Says About Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage. Though he had no money to purchase the book, he looked up the address for the Indonesia Amazing Facts office and showed up one day.
IAFCOE gave him the book on marriage and several other resources. He was very grateful and now gathers his homeless friends to teach them about the truths he is learning from these Amazing Facts materials that you help to provide. The office continues to stay in touch with him and supplies him with more resources that he shares with others.
Praise God that precious souls are being won over for Christ in Indonesia through Amazing Facts resources—sometimes from unwanted materials that are being spread like the leaves of autumn and sometimes retrieved from trash bins.