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"He replied, ‘This kind can come out only by prayer.’" (Mark 9:29)

1.  The preparation of the conference concentrated on prayer and the word

Salemba UBF had their second independent SBC on Aug15-17, the first having been three years ago without help from Depok UBF. We thank God for blessing our SBC full of grace and for raising five messengers and four life testimonies and seven reflection speakers through the conference.

The lectures and messengers were as follows: Opening message -Mark 7:31-37 (Sh. Retry), Main Lecture1- Mark2:13-17 (Sh Rully), Morning devotion -Mark2:1-12 (M. Joanna)- Reflection( Ditta), Main Lecture2 -John19:1-42( Sh. Sudarman)- Life testimony (Prizon), (Chris), (Widi), Reflctions (Ari), (Davit),

Main lecture3- John21:1-15 (M. Jacob) and Reflections ( Rein Hard)(Asima).

During the preparation we could not have prayer meetings for the conference at our center building because of our members’ busy work schedules. Instead, we had 5 am early morning prayer meetings divided in two groups, (brothers’ and sisters’ groups) Monday through Friday, encouraging each other through SNS so that we would experience the mighty work of the Holy Spirit through the conference.

M. Jacob had to prepare his own message and help brothers’ reflections and life testimonies, while taking an exam just the day before the conference. Sh. Lina, who was 9 months pregnant  at the time and who had been taking care of her mother- in- law who has dementia, initiated the early morning prayer meetings building up other coworkers to come near to God. Sh. Retry prepared opening message, amid writing her graduation thesis and helping her sheep's reflection as well. Sh. Rully who has great compassion on sheep brought brother Ripendy to the conference and prepared his graceful message that moved all the hearts of the attendees. All our coworkers humbly served the Lord with all their hearts through the conference.

2. God has done the work through the Holy Spirit

When we arrived at the conference place, all our hearts sank because we saw the lecture hall was too ugly and seemed to be a spooky old house. It was located at the foot of a mountain and there was no water for bathing. Even worse yet, the electricity was limited rendering our electric guitar useless. In that situation M. Jacob called an emergency meeting with shepherds and suggested that we earnestly cry out to God with one heart together. We all knelt down crying out to God with tears believing that God would do something great and unsearchable among us. We also earnestly prayed for one brother to be saved, who dramatically attended the conference after hiding himself somewhere else during the week before the conference. We also earnestly prayed for sister Widy who had been suffering from abuse by her relatives.  In answer to our prayer, from the following day, the atmosphere of the conference was tremendously turned around. We could borrow a micro power generator for the electric guitar, which made a spiritual atmosphere. As a result, all our praise became powerful with conviction. During the message most of the attendees repeated saying with one voice, "Amen" like a chorus. In the evening, our shepherds helped new sheep one by one with their reflections, forgetting their dinner time as well. Then the second day evening program finished at 11pm with brother Ripendy's graceful testimony. 

On the third day, Shs. Reinhard shared her sincere and graceful testimony confessing her greed for material things that challenged other coworkers to repent their problems too. May God cleanse our brothers and sisters in the word and bless them to live as holy disciples of Jesus in this materialistic and lustful generation.

3. Prayer topics

(1) To make our shepherds as capable one to one Bible teachers (They do have compassion for God’s flock)

(2). To establish a house church between Rully and Retry within November of 2015

(3). To allow us to get a new center building (The current building is too narrow for our ministry – we need a building space for 100 people)