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Jakarta UBF held an Easter conference April 18-20.The title of the conference was “Do you know the gospel of Christ?” The venue was a villa in a cool area in the mountains. All of the men slept in a tent with a mat as their bed. It was exciting to have fellowship in a tent in the middle of beautiful nature. We were also joined by eight brothers and sisters from Malaysia UBF which gave us a lot of strength and joy. These brothers and sisters arrived at Jakarta airport one day before the conference and joined us right away to have fellowship before the conference. Shepherdess Shim and Msn. Rebekah served many delicious meals with all of their hearts for the conference. All of the attendees could enjoy coconut rice, kimbap, kimchi, beef barbeque, dimsum, seafood, dumplings, fried fish, stir-fried vegetables, black bean noodles. The total number of attendees was 34 including five new students.

That night we had an opening service together. The messenger for the opening service was Sh. Eta. She demonstrated the empty tomb of Jesus and connected the big rock to our stumbling block in life. The next day at 6am we started the day together with morning aerobics. This was our morning routine for the conference. It was a time of dancing to the music and of laughter that started the day. Sh. Hengky and Sh. Carolus led the aerobics with enthusiasm and excitement. Then everyone took a shower, ate breakfast, and we divided into four groups to study 1st Corinthians 15.

The first main message was delivered by Sh. Carolus which was titled “Do you know the gospel of Christ?” After the message, we all went to Indonesian traditional mini park for a picnic. We saw that the Malaysian brothers and sisters were having such a wonderful time. We returned in the evening and shared life testimonies. All six life testimonies were grace-filled for us. Through this sharing time we could see how God was trying to help the Malaysian shepherds to be firm. After the sharing time we took our time to write our own testimonies and there were even people who wrote theirs until 2am.

On the second day Sh. VL delivered the second main message from the passage 1 Corinthians 15: 19-34. It was entitled, “The resurrection power of Christ”, and it helped us to remember the everlasting heavenly hope that Christ gives us. After message we held a baptism for Sister Tan Lee Hung, a Bible student from Malaysia. After lunch we again went to an area in the mountain to hike and came back in the evening for dinner.

After we ate dinner, we then had a special lecture about Indonesia from the viewpoint of a Korean entrepreneur. Following the lecture we had a special program that consisted of Papua dance and boxing dance which was then followed by a duet. Through this program we saw a brother who was shy opening his heart. A brother who couldn’t leave his homosexuality became more masculine through this dance. On the last day Sh Hengky delivered a message on 1 Corinthians 15: 35-38 which was titled “Resurrection and glory of a Christian.” We then had a closing message and communion service. And through this we could break bread together and think about Jesus’ cross and loving one another.

Through this Easter conference we had the opportunity to listen to the message of Jesus’ resurrection and have fellowship with each other. We were especially truly joyful due to the fellowship we had with the Malaysian UBF who came from far away. We will follow Jesus’ command and tell about the gospel all over the world. We pray that Jesus may be with us as he promised and show us the miracle that he promised to believers. We thank God for the grace filled message and joyful fellowship time that he gave us through this conference.

Prayer Topics:

• That we may stand firm on the gospel of resurrection.
• The ministry of Romans study.
• Malaysia campus evangelism.
• Discipleship for freshman.

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