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Jakarta UBF held a Summer Bible Conference titled, “We Have Found the Messiah!” from Aug. 28th (Thursday) to Sept. 1st (Sunday). The venue was located by the beach that was about 60 miles away from Jakarta. We traveled on the car for 3 hours and traveled another 3 hours with a boat. There was a clean and comfortable nunnery by the beach. We thank God for preparing us such a large place.

We had 18 attendees, including 5 Bible students (Mario, Rila, Tomis, Imanuel, Yapser). The morning of the first day began with 5:30 a.m. meditation on Daily Bread by writing and praying. It was followed by high powered aerobics for the morning warm-up, and afterwards, we ate mouth-watering breakfast which was prepared. We could not help but notice and shake our heads in disbelief of how clean the food that was prepared by the nunnery was and how healthy it was. GBS was the next one in the schedule to prepare our chaotic heart to listen to Main Lecture 1.

The first message was delivered by Sh. Isabella, that had a title of “Won’t You Put Out Into the Deep and Let Down Your Nets?” from the passage of Luke 5:1-11. She poured out her heart to memorize the whole message, she delivered the message without any help of a script. The “deep” or the “deeper world” to this shepherdess was discovered by her as a Malaysian. She realized that God was calling her back to obey His words and to throw her fears away to go back to Malaysian souls for His work. The rest of us willingly denied each of our individual tough situations in life and made a decision throw our nets into the deeper world according to His words. After the message, we ate lunch and started to write testimonies, which was later followed by the free time. The free time consisted of games, which was prepared by the older shepherds and particularly excited the Bible students.

Then came dinner and ‘Special Program’ that shared all 5 wedding stories from 5 house churches, which was told by Sh. Shim, Eta, Sri, Sam, and Sh. Carolus. Comparing their lives between before and after their marriages, these shepherds deeply shared about and boasted in God’s grace. A deep confession came out of their lips, proclaiming that, instead of following God’s absolute and unchanging will, they realized that their single life chased after what their flesh desired and truly hoped that they may meet their significant other who looked ideal in worldly view. This confession continued with their proclamation of God’s limitless blessings upon their lives when they obeyed God’s will and built a house church by His will.  Through the Special Program, Bible students who were pilgrims of singleness resolved in their hearts to marry by faith and desired to receive the same blessings. Please pray that God may use these souls to raise 100 house churches!

The same morning routine took place in the next morning: Daily Bread, aerobics, breakfast, and GBS. We listened to the second main message, which had a titled of “Why was Jesus Crucified?” from Luke 23:26-59, delivered by Sh. Carolus. While he preached Jesus’ cross, Sh. Carolus also witnessed that he has received forgiveness from his past sins of homosexuality through the cross. We knew how much pain and toil God had to put to mold and raise this shepherd to finally become a messenger today. We pray that the life of this shepherd may be poured out for campus mission just as Jesus poured out His own flesh, blood, and even his life. We praise and thank God who willingly suffered, was flogged, and gave His life on the cross in order to change one person such as this shepherd. After the heart-touching message, we quickly ate lunch and went out to the beach. Not only did we swim, playing soccer became a fiery sport while some people simply enjoyed smelling the fresh breeze of the beach.

When we returned, we ate dinner and ready to listen to the evening message, titled, “The Story of a Samaritan Woman” from John 4:1-30 delivered by Sh. Sam. Just as Sh. Isabella did, Sh. Sam prepared this message with all her mind and poured her heart out to touch our hearts. This was a special message filled with personal life experience that depicted the hardship and toil she went through because she was drowned in the sea of the trend of the world and lustfulness. Through her true testimony and message, we all could confess that Jesus alone, being the eternal water, is the true and the only object of our worship. We also resolved to go to Him every day and worship Him in truth and spirit. The world is just like soda drinks that make us drink more and more. However, we are thankful that Jesus, being the eternal water, who came and conversed with us who are in thirst due to the drinks of the world.

Five Bible students shared Life Testimonies after the message. Sister Marito testified that she found joy in Jesus through studying the Bible. She confessed that she longed to enter the UBF community and that, just as we all did, she desired to live a life of a shepherd. May the Lord use this sister to eventually grow into the mother for ATMA JAYA campus. After the life testimonies, all 9 shepherds and shepherdesses sang a hymn, all 4 verses memorized, and touched our hearts. Thank God who gives them the praises of joy in their hearts every day and every moment.

We gathered together to view the sunrise the next morning and quickly left for the hot springs in the mountains. Watching steaming hot stream and waterfall crawling down from the top of the mountain was completely baffling. Right and left of our path toward the hot spring was covered with coffee trees, scenting their flowers, and with a forest of cacao trees. After taking a soothing bath in the hot springs, we ate breakfast, which somehow tasted more delicious than ever.

We moved on to hold a GBS, we took a “The Hill of the Cross” walk. Our conference venue had about a 50 acres space that was particularly made for a tour of “The road of Jesus’ cross.” There were 14 inspiring statues which depicted the scenes of Jesus’ journey of the cross: Jesus praying at Gethsemane, Jesus being sentenced to death by Pilate, Him being whipped and flogged, Him taking up the cross towards Golgotha, Him tumbling, Joseph of Arimathea taking up the cross for Jesus, Jesus meeting his mother Maria and other women of Jerusalem to tell them to stop crying, Him being laid on the cross to be nailed on his hands and feet, eventually Jesus being crucified along with robbers on both sides, soldiers piercing His sides after He gave up His life, Jesus being carefully taken down from the cross, and finally His body having been laid in the tomb.

The beautiful walk was followed by the third message was delivered by Sh. Eta with a title of “Did You Say You Love Me?” (John 21:1-19). Sh. Eta delivered deep burning love of Jesus through this message. Despite her mistakes and weakness shown through her sinfulness, she proclaimed, that Jesus still visited her and treated her as a friend. In addition, she testified how much Jesus had to serve her to make her the person today that has been changed. Glory to God and thank Him for helping us to live a faithful life of a shepherd, having our sins, mistakes, and weaknesses completely forgiven! After the message, we were so touched and thankful for God’s grace through the conference that we held a communion together. As we shared Jesus’ flesh and blood, we also had a good time by hugging each other. We thank God for permitting us to have such a priceless conference this year.

Prayer topics:

1. To grow and raise 1 Abraham and 1 Maria for each of the 7 campuses of UKRIDA, UNTAR, TRISAKTI, ATMA JAYA, ESA UNGGUL, IKJ, IPB
2. For Msn. Peter, Sh. Hengky, and Carolus’ messages of Sundays
3. For the families of Msn. Peter and 4 couple of house churches to co-work beautifully
4. For the pioneering of Sh. Isabella in East Malaysia
5. For the steady and continuous growth of our Bible students who attended the conference: Tomis, Marito, Rila, Imanuel, Yapser