Visit to Aceh!
I want to tell you about our last trip to Aceh!! As expected, it was a real adventure!
The last time I went to this area, about a year ago, we traveled to places no white man had gone before.. no wonder why! It included some pretty crazy traveling.. this time we visited all different villages.. but we experienced the same kind of adventures that have kept all other white people away! Haha.Â
Because words can’t explain this trip well enough I’ve decided I’ll mostly use pictures.. to hopefully give you a better idea of what it was like!
Our schedule in Aceh was for 5 days. The first day, Sunday, we would preach in a local little church. Then from Monday till Thursday we would go out to a different village each night to preach the gospel!Â
We were so blessed to stay in a modern home (according to Aceh standards). Which means they actually had a bathroom and it actually had walls! This is a picture of me in that bathroom doing up the dishes.. which is how we do them in the villages. I am actually pretty impressed how Indonesian I look in this picture! That’s some pretty good squatting! It’s taken me 4 years to be able to do that! hahaha
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The best part about the trip was some of the beautiful people we met! In the 2nd village we did, Bengkel. There was this super sweet grandma! And what was even more amazing was even though she had owned almost nothing she was willing to sacrifice so much for the gospel to be preached in her village! She really touched my heart. This is a picture of her and I after the service there that night.
Our third night we headed out to an island off the coast. This involved getting unto a very small boat and heading through weird water ways to get there. What was soooo funny was that once we took off from the dock our boat died. Since we couldn’t steer we couldn’t stop ourselves from crashing into a tree sticking out of the water.. even though it was the only tree around! Hahaha.. there was a big group of people standing on the dock waving goodbye to the white girls (us) and they started laughing so hard I thought they were going to fall in the water! Haha.. This is what the boats look like:
When we got there it was already starting to get dark.. so we started the hike through the jungle to get to the village. We had a great evening there. The people were soooooo happy that we came! I don’t think I’ll ever forget the head of the village there standing up after the service and thanking us for coming. His face was just beaming.. and he just kept on saying ‘thank you’ over and over again. They had never imagined that white people would ever come to their village to tell them about Jesus! I was so glad that we made the trip out there to see them! This is Melody and I praying for one of the many sick people there:
It was a great night there.. but when it was time to go home we found out we couldn’t! The tide had gone out so we needed to wait till about 4am when it came back in. So about 20 of us laid down on the living floor and tried to sleep.. this was not an easy task! Haha.. Then before the sun came up we were on our way hiking to the boat:
The adventure did not stop there! Half way through our boat trip we hit a piece of wood and broke the boat.. Praise the lord just after we prayed we could hear another boat coming around the corner!! But when we saw it we were disappointed.. it was already so full! But the people were so nice they invited us to join them.. so we climbed up on the packed boat. I sat on bags of rice in between stacks of palm seed. We putt putt putted away. The boat barely out of the water at all! It was like something you’d see on TV. And think, ‘I’ll probably never experience anything like that’! It was pretty crazy.. but I enjoyed every moment of it!
The last night we were disappointed because we had to move into the church instead of preaching out in the field but I was soon amazed at how many people came! They filled the pews, the mats on the floor, and were all standing outside the door! This is me, just preaching a simple message of Jesus. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever!! The people were just staring at me in awe. While I was preaching I wondered if they had ever heard a message like that before!Â
Thank you for your prayers and support. We had such a beautiful time sharing Jesus with the people in the villages of Aceh.
(I would have liked to include more pictures.. but didn’t want to make this file too big)
I hope you enjoyed the little I just shared.. I know we enjoyed experiencing it!!
I also want to remind you that it’s not just the people in the far out islands and jungles that need Jesus.. it’s every one you pass by in your day! It’s every face that you see!Everyone needs Jesus! So let’s not wait for our own jungle adventure.. but let’s share Jesus with everyone we meet!!
Susan Joy
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