Journal - August 31, 2008

Aug 31 - 8:39 PM - Day began at 7:00 AM with morning worship in Salatiga. Pastor preached on the truth that God knows everything (Psalm 139). After lunch we attended the most extravagent wedding reception I have ever seen! then in the afternoon, I led a worship teaching time for about 30 people.
As soon as we said, "Amen" the power went out at the church (all over town really). It's been spotty ever since.
Had roast beef and potatoes for supper (by candlelight and battery powered lights)
Quote of the day . . . Annual theme for church in Salatiga:
Rumahku akan disebut
rumahdoa bagi segala bangsa
My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
Oh, that all churches would make this their theme!
Ramadan begins tomorrow . . .

Journal - August 30, 2008

Aug 30 - 9:30 pm - Getting ready for bed. Had a waffle for breakfast. Drove part way up the mountain to Ketep Pass to look at the volcanoes - Merabi & Merbabu. Too many clouds to see the summits. Visited Salab Putih (white cross) retreat center where I will be ministering next week. Had a picnic on the mountain on ground that had been terraced for farming. Toured the school grounds. Ate at a restaurant overlooking a rice patty. Had fried chicken & rice. Saw some beautiful flowers today.

Journal - August 29, 2008

Aug 29 - 10:27 am Tiawan - Flying over Manila. Flight attendant says to turn off Palm Centro.
11:53 am Taiwan - Close to crossing equator.

(Too busy to journal. we landed in Jakarta, went through customs, boarded a domestic flight to Semarang, got in the car and drove to Salatiga!)

8:55 pm WIB - Finally horozontal! My room is small with two twin beds, tall ceilings & a connected bathroom. Can't get internet service in room. Will try at breakfast in the morning. Took a shower and brushed my teeth. Feel much better now! Open windows and ceiling fan should keep me cool tonight. There is a rotweiler at the gate to the dorm, who looks scary but is really lazy and has arthritis (which came first, the chicken or the egg?). The locals are afraid of him so I guess he accomplishes his purpose. Going to sleep now.

Journal - August 28, 2008

Aug 28 - 1:23 am PDT - China Air is under staffed and disorganized. Had to pay extra $32 for carry on.
9:14 am PDT - First meal was GREAT. Roast beef & mashed potatoes. Got up to stretch. Feels like my muscles want to cramp. Seats are small. Almost 6 hours still to Taipei. Plane has front view & bottom view cameras. At night, over ocean you don't see much. Flying at 35000 feet. Temp outside is -48 C. 525 miles per hour.
11:47 am PDT - I can see the glow of the sun starting to rise behind us. The left wing of the 747 is siloetted ed against the faint blue/orange.
12:53 pm PDT - Talk to my girls via satellite phone a few minutes ago. Expensive but worth it!

Journal - August 27, 2008

Aug 27 - 6:25 pm EDT - 20000 feet in the air on the way to St. Louis. Sky is hazy and we're chasing the sun.
7:21 pm CDT - In the air again. I can still see the sun. We're inbetween the clouds above & the haze below.
7:36 pm CDT - 38000 feet. Flight path over Pueblo, CO then Phoenix, AZ.
8:41 pm CDT - The sun is beginning to slip below the outline of the Rocky Mountains.
10:08 pm CDT - 110 miles from LA. Still a ribbon of orange on the horizon.

Sunday Morning In Salatiga

6:38 am - Getting ready to go to church. Then this afternoon we will go to a wedding reception. At 2:00 pm I will be teaching my first worship class at the local church. Here's a few pix. You can find the rest at my facebook site (see previous post for address) or my Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/curtisferrell/.

I'll post more text later. Internet is sometimes slow here.

On The Ground In Indonesia

Jsut finished waffles and will be going up the mountain this morning. Today is a day of relaxation and exploring. I'll post some thoughts about my flight a little later. Thanks for praying!

More Trip Details

Here’s some more details about my trip to Indonesia:

On Sundays, August 31st and September 7th, I will be leading a worship leader’s training session in the local churches [3 am ~ 6 am Eastern Daylight Time].

I will be teaching in a Worship Class at Mountainview International Christian School (www.mountainviewics.org) on Tuesday, September 2nd [11:30 pm 9/1 ~ 1 am 9/2 EDT].

On Wednesday, September 3rd I will be teaching in a 9th grade Bible Class [11:30 pm 9/2 ~ 1 am 9/3 EDT].

Thursday, September 4th will begin with a teaching time in the 11th & 12th grade Leadership Class [11:30 pm 9/3 ~ 1 am 9/4 EDT]. Then from Thursday afternoon through Saturday morning, September 6th I will be leading worship at a youth retreat. The speaker will be using 2nd Timothy as the text for the retreat.

I would appreciate your prayers before, during, and after my trip. Pray for the students in Indonesia. Pray and care for my family here in New Castle. Pray for my health (rebuke kidney stones!). Pray that passage through Customs will go smoothly. Thank God that He provided the resources that I needed to make the trip. Pray that God will enable me to learn the Indonesian language. Pray that God would be glorified, and the Kingdom of God would be advanced, as a result of the trip.

God Is Good . .

God Is Good . . . Indonesia Update
As of Sunday morning, I have received funding to cover all my expenses.

Less Than Three Weeks Till The Trip!

One month from today I will be returning from Indonesia. Some of the plans have changed so I’ll give you an update.

As we were preparing to purchase tickets, the purchase price jumped over $900 for each person! Cheryl got on the internet and found some flights considerably cheaper. After forwarding this information to the travel agent, we were able to get tickets at about the price we had estimated. God is good . . . all the time!

Keith Stork, who recruited me for the trip is not going to Indonesia now. He is completing a sabbatical and is unable to go. That leaves me, Ron Baker (mission worker/electrician from Newton Falls, Ohio), and Tory Buchan (Martial Arts Expert from Anderson, Indiana). We will be leaving Wednesday, August 27th and returning September 11th, 2008. Church of God missionaries, Casey and Sharon Bernhardt, will be our contacts “in country” and are making final preparations for us now.

Our focus will still be the Mountain View International Christian School where the Bernhardts act as missionaries and where Madison Park’s youth pastor Joe Webb’s brother serves. Mountain View International Christian School is located on the central Indonesian island of Java just south of the equator (1200 miles south of Vietnam, 1000 miles north of Western Australia, and nearly 10,000 miles from Indianapolis). In September they will be 11 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Savings Time. (Noon in INDY = 11:00 PM on Java)

We will be flying from INDY (IND), to St.Louis (STL), to LA (LAX), to Taipei-Taiwan (TPE), to Jakarta-Indonesia (CGK), to Semarang-Indonesia (SRG), followed by a car trip to Salatiga which will be our base city. We will leave INDY at 5:55 PM on Wednesday, August 27 and arrive in Jakarta at 2:00 AM, Friday, August 29th (all Eastern Daylight Savings Time) with a total in-air-flight time of over 24 hours plus layover hours. (I don’t have the Jakarta ~ Semarang ~ Salatiga details yet)

On the way back we will leave Jakarta-Indonesia (CGK) at 3:00 AM on Wednesday, September 10, travel to Taipei-Taiwan (TPE), to LA (LAX), to Dallas-Ft.Worth (DFW), and arrive at INDY (IND) at 10:40 AM on Thursday, September 11. This is a total in-air-flight time of over 23 hours plus layover hours, plus travel time from Salatiga, to Semarang, to Jakarta.

I will be leading worship for a youth retreat for all of the students at the school (high-school), I will be sharing and teaching in a worship class at the school, and I will be sharing and teaching worship leaders in the local churches. Ron will be working on electrical repairs and installations. Tory will be training the security detail at the school.

Indonesia is primarily a Muslim nation and there is growing hostility between radical Muslims and others (moderate Muslims, Muslim sects, and non-Muslims). There is also a growing use of property laws to take property owned by churches and missionaries (think “imminent domain” on a local or neighborhood scale). Central Java is still very safe. Ramadan (Muslim holy month of fasting) begins on September 1st and the country is also gearing up for major elections in 2009.

As of this writing, I have funded all but $250 of the trip. I’m sure God will provide the rest! I’m looking forward to you holding me up in prayer. Pray that lives will be changed, that the kingdom of God will advance, and that I will be an effective tool in the hand of God. I’m also sure that you will encourage and support Cheryl and the girls while I am gone in whatever way you can.

Also, I will try to update my blog (http://clfnotes.blogspot.com/) and my facebook site (http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=504321719) while I am in Indonesia. If you have an e-mail address, make sure that you send that to me so that I can update you directly.

Thanks again for your support, more news soon . . .

Quorum Sensing, Bioluminescence, and Community

Courier-Times Christian Perspectives for Saturday, August 9, 2008

Quorum sensing, bioluminescence, virulence, autoinducers, and community; big words for a simple mind like mine, but I learned about all of them while watching NOVA on PBS.

It seems that Princeton University’s Bonnie Bassler has pioneered some remarkable science that may one day yield new ways to combat bacterial infections. Along the way, Bonnie and her research team have uncovered another example of how God has designed all of creation to live, work, and play in community.

While studying a harmless bacterium called Vibrio harveyi, Bassler discovered that there was something these little bacterial cells could do when they all worked together, that they could not accomplish while working alone. They could glow!

Individually, their little light would not make any impact at all, but collectively they could create a wonderful blue light. The exciting part is that they don’t try to generate light at all until they sense that there are enough individuals gathered to make their “lighting party” effective. They sense when they have a quorum large enough to effectively shine.

Now, no one believes that Vibrio harveyi held a convention or a business meeting, did research on candlepower and luminescence, and determined exactly how many individual bacteria are needed to efficiently “turn on” the glow switch. Scientists believe these little cells “communicate” using special molecules they produce and send to each other – like instant messages. People of faith see the hand of a creative God at work in establishing community at a grass-roots level.

The same quorum sensing and cooperative group activity happens in other bacteria that actually cause disease. The belief among the scientific community is that if they can disrupt this “grass-roots” communication they can prevent bacterial diseases in humans.

By now you are asking, “What does that have to do with the church?” I’m glad you asked. It confirms that at a very basic level, God designed the universe to work cooperatively in community. God, as revealed in the trinity, (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is community; and His creation reflects that essence of who He is.

It also confirms that there are some things that the church can only do effectively if and when it works together in community. What could the church in Henry County do, and only do, when it worked with the rest of the church? How can we let our “light shine” together? How is the enemy of the church effectively blocking communication, preventing us from “turning on the light”?

There’s a lot we can learn from our little friend, Vibrio harveyi. Imagine all that God could do if the church worked together.

One opportunity the church has to come together in worship will be Sunday evening, August 31st, 2008 at the First Baptist Church on South Memorial Drive. I encourage you to show up and do some quorum sensing of your own. Maybe there will even be an after-glow :-)