Josh and Kerry Leise

My parents made it safely to Bali just before midnight last Wednesday. They have experienced very little jet lag and have been feeling great! We had an overnight flight from Bali to Papua, which was exhausting for all of us, as we arrived just in time for the Sunday morning church service! The people were delighted to meet my parents and Mom and Dad enjoyed the beautiful view from our church building.

Wius finally made it here to Papua on Friday, after a mix up in his airline ticket. He preached Sunday morning and did very well. We are so glad to have him here.

Tomorrow morning Josh and I should be flying to Bali, Indonesia* to meet my (Kerry’s) parents. My parents are leaving the USA on February 1st (stateside time). They will arrive on the 3rd at midnight in Bali where we will pick them up at the airport. We plan to spend some time in Bali for a little relaxation and recovery from jet-lag for my parents. On Sunday, February 7th, all four of us should arrive  in Papua just in time for the Sunday morning service at our church. We are so excited, I can hardly type!

Wius, a young man from Papua, has spent the last four years studying at a Bible college in Jakarta. He is now graduated and ready to return to Papua to serve the Lord. He and Saut are good friends and they are looking forward to serving the Lord together here in this church. We are looking forward to having another helper here!

*Since we’ll be in Bali for the next week, we might not be answering e-mails for a while.

Blessings in the Battle

God once again showed Himself mighty to this group of believers at the ends of the earth. An anonymous local donor gave about $10,000 for the new church building in which we are already meeting! That kind of money goes a very long way with the fairly inexpensive building materials here. Another man who attends our church talked to the head of the electric company, which resulted in the church getting electricity, which we thought  improbable! Needless to say, the young believers are very encouraged.

If you have been serving God for any length of time you are well aware of Satanic attacks. There have been threats concerning the land on which the building stands, which have not  amounted to too much at present. Also, I have been experiencing personal oppression for quite a while now. While God’s power is evident here, it is also obvious that Satan is doing everything he can to thwart God’s plan to save the Papuan people.

Kerry’s parents will be our very first guests to visit us here in Indonesia for a few weeks in February! They are excited to come and see the ministry here, and we are anticipating their arrival with much delight! Kerry’s dad will be preaching for some special services and I will be interpreting for him.

Thank you for your prayers regarding these recent battles and blessings!

View recent church building photos here!

“There are some things that can be learned by the head, but…Christ crucified can only be learned by the heart.“

–C.H. Spurgeon

The Leise Letter is sent to all of our praying friends, family, and supporting churches. It gives an overview of the past month or so. If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter send us an email. You may also choose to just read the text here. See the Newsletter category for more Leise Letters.

Yesterday, we met in our new building for the first Sunday! It isn’t finished completely yet, especially since we keep changing the plans as we get more unexpected funds. However, we had a service there and it was exciting! Now, I have a real living room in my house, which we are enjoying. I can sit and read my Bible and pray without little children peeking in the windows at me!

As it turns out, it looks like I gave the teenagers in our new club an elephant. It is possible to eat the elephant but they weren’t thinking of it just one bite at a time. I am learning better ways to put the notebook together with Scripture to learn, etc. Yesterday, we finally had a breakthrough! Several students jumped up and recited some Scriptures and one said all of the books of the Bible! Looks like they are finally cracking open that notebook at home. That is a big step for them. I have a feeling it will be contagious. Some of the teens who haven’t been so faithful were frantically looking through their notebooks as the others were quoting their Scriptures with zeal.

Another good note: Sunday School is back at our church! Fourteen children showed up in spite of the pouring rain on Sunday morning. They were delighted about the new building and enjoyed playing outside the church after Sunday School, when the rain slowed down. For now, I’m teaching but another guy is coming from Jakarta, so he might switch off with me some.

See the progress on the new church building here and 2010 photos here.

Wow! Someone (a native Papuan, most likely) just gave the church here over $10,000 for the new building!!! The church has not asked for a dime from anyone and neither have we, yet wood and at least $12,000 has been donated for the building. Also, another man in our church is paying for electricity to be put in! If you knew what building supplies cost over here you would be even more amazed. After all, we were planning to have a simple structure built for just a $1,000 and donated wood. Need I say again that God is doing amazing things for this little group of believers? May HIS name be glorified!

The Christmas service went okay this year. The word of God was pure and precious as always and the Sunday School children did very well on quoting their verses. The teens in the Pahlawan Kristus club sang the theme song and the theme Scripture while wearing their new t-shirts! Misunderstandings and some people refusing to do their part led to the food getting cooked late, but it was still ready in time for eating after the service. In fact, there was a lot left over because not as many people showed up for the service  as planned. Josh announced that we would all get together the next day and finish the food. Everyone agreed to come, so I reheated all the food and set everything up…but not a soul showed up to eat! Here are a few photos of the service.

Christmas day began fairly calm and quiet but ended with a terrible fight between an abusive husband and his wife, right in front of our house. Josh ran out the door and tried to get them calmed down but the man was still slightly drunk. We counseled with them for a while but only time will tell if any fruit will come of it. Please pray for Yanto and Nopita.

Here is a photo of the church building! We still plan to have our Christmas service in it on Wednesday. The alternative plan is to have a tent in our yard, which doesn’t make sense when we have a roof on the building now. We are still waiting on the wood for the half-walls. I’m sure I’ll have a ton of photos after Wednesday. This one was taken with my cell phone. Merry Christmas everyone!

Thankfully, we now have our visas and license renewed! Our flight is scheduled for Thursday night so we should arrive on Friday morning (in Papua). We also accomplished several other things, including having t-shirts made for the teen club! They are supposed to be ready by noon today.

By the way, we heard that the roof is on our new church building!! More info to come later.

We had a great time in Bali, and we are currently in Jakarta waiting on our paperwork. Although they told us to come on December 5th, it doesn’t seem to be ready so we might not be going back home to Papua this weekend as planned. We are staying with some gracious friends this week… and possibly next.

While we were in Bali Josh’s wallet was lost in the bottom of the ocean! Kerry got the flu on the same day but other than that it was a very relaxing stay!

So while we are waiting on visas some people are probably wading with our Visas in the ocean. Get the drift? I think I’ve had a little too much sun.

Meanwhile, back in Papua the men of our church are building the new building. We were hoping to be back in time to help so it would be finished by the 23rd.

2009 in Review

What a year! 2009 began with furlough in the States, mainly reporting to our supporters, which included a good rest and rejuvenation. We saw several people come to Christ while we were there also. The month of August brought us back to our field of service and we jumped right in with joy.

A season of illness tried to knock us down physically and spiritually, but the battle has been won. We experienced God’s grace as we trudged through dengue fever again, a severe case of pink eye, violent stomach issues from food poisoning, scabies, a tailbone injury, and a bad reaction to malaria medication which resulted in an almost useless week in bed. This is not to mention the almost ever-present spiritual oppression.

Yet in the midst of physical ailments God has been doing mighty things! The new teen club is booming with young teens interested in the word of God. The church we started nearly two and a half years ago is building their first church building! The land was given freely to use by a church member, while the wood and around $1000 were locally donated for the cause! We wanted God show Himself strong to supply their needs and He has. It should be finished by Christmas day!

Words of encouragement, special offerings, and care packages have been such a huge blessing to us over the past several months. Thank you, supporters and prayer partners for all you do. It makes a difference.

“He who seeks the Father more than anything He can give, is likely to have what he asks,

for he is not likely to ask amiss.“ –George MacDonald

The Leise Letter is sent to all of our praying friends, family, and supporting churches. It gives an overview of the past month or so. If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter send us an email. You may also choose to just read the text here. See the Newsletter category for more Leise Letters.