Fast forward 8 months and now I’m the Global Evangelism associate from the Union. The Division Coordinator, Pastor Doug Venn, skyped with me. I told Pastor Doug about this group and at that time they still seemed active. He told me that there was another group that was already doing ministry on a boat along the Kapaus River in Kalimantan (formerly Borneo) Indonesia. “Would I like to come and see their ministry?”
The First boat that sank because the quality was less than solid.
So on January 27 off I went with two Seminary Students to Pontianak, West Kalimantan to study their Boat Ministry. Lukas was 1 of the two students who went with me. Before he answered the call to study in our seminary he spent 7 years as a mechanic for a major shipping company in Indonesia. He grew up on the water. The other Seminary student is John who is a practical type who can build just about anything. He too grew up on the rivers and water of Papua. Neither of these two men (age 37 and 35 respectively) had never flown commercially before. They were so excited. They kept leaning over to get a better view through the small airplane windows. They had neither one been into Jakarta’s city center. John had never been west of Surabaya and Lukas had been only to the shipping docks of Jakarta.
We passed through the Jakarta Airport where I bought us a meal. Then flew onto the Pontianak airport. When we arrived I expected someone to pick us up but no one was there. No one even answered their phones – I was worried that we’d come all this way for nothing. Finally, I got one of the 8 other participants to pick up the phone and tell us where to go. But the phone quality was poor and I couldn’t tell where we were suppose to go. At last we found a taxi driver who made sense out of where we wanted to go. Off we went to the address he thought we should be at. Praise God it was the right place. The division put us up in a big hotel. That was the next first for my Seminary Students from Papua – neither had stayed in a hotel like we were in. For you American readers it was sort of like a Hampton Inn – “luxurious” with free WiFi and free breakfast.
That night we met at the local mission office in their chapel as each of us helped make a list of questions that we’d like to have answered over the next several days. Tuesday morning we stayed at the hotel and had various leaders of the Kalimantan Boat ministry team help us by answering what they could of our 27 questions.
Their boat ministry started as a dream to reach the people along this mighty 710 mile long Island river – Kapaus River. It’s the longest river on an Island in the world. It is approximately 1 KM wide or wider in many locations. There are huge barges and little native boats and trash and sewer all flowing toward the South China Sea to the west. 90% of the communities along this river are Muslims, followed by Buddism, and Hindu’s, and then Christians. By doing free charity clinics and health education they are hoping to lower prejudice so that the way can be opened in the future to improve the community and help foster peace.
Now enter an Australian group who heard of the dream and they donated a large amount of money to buy a good quality boat. Now enter some creative minds who decided that the “good quality” was to buy the cheapest boat they could buy that looked good. So when the wind blew and the River rose 20 feet one storm tossed night -- the boat sank. So they built boat number 2 of the same not so “good quality”. And when the next years annual flooding came the same problem happened. So the lessons learned : 1) spend more to get the good quality, 2) get insurance and use flotation devices. 3) do maintenance Fortunately only the boat was lost.
The other things we learned on our trip was that we will need to find ways to make the boat ministry pay for itself eventually. Some of our ideas were to be a shipping deliverer of supplies to store owners in far flung places, And help farmers get their goods to more marketable locations. We could take passengers on for a fee to some locations that ferry companies don’t go. That might help cover the cost of fuel and maintenance but what about staff and medical teams and ministry teams, insurance and more? We still need a team of business men who have experience in this type of business who can make this type of ministry work.
Next day they rented a boat for the day and witnessed first hand what they did along the river. Soon after we started down the river I could easily see the vast needs. We past hundreds of women washing clothes and taking baths behind the veil of their Sarongs in water where sewer, suds and animals all swam with children, dead cows and half submerged logs. No wonder sickness thrives along these rivers. But Indonesia is a Nation made of 17,000 plus islands so rivers are not the only avenue for boat ministries. In fact, most boats of any medium size and bigger are used both in the ocean and on the rivers.
We stopped at the first significant village 2 hours down river and discovered our late start meant many had already gone to the fields or were out fishing. Nevertheless, we had an enthusiastic group of 25-30 children who sang songs and learned about health. The Geriatric and the mothers stayed close by for our clinic – greatly reduced in cost if not free for most. I could see that the team had indeed begun to build a relationship with the people. Many of all faiths came for the prayer by our local pastor. I could also see that there is a need for student missionaries to come and live in villages like these to build relationships. We could use pastors to train members how to better reach the community here. Bottom line is until you stay to build relationships there is no way to expand the community of God significantly. Until you meet their needs in order to win their confidence, on a consistent, daily basis it does very little good.
The need is cheaper medical services but also health education and helping the villagers get better sanitation facilities. This is a huge entering tool. Many never finish school because of the huge needs that overwhelm the need for education. Also, lack of money and grades good enough to continue education often stop youth from continuing on. Again a Student missionary who could teach the youth basic study skills and challenged them to succeed and change the direction of their family tree could greatly help. Teaching marketable skills could help also. Livelihood seminars where you could teach people to use the land they have to feed the family could be greatly beneficial. We need to dream creatively how to enter communities like this in Papua too.
The following day we were able to drive to a different community that they are doing health education at. In this community the village leaders want us to come staff a clinic they have. They are willing to help they just need Indonesian nurses willing to come live there. The dominant religion in this community was Buddhism.
Thank you to the Southern Asia Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists whose leadership allowed Brothers Lukas, John and myself to come and learn from the success and failures of their boat ministry program.
Could it be that God could use a whole fleet of boats to reach both the rivers and the islands surrounding our big Island of New Guinea? Could the two Papuan provinces of Indonesia be significantly impacted by boats operating similarly to the way Adventist Aviation Indonesia operates? They basically pay for the ministry that they do by the charter flights they sell. Could it be possible for something like this to happen in the near future for water transportation in Papua? Or would is it still better to just higher others to do boat piloting when we want to do ministry? Is it cheaper to let boats be rented for times when we want to help others? We don’t know yet! That’s the kind of information that we’re still trying to calculate and put into a Ministry/Business plan.
If you have the ability to help us in making practical business/Ministry plans that may have initial donations but eventually are run self supporting I’d love to hear from you. We are Praying that if God is opening this door that it will be abundantly clear to all who are involved with making those decisions.
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