The following is a testimony told by a Pioneers missionary. Please pray for the unreached people of Bali - that more and more would come to know Jesus as Lord and that church planting movements would flourish!
"No. I am Balinese. I am a Hindu. But my allegiance is only to Jesus."
Recently we met a Balinese pastor who has a deep passion for reaching Bali with the Good News. The vision God gave him was to see local congregations established in the north, south, east, and west parts of the island. This is the story of the North.
As he prayed for Bali one day, he felt compelled to make a motorbike trip up to the north part of the island. As he drove, he prayed, not knowing where he was going or why. Then he heard a song that he recognized - a song about Jesus. He got off his motorbike and followed the sound until he came to a little house on the side of the road he had been traveling on. A Balinese man was sitting there on the porch singing "Hallelujah."
"Are you a Christian?" he asked the man.
"No. I am Balinese. I am a Hindu. But my allegiance is only to Jesus."
The pastor was baffled by this seeming contradiction, so he asked the man what he meant by that. The man told him this story:
"Several years ago I was very ill. I couldn't walk without help, I couldn't breathe well. I was dying. My family sent me all over Indonesia and Singapore trying to find out why I was sick and what I could do to get better. No one had any answers. All of the tests came back normal, even though it was clear that I was sick. Finally, I went to the local Hindu witch-doctor who explained that I had come under a curse because my relative had killed a bird that was possessed by an evil spirit. The evil spirit was taking revenge on my family and required the death of seven men. Indeed, the relative who had killed the bird was dead, so was my father and my uncle. The witch doctor told me that I was the next to die.
"I asked him what I needed to do to lift this curse from me and my family, but he said that there was nothing to do. We must die because of the strength of this evil spirit who wanted revenge. I went home sad and scared. As I thought about my death, I remembered that years ago when I had visited another Indonesian island, I went to a church out of curiosity. I did not understand anything they were talking about, but I remembered that someone said, 'Jesus is the healer.' So I prayed, 'Jesus if you are really the healer, then you can heal me and release my family from this curse.'
"Immediately I was healed. That was the last day that I ever participated in rituals to honor the other gods. For my entire life, I gave offerings three times every day to please the gods. But the one time I asked for anything in return, they could not help me. Yet I never gave Jesus a thing, but when I needed him, he healed me without requiring any payment. I have never served anyone but Jesus since that day."
Within a short period of time, a small congregation began in this village led by the Balinese man who followed Jesus with no theological understanding other than "Jesus requires nothing from me, but he answers me when I call to him."
Comments