GIVING HOPE TO THE LOCAL CHURCH IN INDONESIA

WINTER 2021 UPDATE | COVID-19 and Compassion Indonesia

This year, the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the globe threatened to derail the launch of 284 new child development centers. This would have left impoverished children and families unsupported during an unprecedented health and economic crisis. But generous donors like you stepped up to ensure many of the centers were empowered to provide life-changing holistic care for these beneficiaries, even though they hadn’t completed the child registration process.

Thanks to your support, the partner churches are engaging with the most vulnerable children and families in their communities. They are distributing food baskets and hygiene kits, providing access to health care, and even visiting homes to provide emotional and spiritual support, where it is permitted and safe to do so. They are also providing educational support through online or WhatsApp lessons or by delivering educational materials to children. Although most of the children are not yet formally registered, they are very much a part of the Compassion family, and they are already learning that they are known, loved and protected.

 

 

Aventura Equips Churches to Respond in Indonesia

Church: Gereja Toraja Jemaat Talitakum Sukaharapan Kambara
Location: Luwu, Sulawesi Selatan
Projected Registered Children: This center projects registering 110 children, 3-8 years old, when it is permitted to restart operations

COMMUNITY PROFILE

• The church is located in a village that is home to approximately 9,600 people.
• The primary language is Indonesian.
• Typical houses are constructed with cement floors, wood walls and tin roofs.
• The primary regional diet consists of rice and sago (a common local starch).
• Employment opportunities are animal herding, day labor and subsistence farming.

Because of your gift, Gereja Toraja Jemaat Talitakum Sukaharapan Kambara has been able to start administrative activities while awaiting the opportunity to fully register children and implement holistic child development activities. Staff from the church have begun to set up the children’s ministry office, conduct health and hygiene checks, provide important health information, and meet with families at home to pray with them.

A Message From the Pastor of Gereja Toraja Jemaat Talitakum Sukaharapan Kambara

Greetings of love in the name of Jesus Christ,

I am Pastor Maritje serving in the Toraja Church. I am the person in charge.

We are located in North Luwu, South Sulawesi province in Indonesia. The people in our area are generally peasants. Their income is uncertain every day. Sometimes there is income and sometimes not, so they cannot meet their basic daily needs. They cannot pay for their children’s education. They need capital to help increase resources, especially helping their children’s education.

The presence of the child development center here is very helpful, especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Funding assistance is very helpful in the program and even has an impact on the management and staff, especially for potential beneficiaries and their families that they really feel. Through the assistance that you have provided, around 100 prospective children and their families in the past 3 months (August, September, October 2020) have received assistance.

During this pandemic, staff members are still enthusiastic about serving. They visit the homes of potential beneficiaries / children while still observing health protocols. They provide basic necessities, medical equipment and child protection materials for parents. We are committed to being able to serve children in the community so that when they grow up, they can be loyal, fear God, independent and responsible. The same hope is to change the community, so that a generation with Christian character will emerge and can also be the successor of the church.

We carry the hope and prayer that in the future the official registration process for children can be carried out well. We also pray for you who with sincerity have helped us. May God’s love and blessings accompany you. May God in Jesus Christ give you blessings through work, health and family and whatever you are missing, in prayer may it be answered.

I want to thank you for all the help that has been given. I pray you receive God’s love that continues to bless and accompany you every step of the way, family and work. God bless.

Letter edited for clarity.