Few signs point the way to the village where Carter Bissey is heading. Well into the three-hour drive across the Indonesian island, somewhere along a paved road that crumbled into a teeth-jarring pitted track, he pulls over and cranks down his window to ask a stranger for directions.
Cashew and banana trees, coconut palms and some rice fields line the way. Bissey navigates off of the understanding of the island’s geography that he’s gained in seven years of living here, directions he gleans from passersby and a heap of grace.
Finally driving into a loose collection of houses that make up the village he’s been seeking, a cluster of parked motorbikes down a side road signals the end of the search and the beginning of the celebration.
Bissey, his wife and their three children are attending a wedding. They left their house early Sunday morning to make their way to the village where a friend will be wed in an all-day event. The Bisseys smile, talk, eat, greet, pose for pictures and smile some more — all day long. Then they say their goodbyes, load the children in the car and start the three-hour drive back across the island.
Thousands of villages
This is one of the challenges of trying to bring the gospel to one of the more remote Indonesian islands. It takes ample time and energy to simply get to places and participate in events that are important to those with whom the Bisseys have built relationships. And the Bisseys also are concerned with the people on the surrounding islands that are boat rides away. With 6,000 to 7,000 inhabited islands in Indonesia, there are tens of thousands of small villages that could slip under the radar.
In spite of the difficulties, the Bisseys are spurring efforts to bring the gospel to multiple people groups on scattered islands in their part of the world. They work with Indonesian partners as well as intrepid American church partners who make the very long trip there to live rough for weeks at a time, just for a chance to hike into villages and share the gospel where it’s never been spoken.
It’s difficult, though, to share the gospel or nurture new believers in the islands.
Wide variety
“Transportation is a big barrier,” Bissey explained. “You go out on an island, plant a seed and then you can’t get back there for months.” Additionally, it is challenging to relate to so many groups from sea gypsies who live in stilted houses over water to inland villagers who grow rice to coastal farmers who raise oysters for pearls and farm seaweed.
The majority of the islanders the Bisseys work with are Muslim. “We were talking to some guys here and asked if they were interested in hearing about other religions. ‘Not really,’ they said. ‘There’s really no other choice for us. Our ancestors were Muslims. The mosque is here. There are no other places to worship here.’”
American partners often join the Bisseys in journeying to even more remote islands beyond where the Bisseys live to share the gospel. They hike deep into the jungle to villages where there are no hotels and certainly no resorts.
Billy Donaldson, a volunteer from a Baptist church in Tennessee, said, “We would just walk in the villages and pray that someone would open their home to us but also their heart to God’s Word, and we would stay in people’s houses. … We’d help prepare meals when they’d let us. We’d wash dishes. We would carry water to and from the well … anything that we could do to build a relationship.”
In about four weeks of hiking to roughly 80 villages, Donaldson said, “Nobody had [ever] heard the good news. Nobody had heard that Jesus can change their lives.” (BP)
EDITOR’S NOTE — Names have been changed for security reasons.
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