Blessing and Challenge

…We went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. – Psalm 66:12

While God was blessing HeartCraft, He was also adding to our Pioneers team and ministry. We had about 45 international teammates and dozens of exciting programs underway. We all worked together on aspects of a strategy called Lampstand, masterminded by Roger and Jan Casey and their Indonesian co-workers. The name Lampstand is based on Matthew chapter five, in which the Lord instructs His followers not to hide their faith, but to lift the truth high for all to see. We wanted millions of Kantoli who had never met a Christian, much less heard a clear explanation of the gospel, to know that God spoke their language.

Islam, unlike Christianity, is a political system and an entire way of life. It does not tolerate an individual stepping out and embracing a different path. For many Muslims, embracing a different faith is considered the worst possible sin—punishable by death. New Christians sometimes feared for their very lives. Muslim husbands often beat their wives and daughters into submission, and many men who identified themselves with Jesus lost their jobs, were disowned by their families or were thrown out of their communities.

Life-threatening persecution against new believers was sadly a fact of life for Indonesian Christians. Persecution came in waves and varied in intensity from place to place. In the late 1980s, young men were being openly recruited in the streets of the capital city to attack Christians in the eastern islands.

One of the goals of Lampstand was to give new Kantoli believers, who were considered outcasts from their own families and communities, a sense of belonging. A multifaceted strategy, Lampstand involved the development of Kantoli Christian expressions including language, music, drama, art, media, community development and theological training. Our Lampstand team partnered with as many as 30 Indonesian church denominations that wanted to see churches started among the 35 million Kantoli people.

It was quickly evident to us that the strategy was effective. The number of Christ-followers began to multiply rapidly, compared to the very slow growth of prior years. It was a special joy for Steve and me to see how individuals who God brought to the team each made a unique and powerful contribution. Some got involved in media, others in training church planters and still others contributed agricultural, business, educational or health-related skills.

HeartCraft was part of the community development and business aspect of the Lampstand strategy. It wasn’t the way I ever expected to participate in church planting, but it provided jobs for persecuted Christians and opportunities to visit unreached villages. It was a great fit for me, much to my surprise. Our ultimate goal was to see churches reproduce and multiply among Kantoli Muslims. We were motivated by an awareness that God cares for the whole person, not only the soul. Jesus healed the lame, the blind and the sick. He fed the hungry. He also cared about the simple things in life—like paying taxes and providing quality wine at a wedding. He met people just where they were, but He never left them the same.

It was clear to Steve that my primary goal with HeartCraft should be to replace myself. I was busy being a mother of three little girls and was very involved in our international team. The days were full. In truth, we still needed more than one capable leader for HeartCraft, which by now had become a formalized Indonesian non-profit organization complete with a board of directors. Much of our marketing took place in the capital city, a three-hour drive from where we lived. Dewi and I often traveled there to attend the American Women’s Association fairs as well as bazaars held by the Australian, Kiwi (New Zealand) and Korean expatriate communities. We needed someone who spoke English and could take orders and communicate with customers.

Steve began a careful search for an Indonesian marketing director for HeartCraft. We wanted someone who would honor Dewi and work well with her, but who could take HeartCraft to a level that Dewi couldn’t with her limited education. And that’s when we found Lia. Lia was a university graduate and the daughter of an Indonesian pastor. When she was a girl, her family lived in Australia for six years. She learned English while she was a child, and as a result she was fluent.

Lia came to us when we were at a serious point of need. She was a growing and devoted Christian who had a passion for people. Not only did she speak flawless English, but she was also well-organized. She wanted to use her marketing skills and was delighted to join a non-profit business environment.

Lia made an amazing addition to the team in her new role as marketing director. She didn’t let things fall through the cracks. She was great in sales, too. By then we had opened up a small shop on a busy Denalia road. We got some foot traffic there, and it helped put us on the map as a real business. Lia helped with the expansion, offering good suggestions, and she developed the marketing strategy that allowed us to keep growing.

During this time of rapid growth we also interviewed Hasan, an English speaker who grew up playing with American children near the U.S. oil camps on a nearby island. He was able to complete a few years of university but had to leave school due to a lack of finances. Like Lia, he wanted to be involved in ministry and business. We needed someone who would plan the production line and be a liaison between the village groups and the main production center. Hasan seemed like a perfect fit. We hired him, and Dewi and I began training him to help with production.

Training programs were one of the ways we expanded quickly. We poured ourselves into a few workers, and then they carried the skills back to the villages. The training programs were very hard work, but we realized that they were well worth the effort. Our Pioneers teammates recruited Kantoli evangelists and church planters to join the HeartCraft programs. They were young men and women who were passionate about reaching the lost in village areas, but also needed income-generating skills. If believers could provide jobs to the communities they served, their message would be much more readily received. The young evangelists and church planters knew how important it was to be a blessing in a tangible way.

The number of staff grew even more, and we soon had nearly 200 people fully employed with HeartCraft, either in Denalia or the villages. It was fun to see Christians mingling with Muslim quilters. The variety of conversations was something I had never heard before in Denalia. There was a noticeable sense of God’s presence among these quilters who had never been exposed to the lives of true believers.

The evangelists used their new practical skills to open unreached areas with the gospel. They started quilting groups and traveled back and forth to the city of Denalia for supplies—although supplies were not the only things they brought to the villages. They also brought Bibles, the JESUS film and a Kantoli-language Christian magazine Steve had developed, called Visiting Friend, as well as other videos and literature. When people responded and decided to follow Christ, the evangelists taught them some basics about their new faith, gave them Bibles and helped them organize small house churches. It was very exciting for me to see how HeartCraft had an instrumental role in this process. God was certainly expanding our borders.

In 1993, Tom and Brenda Hargray and their four children joined our team. It wasn’t long before we wondered how we had ever survived without them. Brenda and Tom had built a successful printing business in the Philadelphia area. Brenda had a good knowledge of business and a heart for the people. She was just what I needed in a friend and co-worker.

The house we used as a production center at the time was quite large. In fact, this house was like two houses, one behind the other. Some of the HeartCraft workers lived in the back part (it wasn’t safe to leave a building unoccupied at night), but there was still extra room in the front section. Tom and Brenda thought it would be an excellent place for them to live as they got started on language and culture learning, so they moved in with their family. They knew it would help them make faster progress in the language if they had Indonesians around them 24/7. That way they could also help subsidize the cost of the house for HeartCraft by paying $500 per year toward the rent.

While Tom got involved in various media projects, Brenda’s goal was to work with me in HeartCraft. Even though she was just starting to learn the language, she plugged in almost immediately. She spent a lot of time organizing the financial side of things and developing the leaders. She quickly became a close friend to Lia and Dewi.

In the back of the HeartCraft house, many quilters were working every day. We tried valiantly to keep them outside whenever they smoked, and they would normally take their cigarette breaks on the second-floor balcony. The ashes from their cigarettes would drift down to the ground below. When they finished their cigarettes, they’d toss the stubs over the rail.

For a long time, it wasn’t a problem because it rained almost every day during the rainy season. Over time, however, more and more clutter accumulated on the ground below the balcony. The cutters swept threads and cloth scraps out the back door and off the balcony onto the ground ten or twelve feet below.

One day during the dry season, someone tossed a cigarette butt onto the pile of old scraps below the porch like usual. Only this time, it caught fire. Brenda and I were gone, but Tom happened to be home. The quilting team smelled smoke, but no one paid much attention for a while because in Indonesia it is common to smell smoke. People burn things all the time. Then someone yelled “Fire!” Everyone ran to the balcony and saw that the scraps below had erupted in flames that threatened to envelop all our supplies, the stack of newly made quilts and the house itself!

Hearing the cries of panic, Tom rushed to the rear of the house and sized up the situation. There was no functional fire department in Denalia, and even if there were, it would take an hour for them to reach the house through stop-and-go traffic. There was no such thing as fire insurance, either.

Tom grabbed a couple of buckets and moved into action. Thankfully, Indonesians always keep a large tank full of water in their bathrooms. They use a dipper to pour water over themselves from the tank to bathe. Tom and the quilters quickly formed a bucket brigade with the two or three buckets that were available. Others stomped on the flames and tried to smother them with rugs. Miraculously, they were able to bring the fire under control before it spread too far. The outside wall of the house was black, and part of the balcony had been damaged, but that was all. The smoke residue in the house could be washed off the walls and ceilings. We were so thankful for the Lord’s protection. The incident reminded us of the challenges we faced in this invigorating but oftentimes agonizing work.

Tom and Brenda and their kids were real troopers and so were the two ladies who helped them with housework. One day while the family was out, two thieves stormed into the house and grabbed the two Indonesian women who were working in the kitchen. They put sharp knives to their throats. Thankfully, Deki, one of the taller, stronger quilters, was walking from the back of the house to the front and noticed that the two women were in trouble. He called for help and started toward the ladies. Deki was a rough-looking man with tattoos and a big mustache who’d been involved in the local mafia. The thieves took one look at him and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. They lowered their knives and made a dash for the door. Tom and Brenda arrived home later and heard the story from all the people in their house. Events like these kept us praying and reminded us how much we needed God’s supernatural protection.

Another time, one of the quilters went to the ironing table. As she lifted a piece of patchwork from the pile, she let out a cry. She had startled a poisonous snake hiding under the fabric. One of the men ran in with a machete and killed it. Still another time, Dewi and I were organizing the cloth in the storage area when a huge rat jumped out of the big bag of scrap cloth. I was so startled! It wasn’t unusual to see rats, but to have one jump out at me was frightening.

We never knew what was going to happen. Sometimes the men coming in from the villages would stay overnight before making the long trip home. One night they heard a leaky faucet in the bathroom. It dripped all night. One of the men started a rumor that there was an evil spirit taking a shower. The rumor passed around from quilter to quilter until we hardly had anyone showing up for work. The evil spirits frightened them. No one wanted to work in a haunted house.

We faced many challenges far more disturbing than drippy faucets or leaping rats. For example, Lia, Dewi and I became aware that many of our patterns were missing. Dewi and I had a growing suspicion that someone was stealing our patterns and taking them home after work. No one wanted to frisk the workers as they left each evening. We started to watch our patterns more closely. Rumor had it that some of the quilters were putting pieces of cloth and patterns in their underwear!

Eventually, we were forced to start checking the workers’ bags when they went home, a common practice in Indonesia that we finally had to adopt. As much as we wanted to trust people, we were working in a culture in which trustworthiness was a rare commodity. Even though they had benefited so much from our help, some workers were stealing from the project.

Sadly, the Christians who were working alongside the Muslims didn’t always hold higher standards. One day a huge fight broke out among the men working in the cutting section. Though many people were involved, with fists flying, at the center of the melee were two Christians who were trying to stab each other with scissors. Others had to pull them apart and calm them down. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt.

Other challenges that were especially difficult related to the banking system and thievery. For example, Lia went to the bank one day to withdraw money to pay wages and purchase cloth. Everything was done in cash in Indonesia. The amount was substantial, so Lia was careful to observe her surroundings as she left the bank. Everything looked fine. She got into the car and headed back to the shop.

Minutes later, the car shook a bit as if it had a flat tire. The driver pulled to the side of the road. People gathered around and a couple of motorcycles stopped to see what was happening. The traffic slowed down around them. While the tire was being changed, Lia didn’t notice someone quietly force a window open and reach in. She had set the briefcase with the money next to her on the seat to guard it. In just a split second of inattention, it disappeared into the crowd.

In a flash, Lia realized what had happened and jumped out of the car. Sure enough, it was quickly evident that the car tire had been slashed deliberately. It had all been part of a premeditated plan. Sometimes a teller in the bank would call friends waiting outside to let them know someone had taken a lot of money out of an account. They would follow the person’s car for a distance on a motorcycle, and then come up close and throw some sharp objects on the road to puncture the tires. Then they’d offer to help change the tire, and while they were doing the work, one of their friends will steal the money from the car. This time, along with the cash, they took Lia’s ATM card and immediately began withdrawing as much money as they could. As soon as the tire was replaced, Lia raced back to the bank to suspend her ATM card. Unfortunately, more money had already been lost.

On another occasion, Steve went to the bank to withdraw $6,000 to pay a couple of years’ rent on the building and purchase a large amount of cloth from Yayan, the factory owner. On the way back, he stopped at a friend’s house to pick something up. The money was stacked in two large envelopes. Rather than carry it with him into the house, he placed one envelope in the glove compartment and the other under the driver’s seat. Then he locked the car and went into the house.

When Steve returned to the car less than five minutes later, the door was not locked. Sure enough, when he reached into the glove compartment, the envelope with $3,000 in it had vanished. Then he reached under the seat and saw that the second envelope with the other half of the money was still there! The thieves had worked swiftly to get into the car as soon as he parked. They’d been following him from a distance, watching for an opportunity. They’d only had time to find one envelope. How saddened we were by the loss, and yet we were thankful that God had spared the second half. We were learning rather quickly how serious the thievery problem could be and how the tricks of the trade worked.

Crimes like these caused great headaches for our small but growing work. Everywhere we turned, it seemed like we were having money stolen. This was hard-earned money, and it hurt. And, if it was not money that was stolen, it would be our patterns, cloth or our sanity! Sometimes we wondered if it was worth it, but we felt the Lord saying we should persevere.

Even in the hardest times, the Lord provided reminders of His care for us and for the business. At one point, we had increased our production capacity, but sales had not grown proportionally, and we had hundreds of unsold quilts stacked up in storage. We wondered, “Lord, how are You going to sell these quilts?” Cash flow was tight, and we couldn’t keep paying our quilters to produce more inventory than we could sell. Then one day, a Muslim couple from the Middle East walked into the HeartCraft store. They were enamored with the quilts and said that there was nothing like them available for sale in their home country.

After some discussion, they decided to buy almost our entire stock of quilts—about $30,000 worth. They shipped them back to the Middle East and opened a big quilt store in their home city. Little did they know, they were God’s answer to our prayers. This Muslim couple contributed in a significant way to the evangelism of the Kantoli people by buying our beautiful quilts.