Expanding Our Reach

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. – Romans 12:9 (NLT)

On the heels of a season of testing and pain, Tati and Lili came into my life. Maybe the Lord knew I needed a reminder that He was still powerfully at work. Tati and Lili were sisters from a small, unreached Hindu people group hidden in the volcanic highlands in the eastern part of the island, hundreds of miles away. Their tribal group had resisted the advance of Islam centuries earlier. To this day, thousands of them maintain their own animistic and Hindu culture in the high mountain valleys surrounding a spectacular volcanic caldera. The sisters’ father was a Hindu leader. Wanting to keep his family intact, he told his teenage girls never to read the Christian holy book. If they did, he warned them, bad things would happen. His dire predictions only served to excite their curiosity. They wondered if they would ever have a chance to hold a Bible.

A few years later, the girls obtained a copy of the Scriptures from people traveling through the area. They began to read it together secretly. The stories, and especially the character of Christ, captivated them. Reading about His life, teaching and sacrifice for them on the cross, the two sisters decided they wanted to become followers of Jesus. The more they read the Bible, the more their lives changed. It was obvious for all to see.

When Tati and Lili’s father found out about their new faith, he was furious. He sent them to a Hindu school on a distant island to be deprogrammed from Christian thoughts and beliefs. Once again, his plan had the opposite effect. Tati and Lili began leading other young women to faith in Christ. Word of what was happening eventually reached their parents back home. That was the final straw. Their father promptly expelled them from the family.

“You’re no longer mine,” he told them. “You’re on your own. Don’t come back here again.”

With nowhere to go, Tati and Lili fled many days’ journey to our province. They met one of the employees at Yayan’s garment factory, heard about HeartCraft and eventually found their way to my home. Finishing their heartrending story, they asked me a straightforward question: “Can you find a place for us in HeartCraft?”

By this time, we were making as many as 200 quilted products each month. We seemed to be saturating the local and national markets. It didn’t make sense to produce even more. Yet, these two precious women obviously needed help. The words of Scripture flashed through my mind, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it” (Proverbs 3:27). It would be great to come up with a new product that the sisters could take back to their home area someday, if they ever had a chance to return.

Our close friend and teammate Karen took Tati and Lili under her wing. Karen made no claims of being a “crafty” kind of person. She was more interested in the people side of things and was willing to do whatever it took to make these precious young women independent and self-supporting. Karen found them a place to live, and they quickly became like daughters to her. Together we began to pray that their father, mother and family would come to know Christ.

In the meantime, the sisters worked out of my garage and began to pioneer a new division of HeartCraft. We realized we needed smaller items to sell. Many customers came into the shop needing a small gift and were not willing to buy a big quilt for $100 or $200. I thought that if we had smaller quilted items, we could also employ more people. The time was right.

Karen and I made a good team. God had given us a new project, and with it some new territory and a different people group hundreds of miles away. Could it be that HeartCraft would expand beyond the work among the Kantoli to help other ethnic groups on other islands? What a thrill that would be!

As we were thinking and praying about these things, God brought Deki to my mind. Deki, the man who had frightened off the armed thieves a few months earlier, was a gifted tailor. In the past, he had been a really rough guy, covered with scars and tattoos. He had not been able to make ends meet with his tailor shop, so he found steady work at HeartCraft instead. Deki was exactly who we needed—a man who was not afraid of a machine and came to us with sewing skills! I knew Deki could figure out how Tati and Lili could make small products and patterns. He was not afraid to experiment and try new things.

In the end, it all came together quite suddenly. I showed Deki a doll that I had purchased at a craft boutique in the U.S. Amazingly, I was able to locate the women who made the original doll pattern. I wrote them and received their permission, no strings attached, to make as many of the dolls as we wanted. They loved the story of HeartCraft and wrote me a very kind letter saying it would be an honor for us to make their doll—even in the thousands.

Deki studied the doll and took it apart piece by piece to see how it was made. He went to work planning the body and actually created a better pattern than the original. He purchased glue and yarn for the hair and gathered scraps from the larger quilts to make little dresses. Then he got the leftover padding from the larger quilts and stuffed the body.

The result was a beautiful doll that we playfully called the “Grace doll.” It was a reminder, after all we’d been through, that God’s grace had reached down and protected us. But Deki wasn’t finished. He took all his skill and carefully transferred it to Tati and Lili. We found we could make the dolls almost completely from leftover cloth from the quilting. Costs were minimal, and they sold at a great price. Before long, the women were making a reasonable living for themselves.

Once again, my home became a beehive of activity, but this time it was more under control. We kept almost all the craft work in the garage. At noon each day, we all shared a meal. I was glad things were relatively under control because I was expecting my fourth baby.

We all spent long hours in the garage together. Deki was quite a character. He had long hair and a rough look, but he was skilled and had a colorful personality. On a spiritual level, Steve spent time with Deki telling him about the Lord, and he was very open. He didn’t make any pretense of being a strong Muslim and he understood the concept of sin. It was obvious to everyone that he had been a gangster and not a religious man. The more I worked with Tati and Lili, the more I recognized what remarkable young women they really were.

Around the time we began making the Grace dolls, a church from Los Angeles sent a large team to work with us for a few weeks. Steve and our eight-year-old daughter, Joy, led them on an exploratory trip to an island called Baskara. Steve was hoping that God would somehow open a way for the 80,000 people on that island to receive the gospel. To reach the island, the team had to sail on an old World War II-era ship. Karen, who had long been burdened for this island, joined them. She wanted to be a part of reaching Baskara Island for Christ.

It wasn’t long after that exploratory trip that Karen became convinced the time had come for her to move to a city that was closer to the burden of her heart. During her time in Denalia, she had learned the language well. She was ready to go. As she shared the needs of Baskara with her friends Tati and Lili, they, too, became captured by the vision. The three women decided to move together to a location not far from the girls’ home. They would use that town as a base for reaching Baskara. Since the Grace dolls were a best seller, Tati and Lili could keep making them, even hundreds of miles away.

Before the young women returned to their home area, God did a miracle. Am Indonesian pastor decided to visit their father and share the gospel with him. He traveled way up the mountain valleys to find the old patriarch. It took a lot of boldness, as their father was a leader in the village. God honored the pastor’s obedience. After a long discussion, he led the girls’ father to faith, and he, in turn, led his entire family to Christ.

When we got news of this miracle, there was a lot of celebration. God had done the impossible; love had found a way! Tati and Lili were welcomed back into their family, and the pastor made repeated visits to encourage the new believers in their faith. The young women, too, began to teach their father and other family members the basics of the Christian faith. And they kept making dolls. With that income they were able to pay their tuition at a local Bible training school where they both met and married Christian young men.

But the story doesn’t stop there. With Karen’s help and mentoring, Lili and her husband made another survey trip to Baskara. Lili’s husband had experience as a baker, so he opened a bakery on the island called “Bread of Life” in the local language. Lili kept doing what she had been doing all along—making dolls. Yet this time she was doing it on an island where people watched her every move. Westerners could never have lived there, much less effectively shared the message of Christ. Tati, Lili and their husbands are some of my heroes. The simple little Grace doll designed in my garage was used by God to bring the gospel of grace to a remote island.

Threads of hope were also finding their way into the hearts of more and more people back in Denalia—including a young man named Budi. Budi was healing from a serious motorcycle accident. Because his leg had been improperly pinned back together, it became gangrenous. The doctor said he was in danger of losing it altogether. He had lost his job because of the accident, so he spent his time with us learning to sew. Budi’s leg got worse and worse, and finally the doctor decided to amputate. It was a horrible thought for Budi and for all of us.

Hearing the news, the believing staff in HeartCraft gathered around Budi’s bed and prayed for his leg to be healed. They asked God for a miracle, knowing that’s what it would take. Budi listened intently. The next day his leg showed such significant improvement that the doctor changed his mind. He decided he could keep working with it until it fully healed. The news brought shouts of joy from those who prayed and from Budi himself. The Muslims all listened and watched intently. Everyone agreed that God had answered prayer. Budi eventually gave his heart to the Great Healer.

Nani was another person God touched through HeartCraft. She had recently been through a horrible tragedy. Her baby was sick with dysentery and became so dehydrated that Nani decided to take him to the hospital. Indonesians usually don’t go to the hospital until they are losing all hope. To many, the hospital is a place you go to die. Tragically, Nani’s baby died on the way to the hospital. Overwhelmed with grief, Nani turned to Christians within the HeartCraft network for prayer and comfort. She accepted the Lord, and through her new relationships, she also learned a new skill. She made beautiful appliqué projects at home. Despite her loss, the Lord brought joy and encouragement into her life. In time she was blessed with other children.

We helped another Kantoli lady, Eti, get started making little stuffed beanbag bears. They had soft stuffed heads and a cloth body stuffed with corn kernels. Eti’s newly married son, Agus, liked to work with wood, though he had no particular training or experience. When Agus saw the beanbag bears his mother was making, he gathered sticks from the forest and made little wooden benches for them to sit on. They made an adorable set! Dewi and I took them to craft shows, and they all sold. Then at one show, we noticed a strange problem with the bears. They were getting skinny. When we looked closer and noticed holes on the sides of the bears’ bodies, we knew exactly what was happening. Rats! Rats had eaten right through the cloth to get to the corn filling! We had a good laugh and came up with a solution—we would put pebbles in the body of the bears rather than corn kernels. They would be heavier, but safer. The rats would not be tempted to eat the rocks, and pebbles were cheaper anyway. We never had a problem again with the gravel-bag bears.

When I thought I had no more ideas for HeartCraft products, Ani came to my doorstep. She was a new widow with four children. How was I going to tell her that I didn’t have any more ideas or any more cloth to create a new product? I had to think of something so that this woman could support her family. Ani came into the garage with me, and I showed her the smallest of scraps of cloth left over from the dolls and bears. They were really small—probably too small to be useful. How would she make something from these? I gave them to her, and she returned a few days later with what became one of my favorite products. She had made the smallest quilt I had ever seen—a tiny quilted key chain! They were really pretty and inexpensive to make and to sell.

Ministries like HeartCraft make a spiritual impact in part because of the atmosphere they create. In our work environment, Muslims and Christians could work together and recognize each other as real people. They were equals, without pretense or discrimination. Normally in a context like this, Muslim neighbors oppress Christians, but in this case, the Christians had something to offer. They were offering jobs to Muslims—something quite rare. Giving jobs to the very people that persecute them? The effect was powerful. Muslims experienced the love of Christ and were drawn to it, provided the believers lived Christ-like lives.

We were not asking Muslims to come inside a church building. Rather, we met a very real need right in the community and related to them with respect, as friends and coworkers. In so doing, Christians could share their faith in a more natural, non-threatening way. And they didn’t have to be so afraid of losing their jobs.

Our training programs provided another opportunity to mix believers and unbelievers. These meetings were the best way to get people from the village areas into the city so that we could all be together. There were training programs for those with beginner, intermediate and the highest-level quilting skills. But the most important sessions were when we trained the believing staff how to love and reach people with the gospel. This was important because some of the staff and leaders were not Kantoli. They had come from other parts of Indonesia and needed to be trained how to love and reach the Kantoli people specifically. The Kantoli, like all the other people groups in Indonesia, had their own unique culture and personality. It was important to relate to them on that basis.

During our training sessions, we took the staff on fieldtrips to places they had never been before, such as the zoo. We even invited them to Kantoli retreats sponsored by the Lampstand team. Here the quilters—most of whom were not believers—saw large groups of Kantoli Christians performing their cultural dances, songs, comedies and dramas—all in their own language. It was a time to eat and celebrate together. And, of course, they would hear special speakers—gifted evangelists who explained the gospel in a contextualized way. Perhaps most powerful of all, they listened to the stories of Christians who had been persecuted for their faith but stood strong.