Foreword & Introduction

Foreword

What a story! Or, I should say, hundreds of stories! You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll find it difficult to put this book down. In this well-written story, you’ll be intrigued as mystery after mystery unfolds.

So what is Threads all about? The biography of a remarkable young American who pioneered a profitable industry among a Muslim people, giving hope to those who had lost all hope? Yes, but so much more. Woven throughout Threads you’ll find the story of tragedy and triumph in the life of another young woman, Dewi. But there’s more. You’ll feel the excitement of how God can impact the spiritual and material lives of people in a very different culture through a couple of young American missionaries who, in love, worked hard to bridge the gaps. And as a bonus, you’ll be able to trace the multi-generational beginning of a growing mission agency.

Thank you, Arlene, for giving us a masterful recounting of God’s unfolding purpose in your life.

– J. Robertson McQuilkin

President Emeritus, Columbia International University

Introduction

Soon after my husband and I were married, we did something crazy. We moved to the complete opposite side of the world—Indonesia—intending to sink roots, raise a family and make a difference in a place where people had greater needs and fewer blessings. For Steve, it wasn’t such a big deal. He grew up in a missionary family with cannibals and headhunters in the jungles of New Guinea. For me, however, it meant a completely new life. My father was a successful Wall Street executive. I had grown up enjoying the best of America. How would I adjust to a foreign culture? How would I find my fit in life, ministry and family?

Our decision to take the gospel to an unreached people group triggered an irreversible domino effect. To protect my friends and the ongoing work, in this book I call these wonderful people the Kantoli. Threads traces my adventures in missions, business and motherhood in their vibrant community.

Our first few years in Indonesia I tackled two new languages, learned to cook local food, gave birth in relatively primitive conditions and started raising a family in an entirely new context. And then one day I found myself slogging along a muddy trail in what felt like the very farthest corner of the world.

Rice paddies cascaded down the mountainside in waves of vivid green and yellow. The only sounds were the creak of bamboo, hum of myriad insects and the squish of mud beneath my sandals. No cars. No phones. I could almost hear the rice grow. My family was back in the bustling city we now considered home. Dewi, my closest Indonesian friend, walked ahead, leading the way to her village. No vehicles could reach this far into the mountains. It weighed heavily on me that afternoon that the gospel hadn’t reached this valley yet either.

While the area felt wild and remote to me, tens of thousands of people lived in tiny villages dotted among the rice terraces. Every one of them needed to hear the good news of salvation available through Jesus, but explaining the gospel to any of them, let alone all of them, in a way that resonated in their culture felt impossible. Every thatched roof poking out from a stand of palm trees represented a multi-generational family.

What can I do, Lord? I prayed silently. I am probably the first Christian to ever walk this trail, and there are so many people who need You in these hidden villages. I knew God cared about each of them, and He was stitching the threads of my heart to theirs.

As I walked and prayed, I felt like I heard an almost-audible response. Arlene, I know each of them by name. They are not hidden from Me.

But what could I do to help these people? Could the Lord really use me to make a difference in a place that felt so far and so foreign? I had no idea that God had already provided a way for me to be a blessing to the villages tucked away in that valley and beyond through my friendship with Dewi and a box of quilt scraps from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

This book describes my experience of faith, hope and love in a world of competing priorities and clashing civilizations. It is the story of two young women from sharply contrasting backgrounds whose lives merged in friendship, how a box of scraps transformed an Indonesian community and how small people and small things can be made great in the hands of God.