My heart is full of joy and thanksgiving as I write these reflection paragraphs about SPICE, our Indonesian congregation, in the last year. God is good and faithful to us. We are grateful for his providence and kindness shown to us in the last year.
Again 2022 was not an easy year for us. The Australian border was slowly opening, but it is a slow pick-up for churches in Sydney, especially a church like SPICE, that is prayerfully trying to reach out to campuses and to international students community in Sydney.
However, God opened up another opportunity for reaching out to locals in 2022. By having the first Indo Day at St Phil’s precinct, we could see how locals were enthusiastic in learning about our church and Indonesian culture (and food). We had about 250-300 people attending Indo Day ‘22 throughout the day and collected about $4,500 for Yayasan Cinta Baca (literacy ministry) in Indonesia. We also have had locals becoming members of our church since then. Praise God!
The statistic (2016) from Indonesian Consulate states that there are about 30,000 Indonesians living in the greater Sydney area. At the moment, there are only 10% that go to church on a weekly basis. The harvest is definitely plentiful and we’re praying that our presence in Eastwood will reach more Indonesians for God’s kingdom.
With the support of the staff team and St Phil’s parish council, we moved our service to 11am now, with a hope to reach more Indonesian speaking locals, but not ignoring our other mission field, campuses in Sydney.
Please pray that 11am service might go smoothly so we can see significant growth in SPICE and God’s Kingdom, to His glory.