We will be hosting a cheese an wine evening in Los Altos, California on Thursday, June 5th and would love to have you join us: http://www.evite.com/app/publicUrl/GVBWMKSCSJQCUILQHKUZ/jktmay08teamreportback

The venture has ended on a gracious and blessed note. As many of the US consultants make their way to the airports to return home or move to other tropical destinations, we are reminded of the fact that God is ABLE …

• He is fully CAPABLE of completing the work He has begun in us
• He is ABLE to do exceedingly more than we could ever ask or think
• He is ABLE to reconcile the world unto Himself through our precious Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ
• He is ABLE to save to the uttermost them who come to Him and believe
• He is ABLE to keep His children from stumbling
• He is ABLE to present us Holy to Himself at the time of our Lord Jesus’ second coming
• He is ABLE to ensure that NOT ONE of His children escapes from His loving embrace (His grip of grace on us is greater than our grasp of Him)
• He is ABLE, more than able. And He fully intends to fulfill upon His promises, because He is always consistent with His promises … He is a good Father (James 1:17).

What has happened here these last two weeks is the beginning of another chapter in our lives and in the lives of these Indonesian business leaders.

Please covenant with us to pray for these dear ones whom God has set apart to stand for Him in Indonesia. Their work is not easy; their progress will be contested; their commitment comes at a price. But they have been commissioned to do the work of God, and they face the future with huge smiles of faith on their faces. And we love them for it. They inspire us to return to the US and “do likewise”.

God bless His people and increase them around the globe … to prepare for His return.

Semuga Tuhan memberkatimu dan menjagamu.
Semuga Dia monyinarimu dengan Wajah-Nya, dan momberimu Damai …
Dalam Nama Yesus.
Amin.
Tuhan memberkatimu!

[May the LORD bless you and keep you.
May HE make HIS face to shine upon you.
And give you peace … in JESUS.
Amen.
God bless you!]

Nancy Renzullo

Today marked the end of the May 2008 rēp Consultation in Jakarta and yet the beginning of the journey for our clients. As each client presented a summary of what God had done in their personal lives and in their businesses, we were humbled to hear how God had brought about both an understanding of Kingdom Purpose for their business and the courage to act on this understanding.

As clients testified to the miracles that God had done in their businesses, our faith increased to trust God for those miracles still needed by other clients.

For instance, one client group realized that they would not have full freedom in implementing the strategies they had created during the rēp Consultation because they did not have sole ownership of their real estate business. Their hands were effectively “tied.” Amazingly, and without any prompting by our clients, the other two shareholders communicated mid-way into the Consultation that they would like to be bought out by our clients, giving them the freedom to implement all that they had planned during the Consultation.

Marriages were also touched. We were blessed to have several of the clients include their wives throughout the Consultation. For some, strategies around business Partnership included a renewed commitment to restore marriage partnerships. For this reason it was particularly impactful to have our US consultants, Tim and Annie Dang, as part of the rēp team. Their demonstration of ministering alongside one another in a business context and their eagerness to learn how to implement biblical principles in their own businesses back in California spoke volumes.

Clients also committed to address some of the societal ills, or “Giants,” of Indonesia. One client group, an Internet provider, made a specific commitment to tackle the giants of pornography and poor infrastructure in Indonesia. Another client in the micro-lending industry committed to not only address poverty, but also the lack of education among the poor, including character development. Other clients made a commitment to systematically rid their businesses of corrupt practices. This included the humble repentance by one client of stealing from company funds. For each client we recognized that fulfilling these commitments would require a consistent and deliberate process.

Personally, as I reflect on what God has done in the past two weeks, it was evident that we are currently benefiting from much sacrifice and faithfulness of past rēp teams as well as from the faithful, consistent work by our local rēp team over the past several years. This was the sixth rēp Venture to Jakarta and there is a real sense that momentum for Marketplace ministry is growing; while Jakarta does not experience the season of spring per se, it seems to be experiencing a spring of a different sort—an awakening as such. As we look forward, we anticipate accelerated growth in partnering with our local rēp leaders and with the church—God’s people—in the Marketplace of Jakarta.

Rebecca Muir.

The day started with a brief time of fellowship and last minute information relating to what’s up for the next 24 hours or so. The rest of the time from 8:45 has been taken up with catching up with all the documents (deliverables) that need the input from clients and final touching up in preparation for handing in at 3pm.

While all the consultants are busy with these items, Rebecca and I have meetings with potential clients and team members who need input and to ask questions on all sorts of matters.

We need to discuss, prepare and compile new presentations for the team debriefings, dinners and speaking engagements that are still to come.

Once the team has delivered all their documents to Rebecca and I (at 3pm) we will be doing the final checks before the consultants print out final copies for handing to their clients tomorrow morning.

It’s like the day before market opens (or a wedding) with lots of hectic activity and deadlines.

The amazing thing is the grace, dignity and dedication that one observes with the consultants, determined to do their best, to glorify God.

I dread them all leaving on Saturday and Sunday. They have all become so special to me and we have had such special times … and today is just another one of those special times in spite of the pressures.

I’m going to take a risk and single out one couple who have been a blessing to us all (they’ve all been a blessing, but here is an example). Tim and Annie are two Vietnamese who have been married for 4 years and been Christians for 9 months. They have amazing individual stories, but, as soon as they became Christians, they started asking god how they must reorder their business interests to glorify him Annie is a dentist and Tim is a Real Estate agent. In their search for God’s guidance they became aware of rēp and, within a short time ended up on training in San Francisco and then on this particular venture to Jakarta. They are both such caring and special people and have blessed us all and me in particular, just to watch them blesses me.

So, God has put together a very special team both from the USA as well as locally and each has a unique testimony of how God has brought them to this point.

The loss of the returning USA consultants will be lessened by the fact that the local consultants will still be here to work with us as we seek to expand God’s work here in Indonesia.

The miracles and amazing things that have happened here need a book.

We eat the funniest things and in the strangest of places. Tonight is such an event after the hectic pace of the day, week and venture. We will be having our final team dinner before the final day and then the final dinner with all our clients.

We thank God for His care and undertaking and for the clients and consultants that we have been honored to work with and who have blessed us over these two weeks.

Every blessing as many of you have joined us on the venture in support and prayer.

Errol J. Smith

The day was filled with blessings, worthy of praise:

1. Frank Hadi shared his testimony regarding his ministry to his muslim driver: a demonstration of Colossians 4: 2-6 in action!
2. The last of the 10 P’s was covered and all clients and consultants have now turned their focus to completing the presentation and the 10 client deliverables.
3. Despite difficulties, we got the Internet Wi-Fi Router working! Praise God for His help - He’s sovereign over technology!
4. Annie and Tim’s flight from Taipei to San Francisco was confirmed: until today, they had no guarantee of a return flight to the States.

Please continue to pray with us:

1. That each client will begin to walk through the transformation process and see their business as their household, and themselves as the shepherd and steward of the household.
2. That each client will continue in faithfulness to use their business to defeat the giants in Indonesia.
3. Pray for the protection of the hearts, health, and minds of all consultants and clients.
4. Pray that the Internet Connection will remain stable for the remainder of the venture.
5. Pray that the score cards being developed, will be used to transform these businesses.
6. Pray that the communications between REP leaders, consultants and clients will be seasoned with Faith in God and used to deliver God’s grace.
7. Pray for the health of Mira’s husband, drg. Benny Abidin, and for Mira as she desires to draw close to The Lord in this time of difficulty.
8. Pray that we would all continue to trust God for the future.
9. Have another great day!

At our appointed times, we greeted our clients in the lobby and guided them to a prayer room for intercession with Don & Margie Cook.

My clients were a husband-and-wife team. During their time of intercession, we received confirmation about a spiritual condition that needed to be addressed in their lives. We then moved to the visioning session led by Erroll and Ben … with hearts that were prepared to understand what it was God would have them do to repurpose their business for His service. (A second visioning session — with another client — was being led by Rebecca and Dr. Suparno in an apartment across the hall.)

During the visioning session, God continued to speak to my clients, revealing more clearly that repentance, reconciliation and restitution were required before they could move forward in their business. They realized that they needed to be in a right position to receive God’s blessings. They also realized that there were ways in which they could improve their relationship and their business roles and processes.

We were amazed at how God moved in their hearts and how He is continuing to move in all of our lives, answering our prayers.

We praise God for this time of “Visioning”, and believe that He will continue to show each of our clients what they need to do to make a difference in their company … in order to make a greater difference in Indonesia.

Praise God!

Felly Hioe

It is wonderful to have Don and Margie Cook and look forward to hearing the testimony of the community development in India.

Our schedule was full today, as we covered 3 P’s — Profit, Planning, Partnering — and Rebe did an excellent job keeping us all on track.

Praise the Lord for an excellent testimony from Suroso during the Profit session. He is a member of the Indonesian leadership team, and one of the first fruits of REP ventures in Indonesia. He confessed that he is still applying the lessons learned during the third REP venture. When he prayed for a vision of what the Lord wanted to do in and through him, God had impressed the word “City” on his heart and mind. As an architect consultant, this was deeply meaningful to Suroso, as it is his job to develop city designs . He mentioned that a city needs to have a center that acts as a “magnet” to attract people. [When Don Smith prayed for him (during his previous venture), Don spoke about Nehemiah and the re-building of the city of Jerusalem. Suddenly Suroso understood that he must put God in the center of his business to win people.]

We look forward to hearing more about these transformations and visions God has bestowed on the people visiting here this week.

Praise God for the work he has begun and promises to complete in each of us.

God bless you,

Ben Bambung

We split up between three different churches today, Abba love, JICF, and IES. Stanley and I went to Abba love where my client, Pak Yusuf and Ibu Kim-Kim are one of the leaders. They lead a cell group at their business and they also arrange the testimonies for the service; and who do you think were on the docket for this Sunday?… Stanley, Albert, and I were able to talk about rēp and how we are repurposing business for Kingdom impact. It was a great opportunity to speak to the locals and tell them why we are here. Special thanks to Felly who was able to translate the Indonesian service for us and video our short talk!

Today was extra special since it was the day for our team dinner. We all got dressed up in our Sunday best, (Andrew even had a sport coat on!), and we went to an upscale Indonesian restaurant for our team dinner for the venture. We had a three course meal that had an endless array of delectable foods that just kept coming. I know that they tasted exquisite; I just couldn’t pronounce the names! At dinner, we were also able to recap the past week with Don and Margie Cook who just finished the Chennai venture on Fri. It was great hearing about the stories firsthand how God had mightily moved in India over the last two weeks. God is adding new kingdom impact companies in Chennai!

Tonight, we are adjusting our scorecards based on Rebe’s input and discussions with our scorecard triplets (or is that an honorary “scorecard tripod” in honor of the Seattle team…). We are all set to go into the three P’s tomorrow. Full steam ahead!

Kevin Mar

We have a day off today. Some of us went to Taman Mini, which is a miniature Indonesia park. It has 26 provinces of Indonesia and 66 other attractions, such as museums, flower garden, bird park, reptile park and so on. We saw a big one!!!

God also blessed us with massages. It was very relaxing for everyone who got a massage. Then we went to dinner in a local restaurant that had a singer singing. The boys had a great time singing and having ice-cream. It was a fun and good day!! Thanks to God!! He blesses us abundantly and amazingly.

Don and Margie Cook arrived today. It’s so good to have them. However, Richard is leaving tomorrow early morning. We are thankful to have Richard here as our intercessor. Richard gave my client a confirmation regarding God’s will for her to serve in the non-profit organization that has a micro lending program.

Stella Au

     Friday has come and gone; we are all a little astonished at how quickly the time has passed. Today was our third “structured” day for the week, which meant we were all back in the hotel meeting room. Setup and some of the small frustrations previously encountered started to flow a bit smoother.

We started the morning with a time of worship and devotion, which was highlighted by our leaders Errol and Felly sharing confessions with the team and having a time of reconciliation.

 

Today the P’s of Positioning and People were covered. Some highlights of the day were two testimonies by two former Rep clients. Surpano was a client in 2006 and has seen his business blessed and himself repurposed since then. His family company went from having over 70 factories and $300 million in debt to 15 strategically focused factories and only $20 million in long term debt. He has been instrumental in the enablement of the work occuring in Jakarta.

The second testimony came from Ivan & Irma, a couple who were past Rep clients. They owned and operated a labor intensive business with the ability to impact many hundreds of people. God repurposed them as a business and a couple to serve 200 couples with counseling services. Both testimonies were powerful as they hit near home for the Indonesian clients.

     The rest of the day was filled with reports of warming hearts and breakthroughs, along with continued cries for miracles. Many of our clients face intense problems and we have been invited to minister right in the center of it in just a weeks time … certainly a work of God! Everything from potential divorce, estranged fathers, corrupt officials and a fatalistic outlook; but we are not telling God how big our problems are, instead, in faith we are telling our problems how big our God is.

Jeff Baker