Normally my schedule is busiest when I’m not in Medan, but today was a welcome exception!
I had a lunch meeting today with the missions executive for the Lutheran Church of Australia, Rev. Matt Anker. Rev. Anker does a lot of work in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Singapore and I’ve been hoping to meet him in person for some time. Turns out he was headed to Medan to meet with the Indonesian leaders of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and wanted to connect myself and Rev. Wood with them since we’re both living in Medan. Rev. Wood wasn’t back yet from his doctoral classes in the US, but I was available.
I had the pleasure of meeting these two gentlemen, Rev. Dedi Pardosi and his associate, whom my aging ears were unable to capture the name of precisely enough for repetition here. They were both very personable young men convinced of the need to reintroduce basic Lutheran doctrine to the over 8-million members of 13 Lutheran church bodies in Indonesia. Because of a lack of strictly Lutheran seminaries many of the pastors in these church bodies are trained in ecumenical or union seminaries. Their familiarity with Lutheran theological distinctives is therefore rather lacking for the most part, and when combined with the influence of other denominational bodies in Indonesia, a series of refreshers seems critical.
While the LCMS is not necessarily on the best terms with the LWF, perhaps this will be an opportunity to build some bridges at least in Indonesia. Rev. Pardosi seemed confident he could persuade the LWF to accept our help in theological basics, and time will tell. Either way it’s a good opportunity to network further and learn about the work other Christians (and Lutherans!) are doing in Indonesia.
Afterwards I stopped by our local immigration office and picked up the three passports covered by my Indonesian work visa (KITAS). It was a little anticlimactic after over a year of trying to get this accomplished. But, at this point anticlimactic is just fine! I don’t need any more excitement in regards to visas!
It’s just a simple stamp in our passports, but between that and the scanning of our passports when we pass in and out of immigration, my status as a slightly more permanent and known resident in Indonesia is noted. I thought there would be more documentation but there really isn’t.
The only potential hiccup is immigration indicated I should have received an e-mail already with some further document in it. I haven’t, so they suggested I contact the church partner representative who arranged things. He didn’t seem to know what I meant. But I checked with the immigration officer and he assured me I could leave and enter Indonesia even without this other material. We’ll find out Thursday when I head (hopefully!) to Singapore again!
Thank you for your many prayers on this matter. It’s such a huge relief. My work here and around the region can continue now with much greater ease and that’s wonderful!
The Nelson Family Indonesia 