From Joey

Thanks for remembering me while discussing about Job. I honestly feel I can not compare to Job's life before God allowed the devil to 'shake' him. I don't mind saying this, eventhough I was raised a Catholic, I didn't live the faith. I controlled n wrecked havoc in my life and business dealings. Some of you knew that I was divorced before Annabel came to my life and before totally committing to God. Again, I recommitted when the Lord spoke to me one night at my hospital bed because He showed me His plan/purpose why I should be on a wheelchair for now. Service to Him! That is it; will serve Him to the maximum spreading the Good News to the wheelchair bound and sick people. I am a living testimony to God's goodness and mercy and at the same time, His purpose in my life. And, I tell you focusing on God and His Glory is tough as Satan tries to bait his traps and get me to lose my hope and trust in God by throwing all sorts of trials and challenges in my way like our marriage, finances, health etc. But, I will continue to seek the Lord as my refuge during all these times and be humbled by His power, hoping for His hand for guidance and His love to overcome all adversities. It is all about being humbled and obedient to God.

Recent update.... I'm walking more steadily now but still need strength in my right leg and hand muscles. No more assistance getting up from wheelchair, sitting longer hours without foot swelling, doing more computer work and writing my daily journal. Meet weekly with all-men cell group and also ministering to wheelchair bound church members uplifting them spiritually. Daily email with former fellow patient who is a new believer and edifying him in the Lord. Onwards for Jesus! God bless ICA. Joey

Short meeting with Keith Sorbo

Pastor Keith Sorbo, our old friend was coming to Indonesia. Yes! We had his sermon this week and we really enjoy it that morning.
2.30pm, ICA lobby logue. We, some of ICA-ers have a meeting with Keith Sorbo. It's an informal meeting, talking about how we are doin' now and latest news of ICA.
There is an intersting 'lesson' we got from Pastor Keith in this short meeting. He mention about the book "Sacred Love" which speaks about understanding God. Some people understand God like 'household God' or 'idols' which means God will react based on how we act. It means if you do good, tithing, involve in ministry, then God will bless us, or evrything will be okay. Many people still thinking even to sacrifice something or harm himself to please God, hoping to get something in return.
Well, let's look at the life of Job. He didn't sin against God but still God let everything to be taken away from him. His wealth, his children, his body (health), his wife and finally his friends too! When finally Job questioned God 'Why', God didn't give him answer. It seems like God said 'It's not your business!' Eventhough finally Job's condition was restored, Job never knew about God's conversation with Satan at the beginning. It's really up to God to do what He wants. He can not be manipulated, He can not be controlled.
In this talks we also remembered our friend Joey with everything he had experienced. How do you explain that? Is that means there is some thing wrong that Joey did in the past? (Message for Joey : How are you now? Please send us your news, we want to hear from you too.)
We also talk about How can we understand God's existence. Wowow..! It will be a long discussion.
But yes. We did talk about understanding God. Here are few words from Keith : Like 3 dimensional thing like sphere become 2 dimension (circle), that is a story he told us. Sorry i'm not gonna tell you the whole story if you missed it.
I also added another analogy about understanding God's esistence. It's like a carpenter creates a table. The table is a creation with limited function and abilities. Can you imagine how the table tries to understand its creator? It's beyond its capacity to understand. Like us try to understand God.
Have a GoGroup discussion this week !

The multiplication of GoSolid, the birth of GoLiquid (Is it?)

On the last meeting (celebration) we decided to multiply GoSolid. The member who attend Sjany's group in Margorejo are will be still continue GoSolid, while the other member like me and Abraham who meet at Tenggilis/Kendangsari area will form new Go Group called GoLiquid (yea!).
We moved the meeting day from Wednesday into Thursday because Abraham the host was not
availabe. We thought more people will come that time because Sjany's group also cancel the
meeting on Wed, and inform the member to come to ours on Thu.
The place was wellplanned I say, and Abraham prepared more chairs (and more food I guess) for more people coming because the other member from Margorejo group will also come.

Maybe because the communication was not well organized, it comes to be only me and
Abraham in the meeting. :)

It's okay! We enjoyed sharing and having a nice bubur ayam in that meeting. We came up with new ideas to develop our GoGroup in the future. We looked back when we still have enthusiastic to come in every meeting, when every Wednesday is longed, and we can't wait untill it's next Wednesday again. That night our spirit was renewed and we decided to bring out new ideas to our GoGroup.

Celebration! The End of PDL Program

We had a barbeque together at Sjany's place. Many people came, and there also Bruce and Ruth Wills, our old friend attendance to visit our celebration. There was also our new comer who were trying to come to our PDL meeting, but they missed all the meeting, finally they came to this celebration. Praise God :) They are Sujana and Sisi and their son, Faith.
We had good food, good quiz game with prizes (yes, we love it), and share our opinion about series of PDL meeting we just ended.
Well, here is mine : Worship is not only about singing or musical thing. It include every aspect of our life, every activity. So we can always worship God everywhere and everytime. Amen!

Tenggilis PDL Group meeting at Indah Ananda's Place

Left to right : Rio, Teddy, Abraham, Chandra, Indra, Hartanto


Left to right : Elya, Effi, Paulina, Vivian, Indah


Vivian, Indra, Abraham, Chandra, Elya, Paulina, Indah, Hartanto, Effi, Teddy

Meet the "PDL Rungkut" Group

These are the activities of PDL Rungkut. Thanks to Pak Daniel for this photos. Any comments? Please do share your photo of your PDL group.

PDL West

We begin our first meeting on Purpose Driven Life last monday. I was a little worry because I have never lead a small group discussion before and especially knowing that beside Tommy and Andy, everyone else is still pretty new to me. I was scared, what if everybody stays silent and passive, what if everyone did not get what they should get out of this reading? So I let God take control on our group.

At 7pm, one by one people start to come to my house. And we started our group pretty much on time. I was very thankful for Annie, Andy, and Tommy because I was nervous and yet somehow they've helped me to ease my tension.

My group was awesome. About 10 people turning up and 2 said that they couldn't make it that night. The questions were alive, and the enthusiasm was there. I can feel God's works among each and everyone of us. There were sceptical questions, sharing and testimonies of new believer, and most importantly, the group was very open hearted to the book. I believe that as Rick Warren said, God has planned this group in mind and for all of us to be together, to meet and discover the purpose of our lifes. I hope the next 5 weeks to come will be a blessed week, and I also know the temptation will always be there but I am sure, God is the in the presence for us, and with that in mind, nothing is impossible.

(This article is taken from Yudiana's Blog)

First PDL home meeting @ Abraham's Place

Yesterday, April 20,2006 we did our first PDL home meeting at Abraham's place. There are 5 people in the list not coming, but... we still have 7 people yesterday because... there are people who are not on the list coming. Yay! They were Rio and Paulina with their little girl Caitlin. We have also Indah who has been coming to ICA for 4 months, Hartanto (unfortunatelly his wife Cindy was not coming because she was taking care of her sick kid), me(Teddy) and Effi, and Abraham as the host. There will be 1 more couple coming next week, Sujana and Sisi. They don't come to ICA but they are our friends.
It's quite interesting, we began with introducing each other (like our old habit in GoSolid, say name, work and hobbies lol).
The video was good, and the discussion was alive, everybody took part of it. We decided to take turn to lead every week, and also look for a new alternative place to meet to make it more interesting. We made agreement about the group and made commitment to do it consistantly. It was a good environment we had last night.
Finally we had our nice refreshments. Abraham did prepare many good things for us. We had noodle, fruit cocktail, and my favourite kacang ijo (green bean) :P

Hi quality image

Purpose Driven Life

Start from last Sunday, April 16th, 2006 (Easter Day) our church ICA Surabaya start a program called '40 Days of Purpose'. We, all the member of the church will read a book 'A Purpose Driven Life' 1 chapter a day at the same time. (If you don't have an idea what kind of book that is, I'll try to tell you later in another posting).
We as a church member will also meet in the small group once a week during the weekday, and on Sunday for 6 week in a row, the sermon will be talking about the Purpose Driven Life too!
Our Go Solid members will not be in one group. We are separated in few groups. My wife and I will join with Abraham's group in his house in Tenggilis while other members maybe go to Wijaya and Sjany's place.
My opinion, I'm so excited about this program and could't wait to involve in that highly supporting environment. You know, you can join too if you want. There are a lot of changing life testimony from people who have ever done this before. Then you can say : "I know my purpose. Do you?"

Worship With MP3

On our last meeting on April 12, we try to do something different. Actually it already started last week, but we're not well prepared about this idea. It's Sjany's idea to do worship using CD/MP3 instead of guitar. Because when we do it with guitar, often time the guitarist (me) have problem with the accord, too soon or too late when go to reff, or may be we don't know how to sing the song exectly. Especially Bu Elly who always pick songs which are too difficult that even she didn't know the song (ha ha ha).
So, that time we prepared MP3 player and our new song lyrics from ICA and worship God together with that. And the result? It was great! It brought new atmosphere in our worship time.

Many Things to Celebrate

Meeting at Sjany's place, Wednesday, April 5th 2006.
It was a regular meeting like we usually have, but that time I felt enthusiastic feelings among our group. May be because 2 days ago we have just had our 'Church annual business meeting'. It is a yearly meeting attended by our church member to present and discuss about church business.
We had many things to celebrate :
- Juddy Ang has elected as a new deacon.
- Jason has nominated also, but not elected (may be because he was in Singapore so he didn't come to the business meeting).
- Wijaya was appointed earlier to replace Ester as deacon.
- Cherry, our faithful member became member of ICA.

Let's Makan

On March 22nd we have dinner together at Dragon Restaurant on Jl. Jemursari. It was Wijaya, Sjany, Mei Ing, Elly, Jason, Cherry, Abraham, Judy Ang, Fivi, Teddy and Effi. Wow, 11 of us all came! What a big group.
The food was good and we had a good time chatting and joking around. I hope we have more like this in the future :)

Who We Are

GO Solid is a name of one of the cell groups we have in our church, ICA Surabaya. We meet once a week to fellowship. Well, there are tons of things related to the word 'fellowship'. The word 'fellowship' doesn't always related to 'churchy' things. It's a lot of fun there too. We share our life, encourage each others, play games, do project together or even hang out somewhere or have dinner together. Our activities has made us love each other and has built us in every aspect. Eventhough some of our friends stay far away, we have strong relationship in Spirit. (Right, Joey? :)