Grubb Mission Report – March 2018
“Go
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).
A Work of the Chestnut Mountain Church of
Christ, Chestnut Mountain, Georgia USA
*********************************
PLEASE PASS THIS REPORT TO THOSE YOU THINK
MIGHT HAVE INTEREST IN OUR WORK!
If any congregation would like for me to come
and give a report of our work, please let me know so that we can schedule it.
*************************************
Indonesia Trip
On February 5th, I started my 67th overseas mission
trip. Brother Alex Daniel went with me to the cities of Manado, Lampung,
Palembang, Bandung, and Jakarta. Even though there were small glitches in
getting to Jakarta, I made it safely and was met by Alex outside of
immigration/customs.
Because Garuda Airlines cancelled a
flight to Manado in the afternoon, we had to spend a night in Jakarta before
heading to our first stop. I had a chance to visit with Alex Daniel and learn
some very exciting information about the church on the island of Nias. He
visited there last January and learned there are 94 congregations meeting with
approximately 3,000 Christians. He had no idea there were that many in
existence there.
On
Thursday, we headed for Manado. It was over a three hour flight from Jakarta.
We arrived safely and were met by two of our Manado brethren. After eating
dinner and fight traffic, we finally arrived at our hotel.
Friday was a busy day. We spent the
morning in preparations before going to a “wake” for one of the members of the
church here in Manado. I preached and Alex translated into Indonesian. The
topic I chose was, “Keeping An Appointment.” Then after a quick dinner, we
headed to the church building for our first class session on the book of
Nehemiah.
On Saturday, we had breakfast with
several of the brethren then later in the morning we traveled to participate in
the funeral service which started at 12 noon. Once again, I spoke and Alex
translated for me. My text for the lesson was Eccl. 3:1-11. “He has put
eternity in their hearts” (verse 11 NKJV). There were many non-members of the
church there, so it was a wonderful opportunity to preach the gospel of Christ.
On Sunday, I taught a two hour Bible
class continuing our study of Nehemiah. I also preached during the worship on
the subject of “Cooperation.” Of course, Alex Daniel did all of the translating
for me. He has been translating for me for years and we do a pretty good job of
getting the lessons across in the two languages.
On Monday through Thursday evening, we
continued our study of Nehemiah. We had good classes and the students had a lot
of questions, not only about Nehemiah.
On Friday, we took the day off as it was
Chinese New Year. We were able to get together with some of the brethren for
the day.
Also on this day, I learned that Delbert
Goins had passed away. I was 12 years old when Delbert Goins and his family
moved to my hometown of Terre Haute, IN. I had already been instilled with the
desire to preach from my maternal grandparents, Clarence and Pearl Bennett.
Delbert preached both of their funerals in 1966. Delbert encouraged me to
preach and helped arrange my first public sermon on a Sunday night in Marshall,
IL. I was 12 years old. For many years I lost track of Delbert and family. I remember
seeing Myron Goins one time at the FHU lectureship, but otherwise did not know
much about the family. It would be during the 1990's that I finally met up with
Delbert again in Malaysia. Then with social media, we were able to stay in
touch. He supported my work, had me speak at the lectureship in Hubbard, TX,
and continued to be a great encouragement to me. I am saddened at his departure
but happy he is no longer suffering the pain of this life.
On Saturday, we went to Bitung for some
sightseeing, then in the evening, we went to the Suwaan congregation to teach and answer Bible
questions. On Sunday, Alex went back there and I was at Manado. The Rotinsulu
brothers translated for me during Bible class and worship.
We had both lunch
and dinner with brethren. On Monday morning, several brethren met us for
breakfast before taking us to the airport to head to Lampung. We had good
flights to Jakarta and Lampung. We arrived safely, took the luggage to Alex
Daniel’s house, went to dinner and the grocery store before heading back to the
house.
The brethren in Manado would like for me
to schedule a three day teaching session sometime later this year, coming from
Singapore. I am going to try to arrange that. There are two brethren in Manado
who can translate for me.
On Tuesday morning, we started the
morning classes at the Southern Sumatra Bible Academy. I taught from 8-11 a.m.
Tuesday through Friday. On late Wednesday afternoon, we went to the Natar
church of Christ for their Wed. Bible class. Harun Tamale translated for me. On
Thursday night, I taught the regular Bible class conducted at the school.
On Friday morning, I started to get sick.
On Saturday, Alex and I flew to
Palembang, Sumatra to teach at the church there. We met at Saturday night for
two hours having lessons and Q&A. On Sunday morning, we had worship and
Bible study with the brethren there. We returned to Lampung on Sunday evening.
On Monday, I resumed my teaching at the school. These classes continued through
Wednesday. We were to get through all of the prepared material.
On Thursday morning, Alex and Rita
Daniel, and I traveled to Bandung. On Thursday and Friday nights, we had two
hour sessions with the congregation.
On Saturday morning, we were supposed to
fly from Bandung to Jakarta. We were then supposed to have a class at 4 PM at
the Sunter congregation. Our plans had to change. Bad weather kept us on the
ground for almost seven hours. We were finally able to get to Jakarta, but we
did not arrive until after the time we were supposed to meet for the class. So,
it had to be cancelled.
When I finally arrived at the hotel, my
son, Sam, was there to meet me. He had arrived two days earlier on his first
overseas vacation as a flight attendant. He had already done some sightseeing
in the Sunter area. He tried to do some snorkeling, but that was a wash-out.
Sunday was a very busy day. It started at
the Sunter congregation. Jacob and Kim Susetyo came to pick us up for worship.
With Alex Daniel translating for me, I preached at worship, then taught the
Bible class. Since I had been at Sunter two years ago, they had renovated their
building making it much roomier. There was a good attendance for worship.
After the morning worship, we were taken
to lunch with several of the members, including a Filapina sister from Baguio.
She teaches English in Jakarta. In the afternoon, we had a couple hours of rest
then went to another congregation where the worship service was conducted in
English. It was the first time I had spoken without translation on the trip.
Samuel led the singing. After this English service, Jacob took us to eat some
good noodles at a local shop.
On Monday and Tuesday, the Sunter brethren
took us sightseeing and allowed us the opportunity to do some shopping. On
Wednesday, I got up early to see Sam off from the hotel (he had an early flight
out of Jakarta to Hong Kong), went back up to my room to get ready for my
departure at 8:00 AM. Unlike Sam (the taxi driver took him to the wrong
terminal and he almost missed his flight to Hong Kong), my trip to the airport
was smooth, no problems. I boarded my flight for Singapore where I would
overnight before heading back home.
While I was in Singapore, I had dinner
with a friend then went back to the hotel to sleep and get ready for the next
day’s long flight home. The flight from Singapore to Tokyo and Tokyo to Atlanta
all went well.
I had a recurrence of my cold after
getting home and some other problems that I am currently working on getting
over. Thanks for all your prayers on my behalf during this trip.
*************************************
USEFUL WEBSITES
http://www.grubbchinese.org
http://www.wvbs.org
http://www.gbntv.org
http://www.ibtministries.org
http://www.oabs.org
http://ChineseBibleSchool.org
apologeticspress.org/OL_Chinese.aspx
Grubb Mission Reports can be read here:
http://grubbmissionwork.blogspot.com
*************************************
SPEAKING SCHEDULE
2018
Mar. 25-29 Attend MSOP Lectures
April 15-19 Gospel Meeting – Shelbyville Rd.
Apr. 22-25 Gospel Meeting – Collinsville, IL
May 6 – GSOP Lectureship
May 10 – June 11 – CABL, Malaysia, Camp
July 4 – Piedmont Rd. Summer Series
September – China
Oct. 11 – Gospel Meeting – Franklin County
Nov. 19 - Dec. – Singapore, Manado, Taiwan
– John M. Grubb
