Mary and I left Grand Rapids at Monday noon and arrived in Bali, Indonesia mid-afternoon on Wednesday after four flights–including a 15.5 hour flight from California to Singapore. (In Bali, we are 11 hours ahead of Michigan time.) Everything went well except that our checked luggage didn’t arrive–perhaps it will be located tomorrow. More importantly, we had an opportunity to evangelize two people sitting next to us: a friendly pilot from London, England who is an agnostic and a young lady who lives in America but was returning to Thailand to visit her family. We are sending both of them some of our Christian books and Mary was able to give a Bible in her luggage to the woman who was raised as a nominal Buddhist in Thailand. She received it very warmly and reverently after telling Mary that she had never had a Bible in her life. She will start her reading with the Gospel of John.
This evening we had dinner with the president of the seminary (Benyamin Intan) from Jakarta, Indonesia where I hope to teach next week, together with an elder from his denomination, their wives, and another friend. We ate right on the sandy beach of the Pacific Ocean served by a restaurant that is famous for grilled fish (photo #1). Typical of Asians, they order several dishes and pass them around. Our favorites were red snapper, large shrimp, and lobster. While eating, four men came to our table with guitars and asked us what we wanted them to sing. We said, “Amazing Grace” and quite remarkably, they sang it well from memorization even though our guests said they were probably Hindus (photo #2).
Afterward we returned to our suite in the Westin Hotel, where the recent G20 meeting of leaders of twenty nations took place, so there is a large red sign at the entrance to the hotel to commemorate this (photo #3). Tomorrow our guests hope to take us hiking in the mountains of Bali to help us continue to get over our jet lag, and then on Friday we hope to fly back to Singapore where my speaking itinerary begins.
