There are 1.1 million Jambi Malay people living in Indonesia. The majority of them are unreached, having never heard the Gospel before. This April, Create Perth along with the School of Frontier Media travelled to Indonesia to create media resources for the evangelization of the Jambi Malay. It was our desire to create a film that would help to reveal to these men, women, and children the true character of God – his Fatherhood, mercy and compassion.
Our first few weeks in Indonesia were spent building relationships and feeling out our way, as we were still looking for the contacts we needed to make this film. As we did this, we also learned about the culture and collected photographs and stories for a mobilization website that will share both the strengths and the needs of the Jambi Malay. One family that we met told us about a time when the river swelled, flooding their house and forcing them to live, sleep, and cook inside in their small wooden boats, while defending their home from cobras and alligators. It was great to get to know the local people and many of those we met were honored by our listening ears.
After connecting with a local church leader who is a Muslim-background believer, the doors were opened for us to make our evangelistic film. We quickly got to work, spending six days shooting a short script that we had developed. There were challenges in finding locations to shoot and working with a cast who had never acted before, but God continually showed his faithfulness and each difficulty was overcome. On the last day of filming–already a day later than planned–bad weather threatened to delay us further. However, we had much to praise God for as He calmed the rain for just enough time for us to complete our final scenes.
Our local contacts are just as excited about the completion of this film as we are. There are many potential opportunities in which this film could be used to share the gospel in the main city as well as the surrounding village areas. We look forward to seeing all of these projects completed over the coming months so that they can be used to see God’s light shining more brightly amongst the Jambi Malay.
– Kiara
