Believe It Or Not

Recently I remember so vividly a testimony given by a guest priest in my old church (side note: old church = the last church in which I was a member back in Bandung, Indo, before I moved to Finland).

Sometime last year there were several churches burned by some Moslem fanatics. The priest had an appointment in one church in a housing complex.

As this topic's pretty delicate, I just wanna say that I'm not writing this to portray the Moslems (or Indonesia) in a negative way. I used to live with my parents in a small alley and we had more Moslems as neighbours and we got along VERY well with them. And I LOVE Indonesia!!! Just read on and you'll find out what I want to say. It IS true, though, that the government is giving a hard time to people who want to build churches back in Indo. They will try their best not to give the stamp of approval for new churches. It's a pretty complicated issue and I won't write in details about that. I also want to state that I have no grudge against the government as I believe that there are also positive sides resulting from such an "oppression" (or whatever term you want to use).

Anyhow, back to the story...so the priest was driving to the housing complex where apparently there was a riot going on. Some people were checking up on every car coming in and out of the complex. The priest was naturally sweaty (yep, he's only human) because on the windshield there was a Christian eye-catching sticker. He sent a quick prayer to God and then decided to go through with it. Some guys noticed the sticker when he was about to enter the gate to the complex and they started yelling, "A Christian! Burn the car! Burn the car!" while crowding around the car.

Then all of a sudden came out a Moslem leader from one of the houses. He told them to tell the priest to park the car in his driveway. He then greeted the priest as though they were best friends. Then he forbade the younger guys to bother the priest. Then the priest got on with his business and when he got back to the Moslem leader's house to get his car, he noticed that the same guys who'd threatened him had actually washed his car! Neat, eh? Thus he went home safely. He said that the Moslem leader would probably have been confused afterwards as they had NEVER met before!!!

Believe it or not. :-))))