While traveling to Sihabonghabong, Indonesian Kristen Lutheran Church (GKLI) Bishop suggested that we visit three important sites along the way. These are sights remembering and honoring the beginning of Christianity among the Batak people on the Island of Sumatra.
The first was the place where Ludwig Nommensen saw the Batak people. On November 11, 1863 He was hiking down the mountain and saw the camps and smoke from the cook fires in the valley down below. He knelt by the rock pictured to the right and prayed in part, “O God, live or die let me be in the midst of the Batak people in order to spread Your Word and Your work.” He would then live and work with the Batak people until his death on May 23, 1918. At the time of his death God had used Nommensen to establish a church with over 180,000 members.
Bishop also brought us to the first Batak congregation which was planted by Nommensen. It is not the original building, but it is in the same location. The current sanctuary was build some time in the 1940s.
Our last destination before completing the drive to Sihabonghabong was a site commemorating two Christian martyrs from America, the Henry Lyman and Samuel Munson memorial. There is a mural that tells the story of the Gospel’s reception in Batak land.
The story is told with images as your eyes move from left to right. The Batak people are depicted going about their normal lives when Henry Lyman and Samuel Munson show up and beging to proclaim the Gospel to them. At this time the Gospel is not received and the two men are martyred. (It is not shown in this mural, but they were eaten by the Batak people.) Later Nommensen arrives and begins to proclaim the Gospel to the people again. This time the Gospel is received. The people are seen repenting, going to church, and raising up their own Christian leaders.
I was concerned about the image depicted on the lower right of the mural. At first it appeared to me that suddenly they were all wearing western clothing and I was a little concerned that ‘Westernization’ was being celebrated. But that is not the case. Rather this last image on the bottom right corner depicts the Lyman and Munson families reconciling with the Batak people. That is certainly a beautiful thing. The story of the Gospel among the Batak people is a story of God not giving up, but sending again and again the news of Christ’s death and resurrection. And that reality is realized concretely in the reconciliation between the Batak people and the Lyman and Munson families.
Thanks and praise be to God for His marvelous work in generations past. May He continue to use us as He accomplishes His will in this world!