Indonesia, Asia

IDN01 - Bluebird Group - Micro-funding and Development: Partnership Reports



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Report Date: May 5, 2019

Report from BHW Indonesia Partnership Facilitator

The BHW facilitator visited for three days at the end of March to see how the partnership is developing. Prospective facilitators travelled with them to meet and understand the partnership. They spent two days listening to stories of key people. 

Trevor, the key person, had broken a vertebra in his back so had to talk from his bed. The discussions ranged around the overall development of the work but especially around the impact of Bright Hope World’s support for the community development budget. 

 

Recent Events

B and W

One morning we met two of the key leaders and they shared a lot about how their work has developed and how they go about it. We are not revealing names and various aspects are intertwined to give the overall scene. There is so much to learn from these gleanings. 

Loan Groups: The establishment of loan groups is a very powerful means of empowerment. The funds come to the loan group through the co-op or the local worker. The people don’t know where the money really comes from. Recently they had a free medical clinic, it was presented as coming from the local workers and was sponsored by the Forestry Department – they were the ones given the kudos. As this was a government department and not political, it broke down barriers and gave them cover. Because it was so effective the department now wants to extend this on a much wider scale. 

They spend a lot of time developing strategic relationships with key local people. This includes traditional, religious and government people. They are under constant scrutiny by the government and radical M's.  

Local new believers and also those coming to faith are immediately involved in fronting the work. Groups form around study, usually 5-8 people at each house. Clusters of 10-15 groups are formed and they choose a leader - a cluster leader. 

As the number of groups and clusters grows they create another level of leaders, those who meet with leaders from different areas. There are different layers and types of leaders. Specialised training is given to leaders for different purposes. 

In his group, W has 5,118 groups. They are not all in a geographical area, much of the fruit has jumped to other islands. They attempt to visit at least annually, sometimes there could be 100 leaders to visit. They have many leaders to relate to and try to get to as many as possible. The purpose of the trips is to gather cluster leaders and provide training and also to hear about the needs arising in the communities. They bring all this back to Java to plan for the future. 

Just this network has spread to 17 countries and has reached into 40 different Unreached People Groups (UPGs.) It is really important to increase the income of the leaders as it is not sustainable to support them from somewhere else. Many of the groups are in isolated places and a fair amount of travel is required from leaders. 

Ongoing coaching is often done through WhatsApp. Training occurs in groups of 12 - 30. People are mentored by taking a road trip in a car. They use informal training methods often in small restaurants on the side of the road etc. where that number can gather.

In order for things to go well, they need to help the government with their vision for the communities. This includes social impact ministries, free hospital visits, fish farms, raising and selling goats. A popular intervention is with water buffalo. Often the water buffalo are large and skinny so they help get them healthy and ready for sale using probiotics in a natural way. They have a formula to make this mix, the recipe is kept a secret so that contact is continued. The ongoing contact strengthens bonds and gives opportunities for spiritual impact.

Fish farming is also effective. They have a pack that can get a farmer started that costs US$600. It includes a pool liner, food and fish. Help is given to getting started, raising and selling the fish. This pack provides an income for a single family and benefits others around them. The pack is given as a gift but the family is responsible to dig the hole and get the farm established. No money is exchanged - this helps keep them below the radar as there is no money to pay back, there is no trail to follow for those who might be suspicious. 

Three believer families or groups are encouraged to find seven other believing families to make a commitment to build 10 fish farms in the local area. This impacts the area for good and raises the standard of living. There is usually one key person who is good at making connections.  Relationship with a local government leader is critical and the training is provided through this local leader. 

There are three stages of development:
1) Skills training – they need to get the skills to the right people
2) Evaluation process - have they got the skills and how are they doing. Training happens before the packs are given out. 50 people in the village are trained and the top seven are chosen, those who are most invested and these are linked to the original three.
3) Making the selection and working alongside them. They are evaluated after 1 week, 1 month, 2 months and 3 months - constantly evaluating.

Then the ongoing task is maximising impact or monitoring - they focus on the social ministry first before the spiritual conversation comes up. The transition happens after the group has settled and formed. They now start to look at how do we live well together - the original three drive this process. From the beginning, the three are always looking for opportunities to share. 

The genius of this is the social relationships are already formed through the fish farming, trust is built so the spiritual discussions come easily. Those who want to follow Isa face the issue that it’s a social decision, it has huge social implications. They don’t want them to change their religious status, just how they live. They are coached that if their meeting is causing a problem, then just move the meeting so it doesn’t cause trouble.

Throughout these phases of development, they will be connected to a spiritual teacher and they are asked not to cut connections with the teacher. Groups are intentionally put together with everyone who has the same level of interest/commitment etc - this lessens suspicion in the community. 

If it happens that the fish group is not ready to become a spiritual group or it doesn’t form up well, the initial three will still stay connected in their original spiritual group.

They use two types of fish – freshwater whitefish and catfish. They are farmed differently. In the last three quarters of 2018, they gave out 174 packs for catfish and 187 for whitefish. 

Motorcycle repair: Another type of social ministry is training in motorcycle repair. From an existing group of believers, they will find someone who has the skill and who is interested to train someone else. Once they have been trained they go on a trip, 10 days to two weeks on another island. They find people who might be interested in learning. There are three levels of people;
1) Level 1 – someone who can repair motorcycles
2) Level 2 – someone who has the skill and can train others
3) Level 3 – someone who could open their own shop and support themselves. They try to find a person who feels they want to be sent to another area, a modern version of tent-making. They then identify an area where no one else is doing this and they are sent out. They interact with the person, where they would like to go and the group sends them out.  A group of cluster leaders identifies the areas of need.

Microfinance and credit loans are another effective means of engagement. People join a group and are given an interest-free, zero administration fee loan that is time bound on a situational basis. There are other people offering loans but they all charge fees.

People are loyal to their family group and will only buy from them so many small businesses operating out of the garage can survive but not make a profit. 

To set people up for success they must have experience and business knowledge. They only loan to a group of 10 - three believers and seven non-believers. The loan amount is around INR2 million (US$165) per group; a seed fund. Once each person has received their INR2M loan and paid it back they decide what to do with the money. This way the groups retain the sense of ownership. If the group has to repay the funds it feels to them like the business belongs to the person who loaned them the money. This way the group members feel like they are investing in each other’s business as they repay the loan to each other. We heard about many different types of business: selling gasoline, trading and selling vegetables, selling SIM cards and data, selling packaged fruit, trading live chickens, fish selling carts…. Some of them pay their loan back in one day. 

This is a vital strategy for the guys on the ground. The social connection is the entry point, then the quality of life increases and spiritual growth occurs. Neither can occur without the other. Social ministry is important to provide access to the environment and increase income of the main leaders so they can sustain their ministry.  

University Students have particular issues when they become believers. As Islamic students sent to be educated by their families, there are many obligations to the family. Many have their support cut off. Through the Social Development Fund, they have helped many to establish coffee carts on the university campus and around these they are able to have spiritual conversations. They sell data and set up wi-fi hotspots that attract students. There are many of these groups in various universities.  

English clubs also attract the academics, intellectual people, government officials and police etc. In one Saturday English club at a university, the head of the English department and all the teachers came. The leader got them to talk about their lifeline in groups of three. They had to share three positive things and three negative things in their lives. This surprised the faculty and they were astounded at how much the students talked, for the first time they discovered that the students had so many problems. They have been invited back to spend time counselling students after the English club each week. They talk about their problems and also spiritual conversations about Isa. 

Free medical clinics work well and create many opportunities. The Javanese culture is very family focused and if the leader stops smoking the impact will be significant for the rest of the family. This has implications in many aspects of family life. 

 

Much of the growth into other countries has happened through migrant workers, mostly women. Many Indonesians move to another country so they prepare them to move and train them to reach out to other people. Many of those they meet are other Indonesians and when those people return home and share about their new faith they face trouble with their families. They have developed a safe house for those who are thrown out of their families. Many of the migrant workers require inner healing and counselling, many have been abused. This happens in the normal course of life but often this happens after they become believers. 

When a M comes to faith they are still in a M culture and do not change religion or identity. When they reach out to M families they develop resources to assist them with specific issues. With intellectual students, they teach about how to manage the potential problems of dating, finances, sex, relationships and the like.  

 

Personal Stories

T  

T’s grandmother had died the day before he met us and he was in the middle of the funeral. He shared about her impact on his life. She asked that when she died she did not want anyone to be sad, she wanted them to be happy. She was 97 and was happy to go forward. She served as his mother and his faith heroine. The testimony to people of other faith was powerful in that no one was crying but happy. His grandmother blessed so many people. She came to the Lord through a Chinese pastor 50 years ago, she was the first one in the extended family to come out of Islam. He came to the Lord as a result of her testimony. 

He is married with five boys and one daughter. His wife is involved in this project and visits with him regularly. Twice a year he takes the children with him as his wife is from the area where his network is based.  

His work began in West Java 15 years ago with various community development approaches. This is an area where there is an unreached people group, 99% M. When he first started he did not know where or how to start. He tried various methods, the one thing he has continued is community development.

Health Centres and Sanitation Projects: T has established three community health centres and a community sanitation project. This has continued. They try to help families to build a bathroom, this began 12 years ago. It has meant working together with the head government health official and the head of the health clinic. 

It came about from one time he was in a village and stepped in human excrement. He asked why do they do this and why does the government not help with this. He discovered that this was the habit of the people. As he debriefed the story with his team they felt it would give them the opportunity to be in the homes, talk to people, get to know their families, neighbours and develop relationships with local government people.

They started with the goal of 25 households in a block of 100 families. This is a very bureaucratic country so this worked well to develop relationships with the government officials. When they surveyed 400 hundred families, 60% did not have toilets and this was in one of the more developed areas in the country. They began to realise this was a very big problem. 

The key thing was to find a project that would be impactful and develop strong relationships and the key goal was to bring the gospel to these families. The team members stayed in the village and helped the local people build them. The first phase went really well and the people got toilets and they built relationships. The next phase was repetitive follow-up visits. This is one of the ways the gospel comes into the community. They don’t fund 100% of the development, they supply the cost of the materials and pay for one professional builder, the local people provide most of the labour. 

His role as facilitator was to develop work groups from the community around these poor families, five neighbours help each family. Each team member has the goal of knowing these five neighbours. The work groups often become spiritual groups. Many wanted to be baptised after the 1st phase so they felt they should proceed with more projects and worked with the government. 

The government decided that this would be a pilot project for the area and gave permission to work freely in this region with about 1 million people. This permission was very helpful to enter this area and they continued in the same way. So far they have built toilets in five districts in this province, 1,700 toilets so far and have formed relationships with 1,700 families and their five neighbours. To date 700 people have been baptised and there are eight generations of groups. 

Their success in this has helped them roll this out to other areas. Recent data collected in January revealed 5,700 believers in this area. About half are from villages where they did the sanitation project. They have been working in areas that are quite poor and people are touched that the Christians would care for them.   

Block Making Business: After the recent tsunami in Lombok, T went to visit three times. On the most recent visit, there was another earthquake 5-6 km from where he was staying and many more houses fell down. There is a lot of emotional trauma in the area. In the first earthquake and tsunami, about 6,000 houses were destroyed and the second time about 600. 

After the first visit it was very obvious that the houses were built to very inferior standards. After returning home he decided to do some research and decided that the best way forward was to set up a concrete block making business. So he did a lot of research on how to make good quality blocks. He had discovered that the common way of making blocks was to put in little cement and to use a lot of old rubble from broken buildings and blocks. He researched how blocks were made in other places and on the internet. He discovered that he needed to make them with the correct amount of cement and only use sand, and there is a lot of sand on Lombok. Also, it is OK to make them by hand. So, he practised a lot and worked out the best methods. He also realised that for this to be sustainable he needed to do it as a business so he worked out the costs of making them and what he would need to sell them for. 

On the second visit, he talked to 5 -7 families about his idea of rebuilding with concrete blocks that they made themselves. The people were not convinced of his ability to act as an advisor so he suggested that they build one house and then consider a business. One person was particularly interested; he was the second man they met not the first. He went with this man and researched what was going into the blocks, a lot of low-quality material. He then showed how he did it and compared ingredients and quality. They spent two days researching this. 

They experimented all day until they were making good quality blocks. He had three moulds and three people. By doing this he got to know the people well. Through those relationships, he got to talk about the gospel. They could make 1,500 blocks per truckload and discovered that they had to sell 1,000 blocks to have enough money to buy the next load of sand and cement. They then began to build their houses with the leftover blocks and developed an income stream after that. He also taught them how to make strong foundations with concrete and reinforcing steel and left seven families with foundations built. The cost of a cube frame for a house is US$300. 

This was the example group, making, selling and using blocks for their own houses. They figured out the budgets and by the time he left, after the second visit, he had two groups operating. He left short instructional videos to teach and remind them how to make the concrete blocks and construct houses using steel. They have plenty of demand even though they are selling blocks at a slightly higher price than other people because of the quality. 

After the third visit which he had just returned from, he has found that there are now five groups of people making blocks. He was so happy to see the impact. He met with a local government official on the island who wanted to know about the project and if he would be interested to expand this project.

There are now 27 believers on the island and several people are discussing baptism. He thinks there are believers in all the work groups now. The initial three groups have been encouraged to help the two new groups so that quality is ensured. He is so thrilled that the relationships had deepened with the believers, the government workers and also the impact of the groups.

One of T's team members is moving to Lombok to continue the work and follow up. This is called jump over. There is lots of potential for growth and T will visit again in April.  

 

Partnership's Influence within the Community

Community development is a very effective way to engage a community. Relationships are very important and becoming involved with people in their felt needs is a powerful tool. Without this funding, it would be very difficult to engage people and communities. 

Because of the poverty in communities the government does not prevent them becoming involved. But they are watching and hear the stories about the micro loans and the impact. However, many of the government people become part of the movement. This does mean that they are very careful about how they act, live and speak. In April 2019 there are elections and the big parties are out buying votes. They are being very careful and backing off their public profile so they don’t get entangled in the politics.

 

Plans for the Future

This team is exceptional. The key leaders meet quarterly and discuss the various issues that emerge from the network. From that, strategies and resources are developed. They have well thought through strategies and require no input at that level from outside. 

 

Current Issues and Challenges

The ongoing need to bring more people into leadership. 

That God would protect their key people.

That the series of books Trevor is writing will continue to be written and will come off the printing press. 

 

 

Prayer and Praise Points

1) The continued growth of this movement. It is quite astounding. Every day hundreds of people are coming to faith.
2) That the upcoming election will see a moderate party become government
3) That Trevor’s back will heal completely and not become an impediment to the growth of the movement. 

 

Comments

I am totally amazed each time I visit and hear what is happening in this partnership. It is like an impossible thing is percolating away in Indonesia. From listening to Trevor and other leaders, it is very obvious that by funding the community development budget we are strategically investing. It is an essential part of their strategy but it is not easy for them to raise these funds. 

I would suggest strongly that we look very carefully at increasing our investment over the coming years. I feel there is nowhere else in our partnerships where our investment is making a greater return at the spiritual and economic levels.