Report from Indonesia
IFC Director: Carl Cady
February 26, 2002

Dear Friends--

I am in Australia after a very impacting trip to Manado and Poso. I have a lot to thank the Lord about and yet the concern for the conditions of the refugees continues to stretch me in everyway.

I will be reporting on three topics:

• New Staff in Manado: The area of great need in the refugee camps is the growing medical crisis. IFC now has a nurse and another coming to join the staff.
• TB Crisis: There is an outbreak of TB in the large Mega Belia camp in Bitung. We need to respond!
• Central Sulawesi Still Unsettled: I traveled to Palu and Poso to see the most recent area of conflict. This is a call to prayer!!!

New Staff in Manado

Peter and Ester Scarborough from Melbourne, Australia have committed to spend a year in Manado. She is a nurse and he is an accountant. They have five children who are with them in Manado.

Peter will be in charge of the IFC books. He will help the with growing accounts and direct funds to the designated needs. He will also be leading the water projects for the refugees. He and his family speak Indonesian. This is a big asset for them as they provide ministry to the refugees in the region.

Ester is a registered nurse and has a compassionate heart for the ongoing suffering of the saints in the refugee camps. She is working on assessing the TB crisis and other diseases found in the camps. She will be joined by another nurse in the next month. I thank the Lord for committed people like Peter and Ester. Please pray for them as they invest their gifts and abilities to minister to the suffering and diseased refugees in the North Sulawesi camps.

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TB Crisis

I heard a report that two children had died in the refugee camps in the area. Cathy, Caleb, Ester, Jeff, Annette, and I went to the large Mega Belia camp in Bitung to find the parents of one of those children. We wove our way through the maze of narrow corridors to get to the living space of this grieving family. We were greeted and went into a small room where the father and mother of the child who died were sitting. The dwelling was typical of this refugee site. A blue tarp for the roof with cardboard and old rice and cement bags for walls. We were invited to sit or should I saw squeeze into this tiny room. Their four year old son died of malnutrition and TB. He was just skin and bones the last weeks of his life. He lost his fight for life when his immune system broke down. I have a picture of his father holding him days before he went to the arms of his Father in Heaven. We asked permission to pray for the parents and their other child. I prayed and asked for the comfort of the Lord to help heal their broken hearts. We were all in tears and grieved with them in this great loss to their family. TB is no respecter of persons. It will infect the young or old--it has no regard for age, gender, or marital status.

While in this tattered little room we were swarmed with concerned parents. They brought babies and children for examination. The doorway of this shelter became an examination area. Children were clearly suffering from malnutrition. The babies were covered with sores and the effects of scabies. It was hard to see--I wish everyone of you could have seen the eyes of the parents or grandparents as they watched the nurse examining these children. They were offering these little ones for a chance that some white-skinned nurse could help them. The skin disorders were easily diagnosed. Ester had some medicine to treat those cases.

We walked just a few steps from this make shift examination room to another dwelling. It was dark inside and when my eyes adjusted I could see the figure of a young man laying on a bamboo bed. He was just a rack of bones and laboring to breath. A cloth was draped over his lap and his shirt was stained with blood. He was clearly in the final stages of TB. Ester began to weep--it was at this point she realized that this disease was at a crisis stage in this camp. His parents were caring for him and sleeping in the same small room. We again offered the one thing we did have and that was a simple prayer of faith. We walked out of this camp and saw several others with signs of TB. Ester will be doing an assessment and will have the results in a week or so. She is sure it is serious problem.

We left that night and thought about the 7,000 souls in that crowded camp. How many are infected with TB. Then what can we do to save some of them. IFC is small--we don't have enormous resources. We would be glad to share our report with any organization who has the resources but for now we must do what we can.

Please consider helping us save some of these affected people. In order to treat TB the infected person must go into a treatment period of nine months. They need to be separated from others and their care needs to be supervised. We have taken the Mother Teresa philosophy of treatment--help the ones you can touch. We want to take 10 TB patients at a time to a rented house for nine months of care. The cost of renting a house providing food, medicine, and local health care supervision will be about $ 750 a piece. That is less than $ 85 a month to save a persons life. I am asking you to help us save some of these people. All our professional staff is volunteer. We will be training local heath workers on how to treat this disease. This is about $ 2.80 a day. Please help us and pray we will be able to treat a large number of these broken people.

The camp leaders have told us despair is growing in the camps. The government has stopped the little aid they were giving these people. The one bowl of rice and limited other help was never enough but it was something. The people are being forced to accept the governments plan to send them back to their homes. They are literally being deprived of food and we are watching the affects of this strategy. All the camp leaders have said that the children are suffering the most. I can testify to that because I have seem it with my own eyes. This starvation plan is inhumane. It is costing lives and these who have been through the most horrific violations are being violated again. Not by a wild eyed Islamic terrorist but by the anonymous face of bureaucracy policy makers. " For I know your transgressions are many and your sins are great, You distress the righteous and accept bribes, And turn aside the poor in the gate." Amos 5:12 They are willing to crush these people with the weight of injustice. These refugees can't go home. The problem is many of their homes are destroyed and others are occupied by Muslims. Their security is not guaranteed and almost all the promises by the government have been broken, so they have little trust left.

The refugees have asked for five conditions of return to their homes. 1) Guarantee of work. 2) Guarantee of security. 3) Guarantee of health services. 4) Guarantee of educational opportunities. 5) Guarantee of religious freedom. The government can not guarantee any of these at this time. They want an impartial security force to oversee their security. Many of them were attacked by Indonesian Military and don't want to find themselves putting the safety of their families in the hopes the Indonesian military will act unbiased. They also ask that the jihad militia be removed from the region. They believe the chances to heal the wounds and offer reconciliation could begin if the jihad terrorists are gone. One of the camp leaders suggested that the government rebuild their churches before they go home as a sign they are serious about their freedom to worship. Please pray for this complicated issue. The refugees want to move to their homes but not at the price of the lives of their family.

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Central Sulawesi Still Unsettled

I wanted to see for myself the most recent area of conflict in Central Sulawesi. I flew from Manado with Ian Freestone, an Australian, and Dr. Jeff Hammond, head of IFC, to Makkassar in South Sulawesi then to Palu. We stopped in Makkassar for a couple hours and met a local pastor who took us to the site of the beating death of two Christians just a couple months earlier. The pastor was a little tense as we were caught in a traffic jam near this site. He told us how radical university students did sweeps on car asking for ID card. He showed us his card--there is a clearly marked line where you declare your religion. There were two Christians found in these sweeps and they were pulled from their vehicles then beaten to death. A church not far from there was burned to the ground near the same time. I lifted a prayer for the Christians in this place--for courage and love to replace fear and anger.

We were joined at the airport in Makkassar by The Baroness Cox, of Queensbury and here two aids. She is a member of the Upper House of Lords in England. She had invited us to meet her in Palu and join her on this official diplomatic visit. She was accompanied by her Muslim friend Omar. He was from Sudan and had been through 20 years of war in his country. He had seen the destruction of that nation. He was a brilliant man with high level contacts in Indonesia. I really enjoyed the time with him. In all there were eight of us in this delegation, the Baroness, her two aids, Omar, an Ambonese representative, Dr. Hammond, Ian Freestone and myself. I must tell you I was amazed at how this group came together but it proved to be the right combination.

We met with local Christian and Muslim leaders the first night. They aired their concerns and suggested solutions. They seemed to agree that they could bring reconciliation if it were left to the local people. The steps of healing the offenses of this conflict are negated by outsiders who keep the people in crisis and attack the reconciliation process.

The next morning we left early for a long drive to Poso and some areas where recent attack destroyed the villages on the road to Tentena. We hired seven well armed police to provide the security in this dangerous area. The destruction was easy to see. House after house were destroyed on both sides of the road as we came into the Poso region. A number of Laskar Jihad were pointed out to us. After meeting with the Mayor of Poso and hearing the official report of the conflict we went out on a fact finding afternoon. According to the official numbers an equal number of mosques were destroyed as churches and only one Buddhist shrine was destroyed in the conflict. We found that these numbers were far from the truth. We found five Buddhist shrines destroyed on one road. After speaking to the local Buddhists they said 42 were destroyed in one day alone. They graffiti marked on the walls of the shrine stated--We destroyed your temple because you helped the Christians. In all our driving we saw only one mosque destroyed but numerous churches.

We were taken to Mosque Number 4 Poso region. We were told that this mosque was destroyed by Christians and that many people were taken to the stream behind the mosque and beheaded. We asked how many were killed and they didn't know. If Christians destroyed and killed these people it is inexcusable. We were later told that this mosque was set on fire by Muslims to incite the people against the Christians and the ones beheaded were Christians. This was the only mosque we saw that was destroyed.

This conflict began with a fight between two boys. A Christian boy's motorbike broke down near a mosque. He went up to the mosque to ask for some tools to repair the bike. He was beaten badly and later brought back friends to settle the score. It was at this point that a Muslim boy was cut with a machete. There was a stain of blood on the ceiling of the mosque where the attack occurred. The boy was cut on the upper triceps but survived. This was the beginning of the conflict. The Imam of this mosque spoke to us and told us what happened and said that he and the others from the mosque began to attack the Christians in their homes and burnt a couple churches. It was chilling as he told of throwing fire bombs into the houses. He was asked if innocent woman and children were in the those houses. He was caught and stuttered to give an answer. He said we only attacked those who resisted. He did not know if innocent people were in the houses they burned. There was a recent report on Australian TV about this conflict. It was slanted strongly against the Christians. I wish the reporters would have asked some hard questions and probed deeper into the facts of this conflict. The Imam was confronted by Omar on the teachings of restraint in the Koran. Omar admonished him in front of his people to commit to reconciliation and forgiveness. The Imam said their emotions were out of control and that was his only defense.

Around every corner were more burned out homes and churches. We stopped to walk through the ruins of several churches that were broken testimonies of the violent waves of attacks. I can't imagine the level of rage behind that kind of devastation. It is a kind of intoxicating madness. We drove by entire villages that were totally destroyed. One of the recent attacks was on a predominately Christian village on the road to Tentena. We toured the village. About 70% of the village has returned to rebuild their homes and church. On the wall in front of the church there were the words--This Church is closed for ever. It has been painted over and the makeshift benches and pulpit are now in place and these brave saints are having church. On another wall was written these words--Onward to Tentena, kill all Christians. I looked around the village to see many children and elderly. I wondered what they had been through these last few months. They all fled into the jungle to find safety from the attacks. What kind of hardships they must have faced.

Imagine on the way back to Palu going by a mosque where it was announced a pastor was beheaded. He had come to be a part of a reconciliation plan. We also stopped at and took pictures of "Camp Taliban". This is a radical Islamic stronghold in this area. We drew a lot of attention and knew it was time to get on our way. Poso was a town of 40,000 where Christians and Muslims lived in peace for generations until that peace was broken in 1998. Today Poso is about 5,000 people with military and police dominating the streets.

Tentena (about 40 miles south of Poso) has over 50,000 Christians who have taken refuge there. They are still low on supplies and need our help and prayers. After attacks in the months of October, November, and December (2001) the Christians faced a well armed jihad militia. There were 60,000 or more Christians held up in the mountain region of Tentena. There was a plea that went out to Christians and national leaders worldwide on December 1st and by December 4th there were 2,500 Indonesian Military sent into protect the people in Tentena. We were told that without the international pressure of Australia, UK, Denmark, and the United States this massacre would have been carried out. In some of our interviews we were told that the jihad had made plans to attack Tentena on December 10th. This was a major attack that would have been a massacre of the unarmed and defenseless. The latest attacks on Christian villages on the road from Poso to Tentena was well thought out and followed with three waves. 1) Bulldozers and graders led the way to clear the road for the transport vehicles. 2) The next wave had large numbers of militia with modern weapons. They would shoot to kill and when a village was cleared the homes would be looted. 3) Then a fuel truck would follow. The homes were sprayed and set on fire. The jihad terrorists had set December 16th to be the day they would dedicate the village of Tentena as a Muslim site.

I want to thank all of you for your prayers during the early days of December. God heard our prayers and the people of this region are grateful for the concern and many tears for them. Please keep praying. They still are not guaranteed of future safety. There are now 4,500 peace keeping troops in the area. All the jihad roadblocks are gone. The military is scheduled to leave in May. Please pray for this situation. Pray for true reconciliation among the local Muslims and Christians. Pray that there will be impartiality on the part of law enforcement. Pray for both Muslim and Christian as they seek peace and security to raise their families and live their lives.


Bless all of you--Hebrews 13:3

Carl Cady

US Director of IFC