All thanks be to God for the opportunity to fellowship and share a message on the coming economic hard times with the Riau provincial leaders of GBI, a denomination of some 20,000 churches, and pastoral leaders of churches in Batam on 12 April 2019. We were hosted by GBI Tabgha church, Batam. (GBI Tabgha church is the largest church in Batam with some 20,000 baptized members.)
The night before, I shared with fellow pastors Ramil, Christy, Sirivuth, Sambo, Vibol and Peter Wanyonyi whether an earthquake would happen to give urgency to the message I would give this very morning. As we returned from Batam at about 7 pm and before we took the train back to the hostel, a 6.8 earthquake happened in Sulawesi, Indonesia triggering a tsunami warning at 7.40 pm. Of course I hope and pray for God’s mercy that there will be no casualty, but yet I have to take God’s warning seriously to expect an exponential increase of earthquakes in this beginning of the birth pains. All glory and praise to our sovereign God that there was little or no casualty.
(I cannot help but to notice the slim odds of such regular occurrence. When I first shared this message on 10 March 2011 in Batam at Alfa Omega, the massive 9.0 earthquake triggering the worst tsunami occurred in Japan the next day. In Nov 2018, I went to share the same message in General Santos, Philippines and a 6.9 earthquake happened just 120 km from the city two or three weeks later.)
