100,000 voices

 

If anyone tells you that a journey through Jakarta will take an hour assume that it could be two...

 The traffic to the Gelora Bung Karno stadium seemed like forever in our rickety coach - even though I did have a great conversation with an  IT specialist who is on the cutting edge of mobile phone technology.  He had a knowing smile and was calmly confident about mobile phones having the capacity for auto language translation within two or three years.  Speaking in other tongues looks destined to become common.

 

But the journey was worth it.  I'm not always very good with giant sized events: they definitely bring out the introvert in me.  But I did get to hear Pastor Enoch Adeboye from Redeemed Christian Church of God twice in one day and David Yonggi Cho live for the first time ever.  And sitting on the benches at Gate 1 made me realize that football pitches aren't as big or as long as they always seem on TV.   I almost fancied that I could kick the ball from one end to the other myself - but not a fancy I would want to test out with people watching.

The programme was a five and a half hour epic crammed with prayers, worship exhortations and a lot of performances.  It was obvious that someone had done an awful lot of work to make this event happen.  Visually it was really impressive and mostly, the kids stole the show.  If you really love PA feedback noises this would have been the place for you.

But it was worth it - even for a crowd-averse creature like myself.   A hundred thousand Christian voices from over 80 nations praising God in this nation was something of a credit to Indonesia's culture of diversity.  Over 2,500 Christian leaders, 20,000 children and youngsters - 2,500 of them as intercessors! And it wasn't just the people in the stadium who made up the event.  There were over 364 cities received satellite feeds from Bung Karno stadium. Apparently that was over 2 million people.  And then you have to add all those who were watching around the world.  The stadium which refused Lady Gaga opened its arms to 100,000 voices.

Something seems to be going on with prayer and you left with the feeling that it's only just beginning.

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