where to adventure travel in indonesia

World travel will change your life. If you enlarge your heart, you will also enlarge your world.

12 Compelling Reasons to Go! - Part I

1.Jesus said to "Go into all the world and preach the good news to every creature." (Mark 16:15) Go is two-thirds of God's name. Everything that is living is moving and going somewhere. God's children should be no different. We should always be on a mission to explore, discover and impact the world. Jesus knew He must go through Samaria (John 4:4). Where is your heart telling you to go? What places tug at your heart within and draw you to them? Life is lived to the full when there is adventure involved.

Break free of monotony and go somewhere new this year! Take some vacation time to explore the unknown. Launch out into the deep to do something new. Get a hold of God and let go of some of you. Stimulate your senses and begin to live in God's Presence. God loves the world. You should too!

I once heard Pastor Ulf Ekman of Sweden say, "You never have a right to remain in your own country until you first have asked God where He wants you to live."

To many people their country has become an idol. You should never worship the soil you were on which you were born. Yes you should be patriotic and favor your national cause, but first and foremost as a Christian your citizenship is in heaven. Therefore our pilgrimage on earth should be such that we endeavor to go to as many peoples as we can that we might win them to Christ for eternity.

2.See the wonders of the world. "Be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create" (Isaiah 65:18). Rejoice in the beauty of God's creation. There are some amazing things to see that the Creator has made. Natural beauties such as the Niagara Falls, the Amazon River, the Rain Forest, pristine islands surrounded by oceans and seas, spectacular mountains, breathtaking views, the Grand Canyon, wild game in African parks and middle east deserts all enchant the soul and intrigue the eyes. Our Maker filled the earth with countless wonders to be enjoyed. God gives us richly all things to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17). Every country has its own peculiar natural beauty to be enjoyed. If you live near a lake, waterfall, lovely park or garden you should take time to enjoy it.

Beyond what the Creator Himself has made are the many magnificent works of mankind. The Taj Mahal, the leaning tower of Pisa, the magnificent paintings in the Louvre, and the Great Wall of China are just some of many notable accomplishments worthy of seeing. Yet unless you get a passport and pack your bags to go, you shall never experience such wonders of the world. There is nothing like going abroad and experiencing things firsthand yourself. TV and textbooks can educate you, but experience can effect and impact you.

3.Dead religion needs to be destroyed. God is often misrepresented by dead religion. People throughout the world are enslaved to man-made religion. Traditions and doctrines of men have bound the souls of mankind throughout the nations (Mark 7:13; Matthew 15:3,9). Demon spirits themselves have taken residence within religions to exert their influence, enslave humanity and oppress people (1Timothy 4:1-3). Though many may be sincere in their religious pursuits, a good number are deceived and sincerely wrong. The God of heaven is not religious. God is a Spirit not a religion (John 4:24). God wants you to be spiritual. The devil and man want you to be religious. God is real and relatable. Religion is aloof and uncouth. As the apostle Paul said throughout Asia, "There are no gods made with hands" (Acts 19:26). This message again needs to be trumpeted throughout the earth to destroy dead religion and its evil effects upon humanity. People need to be liberated from religion and drawn into a life-giving relationship with their Creator. ***new paragraph*** I wrote a book titled God Hates Religion to set the captives free. When you hate what God hates, you will be ignited with a passion to fight for mankind that they might be free. Religion is deadly not divine. God loves people (whether they are religious or not), but religion God has no tolerance for as it misrepresents Him and His heart.

The only way to truly grasp how evil and deceiving religion is would be to go overseas and see it in operation. When I was in Taipei, Taiwan I noticed a couple pizzas and two-liters of soft drink outside the entrance to a Pizza Hut. Being an American who had eaten at Pizza Hut many times before, I felt right at home and walked in. I immediately asked if I could eat those fresh baked pizzas outside. The manager said, "No." I said, "Why not?" He said, "That's for the spirits." I said, "What spirits." He said, "It is for the ghosts, to bring our business good luck."

Herein lies the motivation for the religious practices of many Buddhists. They fear evil spirits. Therefore they try to appease them with offerings of food, drink and the burning of incense. It is quite common to see businesses throughout Asia erect a shrine in which they burn incense, uphold a statue of Buddha, and offer food sacrifices. They don't care in the least about being politically correct or offending some non-religious employee or an employee who believes differently.

Appeasement is the motive of many Buddhist practices, as they think they can appease and somewhat befriend evil spirits. Some of my Bible school students in Burma (formerly Buddhist monks themselves) told me that Buddhists fear evil spirits. Upon reading the holy Bible and seeing the power knowledgeable Christians possess, these Buddhist monks left Buddhism to worship and serve Jesus. In fact in the area along the Andaman Sea where we held the Bible school, an earthquake hit a Buddhist temple and leveled it to the ground. Suddenly all of the people in the village began saying, "The Christians God is stronger than Buddha."

Prior to the earthquake, the founder of the Bible school Dr. Jack Tuls prayed over the area and at the location of the Buddhist temple. It was no coincidence that the earthquake leveled that temple. Almighty God had a plan to awake those people to the reality of the risen Christ, the most high and one true God.

It was no different in Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia where the tsunamis began and killed over 200,000 people. The tsunami epicenter was strategically located and no accident. For years Muslims in Banda Aceh killed and persecuted Christians, burning down churches and forbidding foreign aid workers entry to their province. Banda Aceh historically even was a renegade province as the Muslims there had for many years sought to break away from Indonesia to create their own separatist state.

God showed me the tsunamis sweeping through southeast Asia in a dream a month before it ever happened. The devastation occurred December 26, 2004. I watched it on TV from Paris, France and wanted to go to Indonesia immediately upon seeing it. The Holy Spirit however forbade me to go saying, "Not yet."

Three months after when I finally got to Banda Aceh to provide assistance with other relief workers, dead bodies were still being buried. My translator told me just two weeks before I arrived the stench from dead bodies throughout the streets was so bad she got ill. Thankfully I restrained myself from going until I felt the Spirit of the Lord release me to go.

Once I was in Banda Aceh I talked to local Pastors. I learned that the Muslims had been plotting to burn churches down the morning of December 26th when the tsunami floods came. One Foursquare church had been holding a prayer meeting on the third floor when suddenly they were all baptized. I saw the watermark on the ground floor at the five-foot mark. This church was at least two miles from the ocean.

I spoke to Muslim men who lost their wives and children in a single day. One man told me he cried for two months straight when he lost his family. One young man told me he saw the tsunamis coming, jumped on his motorcycle and headed for the mountains when suddenly the turbulent waters caught up to him, washed him off his motorbike and swept him up to the mountains which were two coconut trees high. Beneath his feet were rushing waters with debris consisting of trees, tin roofs, cars, human bodies and everything else you can imagine. It was like a gigantic blender beneath you ready to chop you up right along with it.

Once at the epicenter in Banda Aceh, we met a young man who courageously had begun collecting bricks and materials to rebuild his home. Most other locals weren't even considering rebuilding as they feared another tsunami would soon come to destroy it. Isai and I felt an earthquake shaking our beds and our entire hotel at 3am while we were there. The earthquakes and after shocks were ongoing. Nias, a neighboring island, was hit by an earthquake weeks later which killed another 3,000 people.

So even being there from a safety perspective wasn't the most brilliant move on our part. Nevertheless our hearts went out to the Indonesians and we desired to be there. We helped the young man we met buy supplies and start rebuilding. We gave his family our tent to stay in next to their home while they rebuilt. His home and neighborhood was just 100 meters from the sea. So it was certainly understandable why many had not begun rebuilding. We prayed that by seeing him rebuild others would courageously follow and bounce back from the tragedy of the tsunamis.

The most memorable after effect however was the changed hearts of the local people. Where in the past they forbade international aid workers and the Christian community entrance into their province, now they were humbly receiving all help and people with open arms. I saw Muslim men and veiled women everywhere smiling and waving with gratitude expressing their thanksgiving for us being there. Truly the unification of all peoples and the change of hearts was the greatest and most notable miracle.

Paul Davis is author of Breakthrough for a Broken Heart a book telling us "How to overcome disappointments and blossom into your dreams!" He is a life coach (relational & professional), popular worldwide keynote speaker, creative consultant, humor being, adventurer, explorer, mediator, minister, liberator and dream-maker.

Paul's compassion for people & passion to travel has taken him to over 50 countries of the world where he has had a tremendous impact. Paul has also brought revival to many in war-torn, impoverished and tsunami stricken regions of the earth. His nonprofit organization Dream-Maker Ministries is building dreams and breaking limitations.

Paul's Breakthrough Seminars inspire, revive, awaken, impregnate with purpose, impart the fire of desire, catapult people into a new level of self-awareness, facilitate destiny discovery and dream fulfillment.

Contact Paul for coaching or speaking at: RevivingNations@yahoo.com 407-967-7553.

For additional info: [http://www.CreativeCommunications.TV], http://www.DreamMakerMinistries.com, [http://www.PaulnKarla.com]