48 Hours of Love Strengthens Indonesian Marriages

October 31, 2013

“We’ve been afraid that the foundations of our marriage were crumbling,” Surya and Adriana shared during a recent Alliance Marriage Encounter (ALMA) retreat. “But you’ve given us tools to strengthen us. Improvement doesn’t happen magically—it takes work. We are committed to that.”

Surya and Adriana, along with 12 other couples, attended the marriage enrichment weekend in Bandung, Indonesia, October 11–13. The “48 Hours of Love” runs Friday through Sunday evening and is designed to transform marriages—even of couples who are ready to divorce.

ALMA is well established in Latin America and has spread to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. In 2002, Alliance international workers Jim and Sharon Kendall were asked to start a couples’ ministry in Indonesia. They had attended Marriage Encounter weekends during challenging times in their lives and knew firsthand how effective the program is.

The first ALMA–Indonesia weekend was held in 2005 with 18 couples from Bangkok, Thailand, serving as the Kendalls’ support team. Since then, 13 marriage retreats have been held on the archipelago.

2 Corinthians 13:11b was the theme of the October retreat: “Be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.”

“We praise God for the work He did and continues to do!” the Kendalls said. “Our team exemplified unity and peace throughout the weekend because you prayed.”

’Round-the-Clock Prayer

Prayer is vital to ALMA’s success. “About 150 people signed up for our ‘Prayer Clock,’ including 80 from our home church in Blairsville, Pennsylvania,” the Kendalls said. One church member shared, “I’ve been awakened to pray all week for [the retreat].”

Also, training facilitators is a key component for effective ministry. Felix and Lusiana, who are being equipped as support leaders, said, “We didn’t realize so much work went into an ALMA weekend. It was good to have a guidebook to help us know what needed to be done and when.”

Other couples worked behind the scenes. Eko and Pri, who attended the last retreat, assisted with decorating. “ALMA helped our marriage so much that we want to give back,” they said.

Next year the Kendalls want to hold the marriage weekends in the Jakarta/Bekasi area. To that end, they have started training people from Bekasi for support-team leadership positions.

“Pray that more couples will be willing to be trained as ALMA presenters,” Jim and Sharon said. “Also, pray that we will have the time to coach them. We need to help them work through difficulties they’ve endured in their marriage and help them grow.”