In 2005, while attending Christ For The Nations, in Dallas, Texas, I met missionaries Josué and Claudinha, who I became friends with, since we studied in the same class (Pastoral School). In an informal lunch they shared about the Timor Project – the country they had been missionaries at for 2 years – and invited me to help them with the work there. After some tempo of prayer, seeking God, I went to Asia and spent 15 months there, serving the Timorses people.

I wrote some posts the in the blog, and you can read them, clicking here.

History

East Timor was discovered in the beginning of the XVI century by a Portuguese squad and was explored commercially by Portugal for four centuries. The island of 32,000 km2 is in the South Pacific, 500 km away from the Australian Coast. It became independent from Portugal in the end of the XX century and the Republic was proclaimed in November 28th of 1975, after a civil war.

Only 10 days later the Indonesian Army invaded the Timorese nation and, in the following 24 years adopted a genocide and political repression. More than 310,000 people (approximately 40% of the population) were slaughtered through murder, torture starvation and concentration fields. Proportionally, there were more deaths in East Timor than the Vietnam War and the Jewish Holocaust.

Dictator Suharto also tried to annihilate the Maubere (native name) culture, by forbidding the population of speaking tetum (native dialect) and Portuguese and divided the people’s faith between Animism and Catholicism and also promoted Islam. Indonesia used the same method that China had used in Tibet: they tried to destroy the cultural roots through miscegenation and and the decreasing of the native population.

In 1999 the people voted for independence after the UN released a document demanding the independence of Timor and there was, once more, a massacre promoted by Indonesia, later on stopped by UN troops. However, after Indonesia left, the majority of teachers, health professionals and commerce people also left the country, leaving the Timorese people with no infra-structure.

In 2006, after a strike by the army, followed by the resignation of about 600 soldiers, once more, a civil war was installed in the country, when approximately 25 people were killed and about 70% of the Timorese population escaped to the mountains, afraid that the terror of the previous years was being brought back.

Today, thanks to God, the situation is different. The UN approved a mission to help East Timor, and the country is being restored. Some countries are helping East Timor financially, like Portugal, Australia and Indonesia.

East Timor has been seen as a great entrance for the Gospel in Indonesia, the country with the biggest Muslim population in the world, and also the rest of Asia.

In Timor, there is freedom to preach the Gospel and they are open to Christians. The Timorese people loves Brazil and is open to the arrival of missionaries.

We believe that Brazil was risen by God to give spiritual coverage to Timor. Brazil was a part of the international force that had the objective of assisting the east-timorese government and ensure its security.

East Timor is, then, a strategic nation for the entrance of the Gospel in Indonesia and Asia.