The Dolly district of Surabaya is one of Southeast Asia’s largest red-light districts. Surabaya’s new mayor has pledged to shut down the area by June 18th. A few weeks ago, over 1200 sex workers marched through the district protesting the closing. They say they won’t be able to earn a… Read more

West Java is quickly becoming one of the most intolerant provinces toward religious minorities in Indonesia. Authorities in the Cianjur district, which is about 90 km from Jakarta, have ordered seven churches to close because of allegedly having irregularities in their building permits. Building a church in Indonesia is a… Read more

Joko Widodo, otherwise known as “Jokowi” is the favorite in Indonesia’s current presidential campaign. He has named Jusuf Kalla as his running mate. He made the announcement on Monday, May 19. Unlike Jokowi, who was a furniture seller turned politician, Kalla has been in politics for a long time, as… Read more

A year ago, Dr. Michael Youssef and Leading the Way Ministries did a revival in Indonesia. The ministry is continuing to impact this country. A team of 100 Christian leaders is still doing follow-up with each person who made a decision for Christ at the revival. On March 1st, they… Read more

A woman in Aceh was gang raped last week because she was accused of having an affair. She now faces being publicly caned for the affair. Ibrahim Latif, the head of the sharia office in her town says that both she and the man will be caned because they violated… Read more

The governor of Gorontalo, Rusli Habibie, has enacted a local law requiring all government employees to pray together regularly and to attend half-hour sermons every Friday in an effort to discourage them from cheating on their spouses. He states that he has heard many reports of civil servants cheating. He… Read more

Underage prostitution is booming in Bandung, the capital of West Java. Three different nongovernmental organizations have interviewed over 700 underage prostitutes and found that most are not in it just for the money. Most of them come from a broken family. Prostitution provides the girls with an escape from domestic… Read more

Two brothers from Papua, Demianus and Seth, have recently escaped pesantrens (Islamic boarding schools) and are now telling their stories. The brothers’ parents died when they were young, and their uncle approached them and said he had a way that they could receive a free education, but they had to… Read more

A second volcano has erupted in Indonesia. Mount Kelud in East Java violently erupted Thursday evening. The eruption could be heard up to 125 miles away. One Indonesian described it as sounding like “…thousands of bombs exploding.” The ash has spread as far as west as Yogyakarta, with some villages… Read more

The Aceh provincial administration and legislative council have approved the Qanun Jinayat (behavior-governing bylaw), which means that both Muslims and non-Muslims in Aceh must follow sharia. Aceh has enforced sharia for a while now, but it was only enforced for Muslims. Now, non-Muslims must follow it, and all violators will… Read more

A small church in Central Java has struggled for more than a decade to keep it’s worship facility. They were excited last month when it re-opened, but their excitement was short-lived. On December 1, a rural church began worshipping together again in their building, but just two weeks later, were… Read more

Two hundred Shia Muslims have yet to return home. Although the Indonesian president visited the area last month, there have been no follow-up efforts to help the Shi’ites return to their village. They are willing to make peace with the Sunnis in their home, but do not want to be… Read more

Mount Sinabung, a volcano in North Sumatra erupted again nine times Monday night and Tuesday morning. In November, the warning level was raised when it started erupting, and some people evacuated then. But as a result of the Tuesday eruption, police and soldiers are forcing everyone to live in a… Read more