The Next Day
You wake up and look out the hotel window at the lush green rice fields and mountains beyond. It's a beautiful day but you remember reports in the media of times when smoke haze covers this island.
Every year since 1997 smoke from peat fires elsewhere on Sumatra has spread haze across the Minangkabau heartland (and other parts of South East Asia). Some years it's worse than others. It's particularly bad when there are strong El Nino weather conditions, as was the case in 2015 when visibility was often less than a kilometre for several months.
Drag the white slider, in the bottom left corner of your hotel window, to see the view during that time.
Had you visited during the smoke haze crisis you might never have seen the fields and mountains that you can today.
When the haze was at its peak, both the Minangkabau people and those with a heart for them prayed for rain. People thanked God when the rainy season began and the haze cleared dramatically.
There is another haze problem that the Minangkabau people face daily without ever realising it. This problem is a spiritual one. It's like the Minangkabau people are living in a spiritual haze that hides the truth about Jesus from them. It's a haze that is fuelled daily by their religious rituals and teaching. They are unaware of the haze because it has always been there. Since birth they haven't known anything else so they don't realise that there is something better.
Sometimes the spiritual smoke thins a little, as someone hears and recognises truth, but then it swirls back again and their glimpse of truth is hidden once more.
Please ask that this spiritual haze be cleared away, that Minangkabau people would experience truth, that these glimpses of truth would not be forgotten but rather would draw them to explore, and then trust, what's been hidden from sight for so long.