Mel Tari - The Gentle Breeze of Jesus

Publishers Foreword

Mel Tari, now known on six continents as an eyewitness chronicler of the Indonesian revival, was born on March 18, 1946, in the village of Niki-niki on the island of Timor. He was the third of ten children born to an elementary school principal and his wife, both Christians.

His childhood was spent in another village, Pene, and in Soe, a mountain town of about five thousand. At the age of 15, he entered high school in the islands capital and port city, Kupang. He graduated in late 1964 from Christian High School in Waikabubak on the nearby island of Sumba, a Reformed Church academy.

His scholastic record drew the attention of the Sukarno government, which at that time was busily arranging college opportunities in the Soviet Union. Mel was offered a full seven-year scholarship for either electronic or medical studies at a Moscow university. He accepted, then returned to his parents in Timor for a short interval before leaving.

The first flickers of revival were bringing changes to the Maryland-sized island, however. Mel, despite his Christian heritage and education, was not yet a believer. An evangelistic crusade in Soe produced healings which he could not explain, and sometime later he made his personal decision for Christ. By August 1965, when he should have left for Moscow, he had declined the scholarship.

The renewal exploded with full force in the Soe church the night of September 26, 1965, when the New Testament phenomena of the Day of Pentecost were repeated a tornado-like wind, visible fire (which prompted police in their station across the street to set off the fire alarm and summon volunteer firefighters), and numerous conversions as well as infillings with the Holy Spirit, complete with speaking in tongues, including English. By midnight, teams of laymen had been organized to begin spreading the gospel the next day.

Four days later, on September 30, 1865, army insurgents in Jakarta launched the coup that was to have turned Indonesia into a Communist state. It failed, and after much bloodshed, Sukarno was deposed.

Such uncertainty forced the Timorese Christians to rely ever more strongly on their new-found spiritual courage. Mel was eventually assigned to Team 42 and spent the next five years in full-time ministry throughout his island and others nearby.

Convinced that God wanted him to share a message with American Christians, Mel landed in Los Angeles September 1, 1970. He spent the next nine months in itinerant speaking, astounding audiences with his accounts of miracles in response to simple faith. He then left for Europe for six weeks before returning home.

His book Like a Mighty Wind, written with Cliff Dudley, was published in late 1971 and dominated the best-seller charts for the next year. To date, 250,000 hardback copies are in print and a 100,000-copy paperback edition has just been released. Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, German, Icelandic, British, Afrikaans, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Finnish editions have pushed total sales over half a million.

Reviewers reactions were strong and divided. Miracles are happening today in Indonesia, noted the Baptist Record, while the Conservative Baptist called the book an unfortunate and gross distortion... a perfect example of an imaginative mentality unchecked by facts and the Word. According to the Bulletin of the Scottish Institute of Missionary Studies, The obvious sincerity of the author cannot be doubted, while American missionary statesman W. Stanley Mooneyham insisted the book had quoted him out of context and wrote: People... want to know if I do indeed endorse the book. The simple answer is: I do not. His article in World Vision was widely reprinted.

As with Like a Mighty Wind, this second book must be seen as the spontaneous, unpretentious expression of an Indonesian Christian. He has neither the temperament nor the motivation to deceive us. Mel Tari is understandably foreign to the skepticism and pessimism of Western thought. He is more interested in letting us know that the wind of the Spirit has not calmed in Timor, that the churches continue in a state of renewal and evangelism, than in placing any given miracle under scrutiny and exhausting the hypotheses for natural explanations.

His teachings will again appear to many readers to be effusive, even childish. He simply speaks from his own experience at making the Scriptures relevant to his daily life and ministry, even bringing in personal elements to biblical accounts. He is a challenge to more sophisticated minds to reconsider the words of our Lord: Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all (Mark 10:15).

Preface

As Mel Taris wife, I have had the privilege of living in Soe, the town where the Indonesian revival started nine years ago. Ive been able to observe the team members who for years have been faithfully preaching the gospel all over the island of Timor and the big country of Indonesia. It was a thrill to become personally acquainted with many of the people mentioned in the book Like a Mighty Wind. These very people are the ones God has used, and is still using, to do tremendous miracles.

I have had the unique opportunity of seeing the more intimate sides of the revival from an American point of view. After living and talking with the people who have played some of its major roles, I discovered that I had many misconceptions about what the revival is really like. (I believe many people throughout the Western world have these same mistaken ideas.)

My first big surprise was to find out that the Indonesian revival is not an American revival. I imagined, before I arrived there for the first time, that Soe would be in a state of constant excitement. People would call to their friends, Hey, did you hear about the latest miracle? Of course, everybody in the village would know exactly what was going on. News about the revival would be the main topic of conversation. When a communion service was announced (for which the Lord had changed water to wine), people from all over the island would crowd into the big church in Soe to get a firsthand glimpse of what the Lord had done.