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The Mission Aviation Fellowship single-engine Cessna 185 flies low over the expansive rain forest in Indonesia's East Kalimantan Province on Borneo, the world's third-largest island. Pilot Dar Bone points out the wisps of smoke marking brush-clearing fires set by village farmers and then lands the Cessna on a tiny grassy plot. Because of drought, crops are meager and money from the sale of rice is scarce.

The cargo hold of the small plane carries supplies ordered by the Dayak villagers living in isolated settlements. With fuel costs rising, it is questionable whether these supply flights can continue. The Asian financial crisis has rippled into the remotest corners of Indonesia, a nation of 3,000 islands and 207 million people.

Despite the difficulties, even the smallest village supports a church. Evangelization of the 21 Dayak tribes began nearly a century ago. Formerly animistic headhunters and cannibals making intervillage raids, the Dayak now live peaceably, and 95 percent of those in East Kalimantan are Christian.

SURVIVAL AND REVIVAL: In spite of the success of evangelism among the Dayak, economic hardship has threatened the survival of their villages. At the same time, church leaders are engaged in a second battlefront for spiritual revival within their churches.

Dayak congregations are not immune from modern pressures. Church leaders say it is difficult to keep villagers focused on their faith, and pastors are not always accorded the respect they once received.

Ngau Ifung lives with his family in the small town of Long Nawang in the deep green thicket of rain forest along the Kayan River. Although a layperson, Ifung, a Christian since 1963, serves as district superintendent to more than 15 village churches.

"My parents were animists, but they thought that if I became a Christian I would be able to go to school," Ifung says. He was pressed into service almost immediately as an overseer of the church. "In those days, a preacher was like an angel. Every word that a preacher said was accepted. But now it is not the case."

Today, the educational level of the typical Dayak pastor and church members is almost equal. Ifung thinks that Dayak Christians have become accustomed to being instructed from outsiders and have difficulty trusting one of their own.

YOUTH FLIGHT: Dayak Christian parents watch as their children leave their village homes for postgrammar-school education or for work opportunities in cities. This conflicts with a tribal culture's main means of perpetuating itself: through the support system of the tribal extended family. Some young people lose their way and their faith. To help those facing an unfamiliar world, Ifung writes letters to pastors of churches that young people attend in cities. He also leads weekly prayer meetings on behalf of those who have left.

Some Dayak young people aspire to Christian service. In 1978, the Christian and Missionary Alliance and Dayak leaders helped launch the Theological School of Tenggarong, along Kalimantan's northeast coast. The school has a good reputation, and the government waives property taxes. Students and teachers gave money to support a building program. A new cafeteria and boys' dormitory have recently been completed with financial gifts and volunteer help.

EXTERNAL PRESSURES: As a pilot for MAF, Bone knows that churches in the Kalimantan rain forest are subject to intense outside pressures. "There is nothing we can do to stop the process of globalization, because that is already in God's plan," Bone says.

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November 16 1998, Vol. 42, No. 13