Birthing A New Company
It's been awhile since I am able to sit in front of my computer to type again. Partly because like usual the computer has problem, second, hubby doesn't want to stop using it, third, I am too tired to use it when no one used it, fourth, I am too busy with our new born company.
That's a lot of excuses huh?
Alright, let's get down to business now ....
HISTORY
Last year, hubby prayed to God to give him an idea on what kind of company he should open. He prayed and wait and prayed and wait some more until one day God told him specifically to open a Green Energy business. Another word, selling solar system and applications. You know, solar panel and wind turbines? Off course you do ...
Then hubby told his missus , and his missus thoughts he is weird but because Proverbs said a wife should always support her hubby, so his missus said nothing ( thank goodness! ).
The next 6-8 months, hubby tried and tried to get suppliers but not a single company wants to even reply his emails, faxes, letters, etc. Very very frustrating period for him. But hold on..... there is a reason always behind everything that happens in our life. God always has a better plan.
One day, hubby received a phone call from our Pastor, Ps. Philip Mantofa who I have mentioned a lot in my previous entries. He called because he wants hubby to come to his home to help him received surprise guests from Taiwan. There are 13 businessmen from Taiwan who suddenly showed up at his home because God told them in words and in vision to visit Philip to give him a good prophecy that our church will be used by God in an amazing way. But one businessman in particular, he has a second tasks in Surabaya. I will tell you about it soon. Keep reading....
So at one point, hubby was chatting away with one of the guest. The conversation turn to the usual question, like :
"why do you live in Surabaya? " , and "what do you do here?".
Hubby answered " My wife is originally from Surabaya" and " Beside working in the father in law's company and still managed to teach at 2 Universities, I also want to start a company".
Then the guest asked, " what kind of business do you want to open?"
Since he failed to get even one supplier, hubby was planning to say he is going to start a computer business, something that is actually in his previous working experience. But suddenly hubby felt like there is a fist hit his stomach and he when he open his mouth, instead of saying the word computer as he planned to do, he said, " SOLAR!"
The guest was very surprised, then he told his friend who came with him about my hubby's plan.
To shorten the story, we both met that other man, Mr. M in Shangri La.
Mr. M told us this himself. He said few weeks or days ago, God told him to go with his brethren in Christ to Surabaya, first of all to tell Ps. Philip the prophecy for our church, and the second assignment from God to him was... to find his distributor in Surabaya ! Mr. M own a factory in China that made solar applications products that sold out like a hot cake in the States.
Right now, we are more than just his distributor. We are brother in Christ. We are partner with him.
So, Mr. M becomes our first supplier ( more than that actually )
Since then, God opens all the doors to us. By His Grace, we are currently walking into our promise land. God showed us His plan and He gives us His favors on daily basis. Everything that the Bible say and promises is true. There is no explanation that can describe how we suddenly become super lucky! The only explanation is GOD!
Until now, we are being chased, yes I used the word "CHASE" to describe what happen. We are being chased by so many companies all over China and Taiwan ( so far, because we are looking only in that area for Indonesia buying power is limited ) to be their sole distributors. I don't even know, how many are they. I lost count some time ago. This is what it means that when God's favor is on you, you will be chased by His Blessing. When you don't look for His presents, but instead you are looking at His presence, then His favor will be unto you.
If you know the normal business practice. It is hard to get distributorship. They will ask you to sign a contract that will show that they have a certain sales target that you have to fulfill. Things like that. Some has to pay a huge amount of money. Some has to do certain things that definitely not easy to do for a starter company such as ours.
But again, when we stayed in His plan this is what is going to happen :
Let me say this clearly. Everything great that happen into our company has NOTHING to do with how good we are !!! To be honest, we are still a baby in this business. But thank God! We can be a baby as long as HE IS THE BIG DADDY !!!
We have done nothing to deserve all this. IT IS PURELY BY HIS GRACE.
I asked hubby to wrote a diary to record everything that God has done. So that when we faced crisis, we can still recall, remember all the great thing that HE has done, and we will be able to have more faith. That's what King David told us to do. To remember the great things that God has done. To be thankful. To never forget how many times He has save us in the past. It is very important to wrote down, to record, because human minds tend to forget easily.
By His Grace, He also help us to stay humble.
In real life, crisis do come. Even when He favors us, crisis will still come because during this time our understanding on how nothing we are without Him is being shown so plainly. Only when we surrender, then He will come to rescue us so that we will never mistakenly think we can save ourselves. I am writing this statement because He just save us from major crisis. I do not speak something that I only heard from somebody else. I speak from experience. That's why having a personal experience is extremely important, because without it, can you say you know Him at all? Can you say you are Obama's friend if you never hang out with him on daily basis?
I learn that we can not be holy with our own strength. All we can do is to have a strong desire or to have the heart that wants to please Him. Our performance will always be spotty. That's why He calls us to be a believer, not a performer or an achiever. We tried to do everything righteous yet crisis still come. We tried to import stuff by declaring their true value, yet custom do not believe us and then caused trouble that almost caused us Rp. 200 millions. Things like this will happen here. Unfortunately. We are constantly tempted to reduce the value. But only by His Grace, not by own strength, until now we are persevere to do business, the Godly way. You have no idea how big is the temptations out there to just bribe to get things done. Sometimes I am already ready to give in into the temptation, but praise Him. I report first to my BOSS up there that I feel like giving up already, and I need Him to rescue me from sinning. Oh how I cried because I feel so disappointed with myself when I am already on the brink of disappointing Him. Then He came and rescue me ... from my sin. Praise His Holy name !! Jesus is His name.
I learn the importance of praying and begging for His mercy and grace every morning. It has to be done every day, preferably every morning because what the bible said is true. His grace and mercy is new everyday for us. Begging like this helps us to stay humble. To remind ourselves how everything we have actually is given by Him and that has nothing to do with how good we are.
LIVE IS GRACE.
So why does God bless us so much? What's the purpose you asked?
The answer is this:
Maybe not to make us into the next Tycoon such as Liem Siu Liong for example even though with God everything is possible.
But one thing is sure. His first task to all of His children still valid. To bring Gospel to people who doesn't yet know about it and also He bless us so we can bless others.
In my previous entry on " Army Of God ", there is an important story that I did not wrote there because I think it is better to write it in this entry.
After we had a great meal together with Rev. Jaeson Ma, Howie, and Rev. Jonathan Chow. On the way back to his hotel, Jonathan suddenly asked Jaeson to pray for us.
And when he lay his hands on our shoulders, he gave us a prophesy:
"God has open every door in China and Taiwan because God will use both of you in TECHNOLOGY, to bring gospel there !" --- for safety, let's just say we did that already few months ago.
I will posted our company website here so you can see what God has done for us.
Support us with your prayers. It is really not easy ( I feel ) to do business based on God's law. But I believe , even when I fall, He will catch me and rescue me, all my life.
That's a lot of excuses huh?
Alright, let's get down to business now ....
HISTORY
Last year, hubby prayed to God to give him an idea on what kind of company he should open. He prayed and wait and prayed and wait some more until one day God told him specifically to open a Green Energy business. Another word, selling solar system and applications. You know, solar panel and wind turbines? Off course you do ...
Then hubby told his missus , and his missus thoughts he is weird but because Proverbs said a wife should always support her hubby, so his missus said nothing ( thank goodness! ).
The next 6-8 months, hubby tried and tried to get suppliers but not a single company wants to even reply his emails, faxes, letters, etc. Very very frustrating period for him. But hold on..... there is a reason always behind everything that happens in our life. God always has a better plan.
One day, hubby received a phone call from our Pastor, Ps. Philip Mantofa who I have mentioned a lot in my previous entries. He called because he wants hubby to come to his home to help him received surprise guests from Taiwan. There are 13 businessmen from Taiwan who suddenly showed up at his home because God told them in words and in vision to visit Philip to give him a good prophecy that our church will be used by God in an amazing way. But one businessman in particular, he has a second tasks in Surabaya. I will tell you about it soon. Keep reading....
So at one point, hubby was chatting away with one of the guest. The conversation turn to the usual question, like :
"why do you live in Surabaya? " , and "what do you do here?".
Hubby answered " My wife is originally from Surabaya" and " Beside working in the father in law's company and still managed to teach at 2 Universities, I also want to start a company".
Then the guest asked, " what kind of business do you want to open?"
Since he failed to get even one supplier, hubby was planning to say he is going to start a computer business, something that is actually in his previous working experience. But suddenly hubby felt like there is a fist hit his stomach and he when he open his mouth, instead of saying the word computer as he planned to do, he said, " SOLAR!"
The guest was very surprised, then he told his friend who came with him about my hubby's plan.
To shorten the story, we both met that other man, Mr. M in Shangri La.
Mr. M told us this himself. He said few weeks or days ago, God told him to go with his brethren in Christ to Surabaya, first of all to tell Ps. Philip the prophecy for our church, and the second assignment from God to him was... to find his distributor in Surabaya ! Mr. M own a factory in China that made solar applications products that sold out like a hot cake in the States.
Right now, we are more than just his distributor. We are brother in Christ. We are partner with him.
So, Mr. M becomes our first supplier ( more than that actually )
Since then, God opens all the doors to us. By His Grace, we are currently walking into our promise land. God showed us His plan and He gives us His favors on daily basis. Everything that the Bible say and promises is true. There is no explanation that can describe how we suddenly become super lucky! The only explanation is GOD!
Until now, we are being chased, yes I used the word "CHASE" to describe what happen. We are being chased by so many companies all over China and Taiwan ( so far, because we are looking only in that area for Indonesia buying power is limited ) to be their sole distributors. I don't even know, how many are they. I lost count some time ago. This is what it means that when God's favor is on you, you will be chased by His Blessing. When you don't look for His presents, but instead you are looking at His presence, then His favor will be unto you.
If you know the normal business practice. It is hard to get distributorship. They will ask you to sign a contract that will show that they have a certain sales target that you have to fulfill. Things like that. Some has to pay a huge amount of money. Some has to do certain things that definitely not easy to do for a starter company such as ours.
But again, when we stayed in His plan this is what is going to happen :
- We saw CEO ripped their contracts because we honestly said we can not yet fulfill those requirement to sell in large quantity, then the CEO and employees gave us a blank paper so we can write our own draft of what kind of contract we would like to have. Have you seen anything like this?
- We saw, that when we honestly told them that we can not order a container, we can only order samples, then those CEO told us that we were not the first company from Indonesia that already wants to be their distributors but they reject those other bigger Indonesian companies and they received us, the tiny little company to be their distributor for not only Indonesia territory but for South East Asian territory.
- We saw how God can help us meet the right person that knows the original factory owner who made a certain product ( his classmate ! )and that at the end help us bring down the retail price considerably. The factory is in Taiwan, but we met this Taiwanese businessman in Jakarta when we "coincidentally" become neighbour at the expo.
- We saw how God has place me right next to a high ranking custom officer at the airplane when I face a crisis with custom.
- When Ps. Philip told us to test to find out if all of these suddenly "super lucky" things is really from God, we asked them "Why do you chose us?". They always stays quiet for awhile and think first, then we heard all of their answers always the same, "I don't know, but for some reason I like you! " . Yes, when they can not answer why, then you know that it is because of God's favors is on you.
- I saw my first employee showed up at my door when just the day before I asked God to send me an employee right at my door instead of me placing an ad in the newspaper then have to find the right one out of 200 people. Then the second one too ....
- I saw my first forwarder that God sent right after I prayed too. A strong brother in Christ.
- I saw my first agent that God sent right after I prayed again.... she is my forwarder's wife. A strong sister in Christ.
- I saw my landlord that also from God, another strong sister in Christ. I can not find a better landlord than her so far or maybe never. So protective of us!
- I saw God sent another sister in Christ that help us to be the supplier of a chain Home Building Center that will display our products.
- I saw God gave us another supplier, he is not a believer, but even he at the end has to concede that we are so blessed by the Lord and he believes that God sent us to him so he believe he has to treat us special. Imagine that, huh?
Let me say this clearly. Everything great that happen into our company has NOTHING to do with how good we are !!! To be honest, we are still a baby in this business. But thank God! We can be a baby as long as HE IS THE BIG DADDY !!!
We have done nothing to deserve all this. IT IS PURELY BY HIS GRACE.
I asked hubby to wrote a diary to record everything that God has done. So that when we faced crisis, we can still recall, remember all the great thing that HE has done, and we will be able to have more faith. That's what King David told us to do. To remember the great things that God has done. To be thankful. To never forget how many times He has save us in the past. It is very important to wrote down, to record, because human minds tend to forget easily.
By His Grace, He also help us to stay humble.
In real life, crisis do come. Even when He favors us, crisis will still come because during this time our understanding on how nothing we are without Him is being shown so plainly. Only when we surrender, then He will come to rescue us so that we will never mistakenly think we can save ourselves. I am writing this statement because He just save us from major crisis. I do not speak something that I only heard from somebody else. I speak from experience. That's why having a personal experience is extremely important, because without it, can you say you know Him at all? Can you say you are Obama's friend if you never hang out with him on daily basis?
I learn that we can not be holy with our own strength. All we can do is to have a strong desire or to have the heart that wants to please Him. Our performance will always be spotty. That's why He calls us to be a believer, not a performer or an achiever. We tried to do everything righteous yet crisis still come. We tried to import stuff by declaring their true value, yet custom do not believe us and then caused trouble that almost caused us Rp. 200 millions. Things like this will happen here. Unfortunately. We are constantly tempted to reduce the value. But only by His Grace, not by own strength, until now we are persevere to do business, the Godly way. You have no idea how big is the temptations out there to just bribe to get things done. Sometimes I am already ready to give in into the temptation, but praise Him. I report first to my BOSS up there that I feel like giving up already, and I need Him to rescue me from sinning. Oh how I cried because I feel so disappointed with myself when I am already on the brink of disappointing Him. Then He came and rescue me ... from my sin. Praise His Holy name !! Jesus is His name.
I learn the importance of praying and begging for His mercy and grace every morning. It has to be done every day, preferably every morning because what the bible said is true. His grace and mercy is new everyday for us. Begging like this helps us to stay humble. To remind ourselves how everything we have actually is given by Him and that has nothing to do with how good we are.
LIVE IS GRACE.
So why does God bless us so much? What's the purpose you asked?
The answer is this:
Maybe not to make us into the next Tycoon such as Liem Siu Liong for example even though with God everything is possible.
But one thing is sure. His first task to all of His children still valid. To bring Gospel to people who doesn't yet know about it and also He bless us so we can bless others.
In my previous entry on " Army Of God ", there is an important story that I did not wrote there because I think it is better to write it in this entry.
After we had a great meal together with Rev. Jaeson Ma, Howie, and Rev. Jonathan Chow. On the way back to his hotel, Jonathan suddenly asked Jaeson to pray for us.
And when he lay his hands on our shoulders, he gave us a prophesy:
"God has open every door in China and Taiwan because God will use both of you in TECHNOLOGY, to bring gospel there !" --- for safety, let's just say we did that already few months ago.
I will posted our company website here so you can see what God has done for us.
Support us with your prayers. It is really not easy ( I feel ) to do business based on God's law. But I believe , even when I fall, He will catch me and rescue me, all my life.
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