A small church in Central Java, Indonesia, that has struggled for more than a decade to keep its worship facility, celebrated a reopening in early December only to see it shut before Christmas, due to protests from hard-line Islamists.
The 41 Christians of the rural church in Pepanthan Dermolo village began worship-ing again in the building Islamic extremists had long denied them. Two weeks later, they did not dare meet there, due to threat of violence from a local group called the Muslim Solidarity Forum of Dermolo.
The church, a branch of an established Mennonite denomination called the Gereja Injili di Tanah Jawa (Evangelical Church on the Land of Java, or GITJ), has a valid building permit, the pastor said, but an order was made which temporarily stops the services there.
