In the quest to reduce our possessions, of which books are the ones we have most of and need to reduce, the wife and I went to the shelves in the basement family room, which is really part of an open space that includes The Dungeon, and grabbed a number of books to bring upstairs and read aloud in the evenings. We now have a stack of six or eight books to read. Except we finished two of them.
One was Like A Mighty Wind by Mel Tari, Cliff Dudley being his collaborator. We bought this used hardback some years ago. At least, I assume we bought it. I don’t remember the many book purchases we made. This could have been given to us. No matter. It’s been on that shelf for a long time. We finally got to it. Originally published in 1971, our copy is a tenth printing from August 1972. Ten printings in one year. Obviously, this book struck a nerve when first published.
Mel Tari was an Indonesian native from the island of Timor. The Foreword begins:
Four nights before the nearly successful Communist coup in Indonesia in 1965, God sovereignly began pouring out His Spirit in a small town on the little-known island of Timor. He alerted the Christians to pray, and the country was remarkably spared.
A revival broke out in Timor right afterward and Mel Tari, at the time only 18, was saved and empowered to preach the gospel. The book tells his story. How he became a preacher on Timor. How God did miracle after miracle, things like helping the evangelistic team find their way in a roadless, pathless jungle to a village they had heard of but never been there. How doors opened and closed, and God’s work progressed. How he learned as he went along. It’s a fascinating story.
Despite the above quote, the book isn’t about politics, but about Mel’s journey. He turned down a scholarship to a university in Russia, and instead came to the USA for study. Expecting to come to a Christian country. Instead, he found sin all over the country. He was quite disappointed.
The story is, as I said, fascinating. Tari sees miracle after miracle. He grew in his faith as he took the Bible at its word. He prayed much. He preached. He helped many people on his native Timor.
The book gives Tari’s journey for the first ten or so years during and after the revival on Timor. It’s a story well worth reading. As I did a little research while putting this post together, I see that controversy now swirls around Tari, who is now a US citizen. I wasn’t able to make sense of it all, but I take it he is considered something of a fraudster-preacher. Could be; I would have to do more research to know for sure. It’s possible that the spiritual condition he experienced in his early years didn’t carry through to his later years.
I give this book 3-stars. It has some typos that distract. Tari also gets into a couple of controversial doctrinal issues, which slightly lessened my enjoyment of it. Should you read it, given Tari’s current reputation in the USA? If you come across it (and it’s available where used books are sold), yes. As I said, whatever his faults now, this book is of a time many decades ago, when the moving of God in Tari’s life was new and fresh.
But, it won’t go back on the basement shelf. Into the sale/donation pile it will go later today.
