The Malaysia Airlines Airbus that disappeared last Sunday after leaving Surabaya was carrying many brothers and sisters of the Christian faith.

Of the 155 passengers on board flight QZ8501, many were Christians of Chinese decent. Various reports have confirmed that 41 passengers on board were congregants of Surabaya's Mawar Sharon Church. It is known as one of the largest in Asia with about 30,000 members and satellite churches all over Indonesia.

According to the New York Post, the church's pastor Philip Mantofa told relatives not to waver in their faith despite the tragedy.

"Some things do not make sense to us but God is bigger than all this," Mantofa was quoted as saying.

Oddly enough another congregation, Bethany Church, also lost at least five people in the crash. According to the New York Times, this was discovered after church leaders had seen the passenger list that was released last Sunday.

The church's Pastor Deddy told the publication that the crash was a tragedy for all of Indonesia. "We can guess from the names that many are Christian and Chinese," he said.

Bethany is part of the 250,000-member Bethany Indonesian Church assembly, a member of the Evangelical Fellowship of Indonesia, reported the Christian Examiner.

Last Monday, South Korea's foreign ministry confirmed that there were three Koreans on the flight, a young family of Christian missionaries. The amount of Christians on board is a shock to some because according to the Daily MaiI Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, 10 per cent of residents in Surabaya are Christian.

Flight QZ8501 went missing while flying from Surabaya to Singapore on Sunday. It left the Juanda International Airport at 5:20 am Indonesian time and was due to land at the Changi International Airport at 8:30 am Singapore time.

It is now believed that the flight got into trouble after it experienced bad turbulence and went down near Belitung Island. The flight was carrying 155 passengers on board, including 16 children and one infant.

To date, six bodies have been recovered and one victim, Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, has been identified, and buried yesterday evening.

Keep the grieving families of the victims in your prayers as the search for the rest of the people on board is still in the process.