A letter from Bernie and Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta in Indonesia
December 2010
Grandfather Merapi is dangerous, but he is beautiful.
He kills, but he gives life.
—A farmer who lives on the fertile slopes of the volcano.
Dear Family, Friends and Colleagues,
Awanpanas: Mt. Merapi erupting.
This picture shows super-heated volcanic materials rolling down from our “backyard volcano,” Mt. Merapi, destroying everything in its path. The picture below, taken from our house this morning, is of “Grandfather Merapi” at rest. May he rest in peace! Farsijana and the Indonesian Women’s Coalition continue the hard work of helping thousands of families who lost their homes. Some returned to their villages only to find them buried beneath several meters of ash. I was recently interviewed about the mystical side of Merapi for the PBS News Hour. The film ends with a poignant interview with a Muslim farmer who lost everything. He says, “My home, my cow and everything, were not mine. They belonged to God. God gave them to me to take care of. Now he has taken them back. As long as he gives me health and happiness, I will start again.” It’s worth waiting for the last frame of the film to see his gentle smile.
Merapi December: Mt. Merapi at rest.
This year we experienced many transitions. It was wonderful to return home to Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in January 2010 and “start again.” Farsijana finished her term as Director of the Institute for Research and Community Development at Duta Wacana Christian University. She built the Institute into a vital stimulus for action research throughout the university. Her new assignment is to help build a new Graduate Program in Peace and Conflict Studies at DWCU. She continues to teach undergraduate and graduate classes in the Theology Faculty, training pastors to understand the rapidly changing society in which they will lead the church. Farsi is also co-teaching a doctoral seminar on anthropology of religion with a distinguished Muslim anthropologist at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS-Yogya).
Outside the university, Farsijana finished her second term as the District Head of the Indonesian Women’s Coalition (KPI). She was then elected Head of KPI for the Province, in part because of her demonstrated commitment to serving poor women and families in the villages. Muslim women elected a Christian to lead them. Farsi seeks balance between academic work, national political advocacy and regular meetings with village women at the “grass roots.” Farsijana likes to combine contrasting roles: servant and leader, intellectual and activist, researcher and practical worker, national leader and village teacher, professional academic and hospitable housewife. She works very long hours but loves her work.
This year I came to the end of my term as Director of the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies in Yogyakarta (ICRS-Yogya). In March 2006 ICRS-Yogya was just an idea held by a group of Muslim and Christian professors from different universities who trusted each other. That was the initial miracle that made it all possible. We started, with no financial resources, to build a world-class, international Ph.D. program in interreligious studies that is sponsored by three of Indonesia’s leading universities: Gadjah Mada University, State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga and Duta Wacana Christian University. This became ICRS-Yogya, a unique consortium of “secular,” Muslim and Christian universities. ICRS-Yogya now has a fine staff of 10, a healthy budget, strong academic structures, an international faculty of over 35 professors and 46 doctoral students from 11 countries. Students from different academic, religious and cultural backgrounds do research on how religions affect their societies and interact with each other. All students spend at least one semester at a university in another country. ICRS-Yogya is breaking down barriers between academic disciplines, religious communities and national cultures to produce a new paradigm of interreligious studies.
In August 2010 I had the great pleasure of announcing the new director of ICRS, Dr. Siti Syamsiyatun. She is a lecturer from UIN and has been associate director of ICRS for the past two and a half years. The new associate director is Dr. Wening Udasmoro, who is coming to the end of her term as Head of the French Literature Department at UGM. In the very first year of ICRS-Yogya, I co-taught a course with Wening on Religion and Violence. She brought wonderful insights to the course from the perspectives of French and feminist social theory. Siti and Wening are young, energetic, smart, competent and dedicated. Our impressive Board of Trustees broke the normal cultural pattern of only electing high-status, older males into positions of top leadership. Please keep these two gifted Indonesian women in your thoughts and prayers.
My own work at ICRS-Yogya is not yet finished. I remain a full-time faculty member with the new title of International Representative of ICRS. For the years ahead I have four main goals: (1) Help strengthen the academic rigor and international excellence of our teaching and research at ICRS. (2) Help build an endowment for ICRS to ensure long-term financial stability. (3) Write a seminal book on the history of religions in Indonesia. (4) Continue to support Farsijana in her important work for the empowerment of women and marginal groups in Indonesia. Some of you who are reading this letter may be able to help me fulfill one or more of these goals. If you are interested, send me an email, and we can begin a conversation.
Bob Dylan wrote, “He who is not busy being born, is busy dying.” As we await the season of Natal, the birth of Christ, may all of us experience the joy and pain of new life.
Warm greetings,
Bernie and Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta
The 2011 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 138
