A letter from Rebecca Young in Indonesia
July 2011
To my friends and family back home,
Becca in front of the church with church members and elders, Jakarta, 24 July 2011.
Indonesia is frequently reported as a place where Christians and their church buildings are under attack. While there is some truth to the reports, just as there are also Muslims and mosques that are attacked in Western countries, it does not represent the entire story. As we know all too well, the media tend to report stories of controversy and violence while the stories of peace and harmony are often overlooked. There are plenty of Christians who have reached out to defend Muslims in Western countries, and also plenty of Muslims who reach out to Christians in similar ways.
One such story was brought to my attention recently when I had the chance to preach in a local church congregation in Jakarta. On July 24 I preached at the Pangkalan Jati congregation of the Javanese Christian Church. The church is in eastern Jakarta, located in the midst of a very tightly packed community. Java is one of the mostly densely populated places in the world: imagine if the entire populations of California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio moved to Louisiana and you have a good picture of what we’re dealing with.
The church building is surrounded by houses and a few local businesses. There is a shoe repairman who sets up a small cobbler’s stand right across the street from the front door of the church. He has chosen to place his stand in a convenient place, right in front of a small local health clinic. There is a nice long bench of bamboo in front of the clinic where he can take a nap when business is slow.
A few years ago there were a couple of churches that were attacked with small firebombs in Jakarta. About that time, in the late afternoon sun of a Saturday afternoon, the shoe repairman was lying quietly on his favorite bench, with his eyes closed but not yet asleep. Suddenly there was the roar of a motorcycle that stopped abruptly near the church door. Not prone to be easily perturbed, the repairman kept his eyes closed but eavesdropped on a cell phone conversation of the motorcycle driver. His overall impression was that the person was, as we say in the South, “not from 'round here.” He had a distinct accent that the repairman was sure was the accent of someone from Malaysia, Indonesia’s neighboring country, which shares a similar language.
It just so happens that the main leader of the terrorist cells in Indonesia at the time was a Malaysian man who commandeered the bombings of a Ritz Carlton and Marriott in Jakarta in 2008 before being caught and killed. This was before those bombings and before the suspected terrorist was caught, so our shoe repairman, a Muslim himself, was quite concerned at the sudden presence of this foreigner with a distinct accent.
He continued to pretend to be asleep, and distinctly heard the words “church,” “fire” “bomb” and “tomorrow” as the man spoke on his cell phone. Then the motorcycle roared away.
Becca with the pastor and elders of the Pangkalan Jati congregation, Jakarta, 24 July 2011.
The shoe repairman jumped up from his horizontal post and ran to the home of a faithful customer of his, a local schoolteacher he knew was a member of the church. He told her what he had heard. She immediately relayed this news to the neighborhood leader, who is also a Muslim, and he in turn contacted the police. The next day, Sunday, the church was guarded the entire day by a group of (mostly Muslim) police and soldiers. At one point a suspicious-looking motorcycle came past but did not stop.
According to police reports, within a very few minutes of the motorcycle passing the church, a small bomb exploded at a nearby bus stop but did not injure anyone. On investigation, it turned out to be the man who wanted to bomb the church, but he had sped away when he saw the church surrounded by guards. He forgot to remove the bomb’s detonator, however, so it exploded when he stopped at the bus stop to ask his leader for further instruction.
The church has never been bothered again. And the shoe repairman is the local hero, both to his Christian and Muslim neighbors, for his part in keeping the atmosphere of peace and harmony that pervades this small corner of busy, crowded and sometimes violent Jakarta.
We frequently speak of the church as a place where we announce the Good News. For the congregation of Pangkalan Jati, the good news is that their neighbors protected them at a vulnerable time in their church’s history, showing God’s love for them as part of a community of people who watch out for one another. Let us all be so eager to share such Good News so that the world might know that God’s love is triumphing throughout this world, in both large and small ways, on behalf of peace and justice.
Becca
The 2011 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 138
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