It started with the library chats. We have a library here at Pt. Yonasindo Intra Pratama (called the Self Access Center, and I think it deserves a post entirely to itself. That later, only because I am still working on it…) I visit the library during lunch or istirahat [rest time] since it is Ramadan now and a majority of the people here are fasting rather than eating. The TKW who work in the library speak English very well, as a result of their previous overseas working experiences in Singapore. From my initial conversations with these women, I found out that they were twenty-somethings like my roommates working here at Yonasindo and me. I decided to keep returning to the library after one woman shared openly about her life the second time I ever saw her. I feel a sense of utility by being a listening ear, a sense of honor that they would share their life experiences with me so vulnerably and honestly, and challenged to be as genuine as they are with me.
My first librarian friend Urfa flew to Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago. A cheerful and tiny face framed by black hair cropped close to her head, she was a welcome sight at noon every day. She and her friend Ika were the first to confide in me their frustrations and heartaches, even sharing that they felt they couldn’t trust anyone else but each other, that the other women tell their secrets, and that at night they cry about any hurts from wounds past and current. As they shared, my past heartaches seemed trivial in comparison and I realized that I had nothing to offer them. Experience, maybe. Empathy and sympathy, sure – but these things do not heal broken hearts.
What I could offer was to introduce these women and others like them to a wounded Healer. And I was able to do it with the aid of a new friend from Universitas Pelita Harapan (the university right next door to Kondominium Golf Karawaci – also known as home) whose father works for the Gideon Society. The Gideons are people who provide free New Testaments to anyone who wants one, because they believe that the Word of God is “living and active, sharper than any two edged sword,” and that what they have experienced as a result of reading the Bible is something that they want to share with anyone who wants it. At my request, my new friend got me some Bahasa Indonesia/English New Testaments for me. I wanted to put these in the library because the New Testament is also known as the Injil in Islam and I knew that my new friends would be open to reading something familiar to them from their own religion. Ika had borrowed from the library How to Heal a Broken Heart in 30 Days, and even though I am sure the author of that book had good intentions, I am not sure that all heartache can heal in that period of time. I was able to give her a New Testament/Injil before she flew to Hong Kong last Thursday. Please pray that as she reads it, that she can experience for herself healing and transformation in her heart!
Miss Santi in administration from our Training Department saw the New Testaments sitting on my desk last week, and asked for one. We had a conversation about a month over lunch one day about her religious background. She said that she and her husband were Catholic, but didn’t elaborate much after that so I was surprised that she was interested in a New Testament. She shared with me that she used to meet with some of the Christian TKW and worship and pray together, but they stopped because all of them had already flown to new locations. She said that there were some here, but they hadn’t met together in a while – and could she speak with the head of Human Resources and Training and organize a meeting for Friday?
I didn’t think she was serious until I was sitting in the library on Thursday, where my new librarian friend Daisy said out of the blue, “I will join you tomorrow for your Bible study.” I was surprised because Daisy is Muslim, but had said to me last Wednesday as she was closing the library, “Can you keep a secret? ... I want to learn about Jesus, from my heart.” I like to think that I am generally good at keeping secrets but I decided to share this one so that you can pray that Daisy can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that she can see that he is and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
Regarding the Friday meeting that ended up happening, I don’t know what I was thinking in terms of what I ever had to offer to people, especially when it comes to ministry. Maybe I was thinking that it was my knowledge of lyrics for worship songs that we sing every Sunday, or what I have been learning during my endeavor to read through the Bible in a year, or even all of these years of knowing how to go to church and more recently, the things I have been learning by being a part of this church plant.
We met in the nurse’s room, where the TKW learn about elderly care and infant care there. The room had the blinds drawn, so it was fairly dark, with enough sunlight streaming in for us to see our surroundings and each other. On entering the room, there was a queen-sized bed with a faded green and yellow coverlet to the left, and shelves laden with worn children’s toys to the right. In the middle of the room was a foam puzzle mat, with the letters of the alphabet on each puzzle piece – kind of like the one we have in the Building Blocks room back in Ann Arbor. The faded colors and floor peering through the spaces where various letters used to be was the backdrop for our song sheets, with three songs written in Bahasa Indonesia. I had never heard the melodies before, and I did not understand half of the words.
There were eight TKW, two women from Training, one woman from Accounting, and my three roommates and I, all sitting in a circle on and around the foam mat. We didn’t have a guitar, and no accompaniment…just women’s voices singing earnestly to their King and Lover of our souls. Even though I didn’t understand the words, through the simple and earnest worship, I could feel the Holy Spirit in our midst. We studied Matthew 6:25-34, the “Do Not Worry” passage, with verse 25 opening with, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or what you will wear…” addressing how we become anxious about so many things in our lives, and emphasizing from verse 32 that “your heavenly Father knows that you need them,” or the things that we worry about. I knew that this passage was particularly significant for these women, who have opted into a life of domestic work [servitude] because they worry about money, their personal safety when they go overseas (with reason), and their future. When we entered into a time of prayer, Miss Santi prayed for us, and her voice tremored. My roommate Irene grabbed my hand as we were praying, and I gripped hers as I listened with my eyes closed to the other women crying quietly in agreement with Miss Santi’s sincere supplication.
I thought to myself the whole time, from the start of the gathering to when I was walking back to my desk that I have never been in a financial circumstance in my life where Jesus was all I had. Even when things or people have been taken away from me, I have always had other things to distract me – school, work, family, a house, a room full of things that I don’t need. I was humbled to hear these women crying when we prayed to Jesus, because even if they may have their families and their homes, many of them are going to work overseas because they don’t have the means to support themselves through work here. Living here in the compound, the women cannot leave in general – attending a church service on a Sunday included. But we didn’t have to leave in order to have church that day; we were the Church.
Afterwards, Miss Santi fed all of us with delicious lo mein looking noodles cooked by her husband. It was a joy to fellowship with the TKW, and even to surprise them by serving them (!), and try as we might in our broken Bahasa Indonesia to learn more about them and why they came here to Pt. Yonasindo. As I was leaving the nursing room to return to my desk, Miss Zara stopped me and made sure to ask if I believed that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sin and then rose again to conquer it. Elvy from Accounting translated for me, and I just remember looking over at Miss Zara: a tiny elderly Chinese Indonesian woman clad in a periwinkle blue nursing dress, with a serious look on her face – serious because she cared about whether or not I believed in Jesus Christ with my heart. I laughed and assured her that I did and then it got me thinking...
It’s our heart to encourage these women to love one another, as Christ loved us, by laying his life down for us. And then to love their neighbors, the other TKW and office staff, as themselves – even though these women may be seen as lowly in the eyes of the office staff, and their future employers as they go out into the world from this place, for example. Encouraging them to ask the same kinds of questions that Miss Zara asked me, and encouraging others to experience a personal relationship with Christ. There’s no workplace in the world I’d rather be right now, and I thank you for reading all of this if you did, and please believe with us that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 1:6) here at Pt. Yonasindo Intra Pratama.
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