Indonesian Churches Work with Community Members to Improve Livelihoods
SIANTAR, Indonesia/GENVA, 22 March 2011 – Under a tropical mid-morning sun, around 100 men and women gathered inside a village Lutheran chapel in Indonesia, anxiously waiting for their guests.
The guests included staff from the Pelpem Community Development Service, a diaconal program of the Simalungun Protestant Christian Church (GKPS), and local church leaders.
The villagers from Simbou Baru were to update the Pelpem staff about a water project, which the GKPS program and the community had built together a year earlier.
The villagers thanked Pelpem for helping bring water to their homes. The water was drawn from a spring in Mount Simbolon, five kilometers away. Previously, the villagers had to spend anywhere from one hour to half-a-day fetching water from a deep well two kilometers from the village.
“With water right in our homes, we can now spend more hours on our farming and other livelihood activities,” said Mohlan Saragih, a community elder and a member of the local committee responsible for maintaining the project.
Some villagers blamed the Pelpem staff for technical problems after they failed to get water for a few days when pipes broke down. But Pelpem director Aliumri Purba stressed the collective responsibility for the project.
“Let us be responsible together,” Purba told the villagers. “If problems arise, let us solve these together. If we have to replace pipes with bigger ones, then let’s all find this out together. Of course, we also have limited resources, so we need your maximum support.”
Purba pledged that GKPS technical staff would later help fix the problem. But he stressed that monitoring, maintaining and fixing the water system must be the community’s responsibility.
“Honest Conversation”
Among the guests was visiting LWF General Secretary Rev. Martin Junge, who thanked the villagers for “the honest conversation” then shared the story of how Jesus helped his worried disciples feed a multitude of people with just five loaves of bread and three fishes.
He expressed his appreciation to the community for organizing oversight of the project.
Junge discussed water projects he has visited in Latin America and Africa, and cited two similar church-assisted community projects in Bolivia just ten kilometers apart.
The first community thought that after the pipes were installed, the water would keep flowing into the various households. But after five years the project had been abandoned.
In contrast, the water project in the neighboring community worked perfectly. “The difference was the second community’s strong committee and strong commitment [to maintain and sustain the project],” said Junge.
He stressed that “human beings make the difference so the success of this project depends on your human power and the passion that you bring to it.
“I hope and pray that in five years, your system will still work because of the difference you made and the commitment you invested in it,” said Junge.
He was in Indonesia, 6-8 March, his first official visit to Asia as LWF general secretary, also in the context of the LWF Asia Church Leadership Conference in Kuala Lumpur, 10-13 March.
Fruit of Spirituality
Pelpem also helps communities improve their agricultural production by improving farming techniques.
Pelpem’s diakonia work was “actually the fruit of spirituality,” said GKPS Bishop Jaharianson Saragih. “A weak diakonia program reflects a weak spiritual life,” added the bishop.
Saragih explained that since 2007, they had undergone a “participatory process of consultation” to name vision, mission and goals. The process has enabled the church “to become a blessing and caring church,” he stressed.
Interrelation
The relationship between proclamation, diakonia and advocacy was discussed when Junge met with leaders of the LWF National Committee chaired by Bishop Langsung M. Sitorus of the Indonesian Christian Church.
The issues that require the urgent attention of the 12 LWF member churches in Indonesia, include illegal logging, HIV and AIDS, disasters, gender, and justice and peace.
Lina Pardede, LWF National Committee member, stressed the need for church leaders to tackle HIV and AIDS.
“By talking about it from the pulpit, our church leaders are helping break the silence about HIV and AIDS and are helping free persons with the disease of the stigma attached to it,” she said.
Breaking Their Silence
At the GKPS-run Women’s Crisis Center, women church leaders have been helping other women break their silence concerning violence and abuse rarely spoken out, because of cultural taboos.
“Domestic violence and abuse are not only physical, but verbal, and according to Batak [north Sumatra’s major ethnic group)] culture, it is taboo and shameful to report abuses, including rape,” said Rev. Darwita Purba, the center’s coordinator.
Since 2008, the center has been offering pastoral counseling, litigation and medical aid, and skills training for abused women.
Meanwhile, within the churches, “achieving gender equality continues to be a struggle,” said Rev. Enida Girsang, who in 1988 became the first woman pastor to be ordained by the GKPS. “When we women assert our leadership, some male pastors describe us as ‘destroyers of order’,” she said.
Women pastors have been finding leadership roles at the parish level, “but not yet at the central or top level.”
Junge encouraged the women leaders to continue their work. “We share your vision and you certainly are helping shape the future of the whole Lutheran communion,” he said.
Creating Space for Youth
In meetings with young people, Junge heard how Indonesian church youth clamor to participate in shaping their churches’ life.
“Many youth have no occasion or space to speak their mind in churches so they leave and join political parties instead,” noted Tetty Sabrina Tambunan, a student of the Protestant Christian Batak Church (HKBP) Theological Seminary.
In an age of “instant tendencies,” where youth seek jobs overseas without finishing high school, churches must offer young people “God-centered values so they won’t be lured into gambling and unproductive vices such as billiards,” said Dirgos Tobing, a youth leader of the Protestant Christian Church of Indonesia (GKPI).
“Buses can’t go to my village because of poor roads but billiard tables can,” he remarked, alluding to a common young adult pastime in the rural areas.
Other youth leaders proposed ways to improve church worship and to organize a movement to train youth for church leadership. (1,038 words)
Asia Church Leadership Conference 2011
See also:
- Calls to Adapt Interfaith Water Initiative to Other African Countries
- FEATURE: Don’t Cry Tears Lest They Ask for Water
- FEATURE: “I Won’t Be Climbing the Hills Again for Water”
- FEATURE: She Could Not Share Dogs’ Water
- African Interfaith Summit Hears How Scramble for Water Can Lead to Conflicts
- Interfaith Body Partnership with LWF and Global Nutrition Company Provides Clean Water to Thousands in Rwanda
- Language, Communication Hinder Meaningful Participation of Women and Youth
- LWF General Secretary Visit with Asian Churches Starts in Indonesia
- FEATURE: The Pastor Was Scared, He Turned Her Away
- FEATURE: “Our River, Our Public Market”
