Telling the story from different points of view




So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.  (I Corinthians 3:7)

     Told from a global north point of view, the story of Mennonite missions in Indonesia begins in the Netherlands. In 1851, the Doopsgezinde Zending Vereniging (DZV) sent Pieter Jansz, its first missionary, to Java. The result today is three Mennonite synods with more than 340 congregations and more than 108,000 members.

     But there is a different way to tell the story that is also true. For the leaders of the Gereja Injili di Tanah Jawa (GITJ Synod) the story could begin like this:

     Tunggul Wulung was a Javanese mystic who joined Diponegoro, a Javanese prince,in fighting against the colonial rule of the Dutch in the late 1820s.  After Diponegoro was defeated and exiled, Tunggul Wulung was on the run. His spiritual quest was to find the Messiah. In about 1851, he attended a meeting in which Dutch Mennonite Pieter Janz was sharing about Jesus Christ. Tunggul Wulung sat in the window, unseen by anyone else except Pieter Janz.  Tunggul Wulung took this as a sign that Pieter Janz was speaking the truth.  

     Tunggul Wulung spread the good news by clearing land in the jungle and creating Christian villages in Bondo, Margorejo, and Banyutowo.  As an ex-soldier, he would not honor the colonial government. He also had difficulties relating to Pieter Janz who he saw as coming from the  colonial power under whom the Javanese people had lost their rights. But from these beginnings of a search for a Messiah amidst the struggles of relationship, a church of more than 100 congregations and 40,000 members was eventually born.   

     The Gereja Kristen Muria Indonesia (GKMI) synod might begin the story this way:

      Tee Sin Tat was an ethnic Chinese business man in Kudus in the early 1900s who was seeking spiritual guidance. He first contacted the Salvation Army but he was disturbed when they conducted baptisms under the Dutch flag. He contacted the Seventh Day Adventists, but was offended by their teaching against eating pork. He visited the Salib Putih Reformed Mission in Salatiga and they encouraged him to visit the Dutch Mennonite missionaries in Kudus. The Dutch Mennonite theology satisfied Tee Sin Tat and so he was baptized by Dutch Mennonites in Kayu Apu in 1920.  

      Tee Sin Tat was a businessman and he began a church using the same business principles.  When he wanted to be ordained, the Dutch Mennonites refused.  Instead, Tee Sin Tat was ordained by the government under the Dutch queen’s decree.  

      The GKMI became a Synod in 1948. It now has 50 congregations and 16,000 members. The GKMI has never been dependent on a mission board.  This spirit of independence is an ongoing strength in the GKMI congregations. They fully support their congregations and only funded extra projects from the outside. 

     There is no doubt that the Dutch church played an important role in the Mennonite mission effort in Indonesia. It is also true that God's spirit was already present in Indonesia among the Javanese and the Chinese people.

    Praise God for the vibrant Mennonite Christian witness in Java and elsewhere that is the result today.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

They welcomed us

Image
One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. (John 9:25) She was addicted to drugs for 20 years. She was in prison and her family broke apart. Her child was in an orphanage and her husband died. Because of her substance abuse, she eventually lost her one arm below her elbow. She saw no way out. She had hit the very bottom. When she came to know God, Natalia says everything changed. She found she had a deep desire to help people like herself and she discovered that her life experiences helped her understand others. “I remember what God did in my life and I have hope that God can touch other peoples’ lives and give them new life, too,” Natalia tells me. In Nikopol, Ukraine, she and Olga and Valodya, both of whom have similar stories to tell of their own, began New Life Charitable Fund a half dozen years ago to help people in prison, or who have drug or alcohol addictions, are HIV positive, homeless or for some other reason need a helping hand. Ukraine has
Read more

God multiplies our efforts

Image
Sister Zita at the La Posada shelter with baby Emmanuel and members of our border learning tour. Photo courtesy of Janae Rempel The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail. – I Kings 17:14 Ana Hinojosa remembers growing up on the Texas-Mexico border near Brownsville in the late 80s. Her family’s house was a mile from the border wall and she remembers the extended family gatherings in her back yard. Ana, an MCC immigration staff person, says border patrol agents would rest in the shade of the trees near the front of her house and, in the same day, it would be possible for a family from Mexico to knock on her front door to ask for food or directions. Her family turned no one away. Life on the border can look quite different today. When we enter the Catholic Charities respite center in McAllen, Texas, it is startling to see the contrast from the serenity of the neighborhood outside to the chaos inside. Cesar Matta tells us that, today, the cente
Read more

A river of love

Image
For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. – Matthew 25:40 “We are happy you are here to see this with your own eyes,” the leader of the Islamic Charities organization in Deir Attieh, Syria tells us, a group of MCC people visiting partner organizations in Syria. “We can’t express enough our heartfelt thanks to you.” Islamic Charities works with 3,000 at risk families affected by the war in the region and relies heavily on the work of volunteers. MCC provides food boxes to Islamic Charities as part of our humanitarian assistance in Syria. When I visit five families who received these food boxes, I recall the heartfelt thanks but feel mostly heart broken.    We visit two families living in a partially constructed apartment complex that stalled when the war began. The first family lives in a small two-room apartment, the mother and her five children and the woman’s father. Her husband is serving in the army. The second family includes seven
Read more