Transformation

Remember those pictures I posted where I was speckled in mud, where I was "farming".  This a story from my time there.    

I presented this story at the MCC retreat and since not all of you could be there, I thought I would post it.  It's long. It's about transformation--in me and in others.    

Have you ever met someone who is—well, the only word you can think of is—is down-right charming.  Someone with that smile that could lift any bad day out of its pits.  Someone who can always give an enthusiastic “Sukun Dalu” (Javanesse for “good evening”).  Someone who is always ready a laugh over that smallest joke, especially when you know it doesn’t deserve a laugh.  People you remember and cherish the time you spent with them.  People that you rather not leave. 

I met someone just like this.  His name was fittingly, Pak Selamat!  Something else about these type of charming people, is that I never imagine them driving an Indonesian bus, a school bus yes, but Indonesian communter bus…I don’t think so—but he does—everyday from Kudus to Jepara.

But I did not meet him on the bus, rather I met him while I was in the terrific village of Kali Rejo, 30 minutes outside of Kudus.  He is a faithful member of the church.  On his evenings, I would meet him around the church.  Always with that goofy massive smile on his face.  Always ready to laugh and to make a normal “Selamat malam” and Apa Kabar?” into a joke.  But when your name is Pak Selamat, there are a lot of jokes you can do. 

He was one person amongst, a community where I was transformed.  But there is a further transformation that is highlighted within him, which is representative of the church communities transformation. 

I know that I am transformed being in Indonesia, and more specifically that community transformed me.  I am aware of how much receiving the Kingdom has changed me.  I find this easier than knowing how I am an ambassador for bringing forward God’s Kingdom here.  I know it happens.  Sometimes you hear after people doing mission trips.  “wow, you were such a blessing to them, you guys are doing amazing work.”  I usually do not feel that way, and neither do I think that is a problem—rather, a good sign that Indonesians are blessing me and that God is doing the work.

Ever once in a while, I notice how God uses my presence in all its cultural linguistic weakness, to move human life toward His Kingdom as it is in heaven.  Mostly, this Kingdom cause that God has called me to goes on without my knowledge and ability to point and say “there.”  When I visit people, I want that to be a kingdom visit—but really, what transformation is taking place—is for the Spirit to know and maybe one day reveal.  But this visit to Pak Selamat’s home was a kingdom visit where I can say “there” –transformation happened, or better-said transformation is traced within a conversation.  I’ll explain.

The church in Kali Rejo has a long history, 40 years.  The founders of the church were former Communists, that converted after the September Movement in 1965.  The church was formed in 1973, and it membership grew to 200 members within 10 years—amazing.  Within a few more years, membership nose-dived to 100 members.  Today, there are 125 members.  But why this drastic membership fluctuation?  In the 70’s and 80’s, GKMI Kudus gave a lot of stuff to the people of the village……therefore, lots of people joined the church.  When the taps on the rice where mostly turned off, people became turned off of church.  Some people call this, “rice Christians.”  This dependency, wrong use of diakonia and troublesome relationship between the city and the village has not only left its mark on the church, but the larger community.  This is how they tell their history.  This is the church of Pak Selamat.

Back to visiting Pak Selamat’s home where a transformational conversation took place.  After declining the boiled blood patties offered by his wife, a boiled blood patty chef, we talked about….well, what I always talk about.  Fav food.  Siblings.  Canada. Javanese ability, or lack of. Relationship status.  Then the conversation turned towards his son, Thomas.  Thomas wasn’t there at the time, but I met him later on and he also carries the same kind of charm of his father. 

Thomas is one of the children in the church’s child sponsorship program, where North Americans sponsor children.  I realize that some of us here are involved with child sponsorship in some form….so I respect that.  However, I don’t support this type of development/poverty work and see other methods as better ways of enacting Kingdom transformation.

We talked at length about the child sponsorship program…the letters received from N.A., the way that funding works and what changes between elementary and high school for a sponsored child.  Then I mentally realized, “oh no, what if they ask me if I will sponsor a child?”

“To give an honest answer or not”……is what I thought.  And this must be how God talks because 10 seconds later the question was asked by Pak Selamat.  “So will you sponsor and child and tell people in Canada to sponsor a child?”

Thinking, “well here goes this conversation and the hopes and expectations they have in me.” “umm…maybe.”  “well, probably not”

It’s a moment where you are waiting for a reaction, sending a prayer that God’s directs this conversation into a constructive and beautiful thing. 

Before despair set in, I spoke up.

 “You know your saweh (a rice paddy).  That is awesome.  You guys bought the land, plant rice, onions and watermelons and then sell it in the market.  Then the money from the sales goes towards the church—including diaconal tasks.”

The response was “yes, yes, your right.”

I kept going, “You have skills, talents and abilities which you can use.  Some of you are farmers, others of you are cooks. Within your church you are capable of helping each other. “

They kept nodding their heads.

“You do not need the money from people in North America.  You don’t even need the money from GKMI Kudus.  Doing the saweh is a better way to deal with poverty.”

And in a response that sums up the transformation mapped out in this conversation that is an echo of a slow but sure transformation in the church, an eruption of excitement occurred.  They were proud.  They owned their Kingdom story, not someone else.  That is a big transformation in the history of that church. Or in the words of the pastor, this is “radical change.” 

And it is this experience that transformed me.

First, through their community life in the village.  I recently wrote while reflecting on that expierence, “In many ways, these Indonesians live better than me, for they understand more fully what it is to live in a community of love and care—I aspire to this.”

Secondly, through hope.  The methods and attention that poverty and the church’s call to diakonia sometimes “wears” in my church experience in Indonesia.  That experience has had a completely unexpected effect on me.  It has lit a passionate fire underneath for the very stuff that Pak Selamat and the church in Kali Rejo are doing out there in the saweh.  Well, no, not referring to a farming life for me…but referring to the empowering way the church is answering its call to be the Kingdom community.  I just love it.

Reflecting on this I wrote: “I am learning to live between the long awaited fullness of the Kingdom and the present reality where we are a messed up bunch trying to be the Kingdom community. I am called into that Kingdom community not to despair, but as a privilege to enact the life of the very one whom fulfilled expectations—once and for all.”

It is through the unexpectness of the Kingdom, the up-side down world, where I met an Indonesian bus driver who, together with his church, is salt and light.  It’s his smile.  It’s his charm that hints to something that is beyond himself or of his community—that of God’s Kingdom at work.  I ended that memorable conversation, mutually transformed, with the words from Pak Selamat who emphatically said, “Go tell people in Kudus and Canada about this!!  They need to know!”

And now I have told you the story.