New Beginnings

Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin... – Zechariah 4:10 (NLT)

When Steve and I first arrived in Indonesia in 1986, Roger and Jan Casey met us at the airport outside the capital city. No one who saw us greet each other in the crowded waiting area would have guessed that we were only meeting for the second time. To Steve and me, Roger and Jan were heroes. They had lived and worked, virtually alone, among the Kantoli people for more than 20 years.

Loading our suitcases into the back of their Land Rover, we started the four-hour drive into the island’s fertile highlands. The potholed mountain roads, dust and noise did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm and chatter. The volcanic grandeur and spectacular terraced rice fields reinforced our sense that God had led us to a new homeland—a place we would come to love and enjoy.

That evening in Denalia, the biggest city in the Kantoli part of the island, Steve and I rented a room in a youth hostel near the university. The accommodations were crowded and rudimentary, but they would serve our needs while we searched for a more permanent home. The Caseys were affirming and helpful, but they were determined to let us find our own way. They knew from experience that too much handholding could impede our critical introduction into the local culture. A balanced approach would make all the difference to our long-term success.

In a previous era, Denalia had been a colonial resort town, surrounded by tea plantations, therapeutic hot springs and rice fields. Now it was one of the most densely populated cities in Southeast Asia—a noisy, congested home for more than two million people. Denalia’s main redeeming factor was its elevation. The city sat just high enough in the mountains to take the edge off the equatorial heat and humidity. A steaming volcano, which local people affectionately called the “capsized boat,” stood watch over the city. When would this volcano, one of more than a hundred on the island, choose to erupt? I brushed the thought aside, reminding myself that I had more immediate concerns.

Our main priority early on was finding a home to rent. We weren’t as concerned with the house itself as with its location. We wanted to be in a thoroughly Kantoli neighborhood. Indonesia has many people groups and cultures. As many as 800 languages are spoken across the country. Most Indonesians speak at least two languages—their mother tongue and the national language. The Kantoli are one of the largest people groups in Indonesia. The majority make a living as wet rice farmers in mountain villages. Though Denalia is located in their homeland, people from many other ethnic groups moved to the city over the years. We knew we would have to make a special effort to live among the Kantoli if we really wanted to identify with them.

Before long, the Caseys suggested a house in a densely populated part of Denalia. I fell in love with it. It was ideal for us because the area was culturally Kantoli. We signed a one-year lease for $1,000 and moved in immediately. We loved walking through the narrow alleyways to reach our house. About 3,000 people lived within three or four blocks. Our house shared a wall with our neighbor and from our window, we could see into our neighbor’s living room. From the second floor, we looked down onto a sea of clay tile rooftops.

The street in front of our home was barely wide enough for a car to squeeze through. The Dedeng family lived directly across the street from us. Mr. Dedeng was the patriarch and government-designated leader in the community. His job was to watch the neighborhood carefully, ensure harmony and security and keep everyone in line politically. We found Mr. and Mrs. Dedeng to be very nice people. They sensed our vulnerability as newcomers and quickly took us into their protective care.

The Dedengs were middle class. They had two homes—this one in the city and another on a rice farm they owned about a four-hour drive into the mountains. They had eight daughters. In Kantoli culture (as in most Muslim cultures), boys are much preferred over girls. The Dedengs had tried for a boy over and over and had never succeeded. Finally, they counted their losses and gave up. We enjoyed meeting all their beautiful girls.

Just to the right of our house was a dusty, open lot where children played and flew their kites. Kite-fighting was a favorite pastime. The community also gathered in the field for special functions and celebrations. On certain Islamic holy days, goats and cows were slaughtered right next to our house. We were at the center of it all, and we loved it. We could see and hear everything.

Our little community had five mosques. After we arrived, their loudspeakers were mysteriously redirected toward our home. They would blast us out of bed at four o’clock each morning. The noon, afternoon and evening calls to prayer were sad and eerie to my uninitiated ears.

It wasn’t long after we moved in that one of the “mothers” of the community invited me to join the neighborhood choral group. They were preparing for a big performance on Indonesian Independence Day. I don’t consider myself a very good singer in English, much less in another language, yet I was honored by the invitation. When I arrived for practice, about 25 ladies had already gathered. They went around the circle introducing themselves to me. When they finished, one of the oldest women, who seemed to be in charge, asked me to recall their names in order by memory. I quickly realized they wanted to have some fun at my expense.

Next, the ladies asked me to sing a solo in their language. They were making a monkey out of me! I wasn’t enjoying myself nearly as much as they were. It was obvious I didn’t know what I was doing, and they found tremendous humor in my bumbling attempts to sing in their language. I felt silly and just wanted to go home, but I decided to stay. I had to learn how to be a good sport. When Independence Day finally came, our choral group performed in front of 1,000 people crowded into the empty lot next to our house. I managed to sing along, much to the throng’s delight. The tall white American stuck out like a sore thumb, but I had a lot of fun, and it gave me a wonderful opportunity to meet my neighbors.

Steve was enrolled as a student at one of the state universities. He even had a scholarship to cover tuition costs, though we had to meet our own living expenses. Since we were still in our twenties, we blended into the university setting quite well. Like me, Steve began spending time with people who lived around us, although he had to fit it between classes. One day he ventured down the alley behind our home where many poor people lived. Their houses teetered on a cliff overlooking a river that was brown with silt and garbage. The men had set up a dilapidated ping-pong table in the alley. Steve loved table tennis, and he joined in so he could practice his language.

That evening we had a knock at the door. It was Asep, a neighbor who prided himself on being an English teacher at the nearby elementary school. We tried not to let on that we couldn’t understand his English. Asep chided Steve in Indonesian for playing ping-pong with the people who lived behind us. He said it was inappropriate for Steve, an educated person of high standing, to play table tennis with the lower-class people living in the back section of the community. Steve should stick with upper-class friends and not mingle with people of lower status.

I found Asep’s comments about the neighbors behind us off-putting. He was a poor man himself and still looked down his nose at people who lived on the street behind him. It made me realize how stratified Kantoli society was. As a Christian, my heart told me that all people are created equal and we’re not to regard one person more highly than another. Jesus spent time with people of all economic groups, backgrounds and cultures. If Jesus visited our community, would He play ping-pong with the men in the back alley? Of course He would. In fact, I felt we were to go out of our way to befriend the poor. Jesus defied many of the conventions of His own culture.

Even the Kantoli language itself, I quickly found, reinforced inequalities between people. There are five different levels of vocabulary to choose from whenever you want to say anything, depending on the status of the person you are talking to. The lowest level of language is for referring to really poor people or to animals. While I wanted to respect the culture, I also wanted to truly communicate the love of Christ. There would be times when I would need to defy some of these conventions, I decided. Every culture has blind spots. Steve and I would be respectful, but we wouldn’t let social expectations prevent us from reaching out to those with the greatest need.

I enrolled in a formal language program and practiced every opportunity I had—on public transport and walking the streets and visiting my neighbors. Steve had an advantage because he had grown up speaking a tribal language, and his ear was already familiar with Indonesian, so he was picking it up faster than I was. He was determined not to let me rely too much on his language ability. One day, we agreed that I would go across town by myself for my language lesson for the first time. I wanted to prove to Steve that I could do it. I wrote our address on a piece of paper and put it in my pocket. Steve wished me well and off I went.

It took almost an hour of riding in the back of several hot and dusty public transport vehicles to reach the language school, but I made it! When I finished class, I started the journey home. After a while, nothing looked familiar. I rode around the city for a long time while dozens of people got on and off the noisy, open-air transport. I even went through the main bus station downtown where hundreds of people milled around. I started to get concerned, as nothing looked like my street. It brought back memories of when I’d gotten lost on the school bus as a little girl.

I repeated my address to the driver, but everyone on the bus had a different opinion of where that street was! They looked at me like I was from another planet. Could they not understand my accent? I showed the driver and other passengers my address on the paper. They all rattled off more words that I did not know. Never before had I felt more like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when she clicked her red shoes and kept saying, “There’s no place like home.” I just wanted to go home!

Darkness was closing in fast. After clattering around the city for a long time, I started to see rice paddies on the right and left. I knew I was in trouble—I was heading out of the city! I had been praying but decided to pray even harder. Was Steve worried about me? I motioned to the driver, insisting that he turn around and head back to the center of town. He took me back to the station and we started over again. Just then, another person got on the vehicle and looked at the address on my paper. He knew exactly where that little road was. I never felt more relief than at that moment. Before too long I saw the familiar market at the end of our road. I thanked the driver for getting me home and gave him a generous tip for his efforts.

I had conquered the impossible—using public transport all over the city with very little language. What about Steve? He was a little bit worried about me but commented that it was another good learning experience to add to my list!

One day the leading women of our community asked if they could use our home to cook for a wedding. Ati, the second of the Dedengs’ eight daughters, was to be married that weekend. It sounded like a great opportunity, so I said yes. A few hours later the women arrived with their pots and pans. Cartloads of supplies were unloaded at our front door. Women were all over our house. They cooked all day and all night. Then they cooked all the next day. Finished food sat on the sidelines collecting flies. I wondered to myself if this might be the reason that our stomachs so often churned when we ate food at community events. I watched it all with fascination. It was an incredible experience being with these women who were chattering away and having the time of their lives preparing for this special event.

Usually, I loved being in a tight-knit community, but sometimes it was a real challenge. Every culture has a different boundary for personal space, and I was realizing that my boundaries were quite different than the Kantolis’. For example, our neighbors would often walk into our home unannounced. One time we were leaving town for a few days, and we asked Mr. Dedeng to keep an eye on our house. A few minutes after we left, I realized I had forgotten something, so we turned around. We found Mr. Dedeng in our kitchen, examining the canned goods in the cupboards. He looked a bit embarrassed that we had caught him snooping around in our house and told Steve he was just checking to see if we had locked all the windows.

Cultural differences were apparent in other ways, too. One time our next-door neighbor, Ardi, came to our front door hauling a shiny, bulky television. It was so big that he had to have another man help bring it into our house. Without any explanation, he began to set it up in our main room. We weren’t sure what was going on. We hadn’t asked for a television, and we didn’t really even want one, even though all of our neighbors had TVs. After all, all three available channels were government-controlled.

As Ardi plugged in the TV, Steve began asking questions. “What are you doing, Ardi?”

“I’m installing a TV.”

“Whose TV is it?” Steve probed.

“Why, it’s yours, of course.”

“Are you giving it to us?”

“Of course!”

“Wow, that’s awfully nice of you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Ardi’s generosity amazed us. Steve double-checked to make sure there were no strings attached. As Ardi left, we thanked him profusely.

A few days later Ardi knocked on our door. Clearing his throat, he asked if we could begin making payments on the TV. “Pay for the TV?” Steve was surprised. “I thought you said you were giving it to us. If I was going to buy a TV, I would have chosen a smaller, cheaper one.”

“Ah, yes, but surely you can afford this one. It’s very nice.”

“Where did you get it?”

“A man owed me money and couldn’t pay me,” Ardi explained, “so I took his TV.” We’d been had. Our neighbor was using us to recoup money from a delinquent debtor. We quickly realized that nothing comes free.

On another occasion, one of our neighbors brought us a nice plate of cookies. This was one of the ladies who had mocked me when I first joined the community choir. Maybe this was her way of apologizing? What a lovely gesture! A few days later, those same neighbors paid us another visit. Smiling with anticipation, they asked if we could arrange for their son to study at an American university. The cookies, we realized, came at a price.

The Kantoli people had frequent religious celebrations, which took some getting used to. The night before Idul Adha, a holiday commemorating the time the prophet Abraham almost sacrificed his son Ishmael (according to the Qur’an), the boys of the community chanted all night long over the mosque loudspeaker. The next day, we were exhausted from losing a full night’s sleep, but eager to learn more. Early in the morning, we watched as the dirt field next to our house filled with hundreds of white-robed worshippers. The imam led the community in prayer, and everyone bowed repeatedly toward Mecca. After prayers, dozens of goats, sheep and cows were brought out and slaughtered. Steve and I watched with interest, and I thought of the Scripture that says the “blood of bulls and goats” is not what the Lord requires (Hebrews 10:4).

I have to confess, it was a bit sickening to watch the throats of the animals being slit. It made the reality of the Old Testament sacrificial system come alive for me. The animals stood there innocently, not knowing that in a moment they would be yanked forward by several men and forced to lie down with their necks over an open hole full of blood. The animals were skinned and hung up to be butchered and the meat was divided among the neighbors. After a few hours, I went home hoping to take a nap. My head was pounding.

Just as I began to relax, I heard a knock at the door. When I opened it, I found the Muslim imam standing there with a big platter. On the platter was the head of a goat. I was quite shocked but pretended I was used to this kind of greeting! I realized that the community wanted to honor us. They had given us the best they had to offer. Of course, there is only one head to every animal, so that makes a goat head extra special.

But what in the world was I going to do with a goat’s head? How was I supposed to fix it? Perhaps I could grill the tongue, but what about the eyes and the ears? Suddenly, I had an idea of how to get out of the situation without offending anyone. “We are very new here, and I don’t feel we are worthy of such an honor,” I explained. “Please accept our heartfelt thanks and pass this goat’s head on to one of the elders in the community.”

The imam seemed to understand and appreciate what I was saying. He left with a smile, only to return a few minutes later. This time he had a huge cow’s liver on the platter! He and several other men from the community went to work chopping up the liver in our kitchen. They skewered the pieces and grilled them. It was quite an evening—a Muslim imam and other patriarchs of the community feasted on cow’s liver around our small dining room table.