The Quilt of Tears

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. – Psalm 56:8 (NLT)

Turning our home into a beehive of activity gave us a sense of excitement and progress, but it also had its downsides. For one thing, we had a hard time keeping track of who was coming and who was going. Late one afternoon, Steve and the girls and I prepared to leave on a short trip. The house was quiet. I checked to see if all the quilters had gone home, and there didn’t seem to be anyone around. We loaded our bags into the car, locked the house and left.

It wasn’t until we returned the next evening that we discovered three young men had been working in the shed in our back yard—a place I’d missed in my last-minute pre-departure check. Much to their surprise, they found the house totally locked up when they were ready to go home. Our house, like many in the city, had a high wall around it with barbed wire on top. The men were unable to leave. Nightfall came, and they were very hungry. They climbed the fruit trees in the backyard looking for something to eat. Realizing they were missing, Dewi and her concerned relatives came over to our house, only to find it locked up. They yelled over the fence, and sure enough, the missing men hollered back. They ended up sleeping under the stars with only a little fruit to eat.

We eventually moved to a different house situated at the end of a very narrow alley in a crowded hillside neighborhood. The corners were so tight, we could barely squeeze our car into the driveway. We were aware that many people watched the quilters going in and out of our home. I always felt safe when there were a lot of people around. The evenings were relatively quiet, however. We enjoyed having a little time to ourselves, exhausted as we often were after a day’s work.

One night, we tucked Joy and Sarah into bed a little early and headed to bed ourselves. Steve was going to play tennis early in the morning, so he leaned his racket against the wall next to our bed where he could find it in the early morning darkness the next day. At about 2 a.m. I was awakened by a faint thud. Thinking one of the girls had fallen out of bed, I got up to check on them. Both were fast asleep in their bunk beds. A bit puzzled as to where the noise had come from, I turned and stepped out into the hallway. In the darkness I happened to glance to my right, toward the dining table and kitchen. To my shock, just a few feet away from me, I saw the shadow of a man with a crowbar raised in the air, as if preparing to strike!

Instinctively I let out a cry. I didn’t know what to do, so I just screamed, “Police, police!” Steve heard my yelling and slowly awoke from his sound sleep, trying to make sense of what was happening. He grabbed the first thing he could find—his tennis racket—and came running out of our room. I yelled and pointed, and Steve rushed past me toward the living room just in time to see four men disappear into the shadows at the corner of the room.

At first, we thought we’d trapped them in the living room and that perhaps they were hiding behind the curtains. We weren’t quite sure what to do. The more we peered into the shadows and waited, the more we began to conclude they were not there! Then we noticed the curtains were blowing in the wind. This was unusual because there were no louvers in that window—no way for air to get through. It was just a big sheet of glass. When we ventured closer and pulled the curtains apart, we realized the men had taken out the entire picture window, frame and all. We later found the glass lying unbroken on the ground in front of the house.

A few neighbors quickly materialized in the moonlight outside our front door, drawn by my screams. They just shook their heads. The burglars had been in the process of picking up our television in the living room (the one Ardi had “given” us a few years earlier) when I interrupted them. Our neighbors assured me there was no point in reporting the robbery to the police or calling for their help because there was a good chance the police were complicit in the crime. Even the community night watchman, a fixture in virtually every Indonesian city neighborhood, had probably been paid off. How else could the men have gotten their pick-up truck so near our house at that time of night?

When the quilters came in the morning, there were a lot of discussions regarding the whole incident. The conclusion was that theft was unavoidable. In fact, our neighbor informed us that we were lucky. He recounted how a thief came into his home one night while he and his family were asleep. The thief couldn’t find much to steal, so he just took all the clothes from their closet. When the family awoke in the morning, they had no clothes to wear!

Our neighbors and the quilters told us stories about how gangs of thieves often performed black magic to put people into a sound sleep so they didn’t wake up while their possessions were being stolen. Unsurprisingly, it took a while for us to sleep soundly again. We kept wondering if the thieves would pay us a return visit to finish the work they’d begun. We reinforced our windows and added some bars, but we knew there wasn’t much that we could do but commit ourselves once again into God’s care.

The workers’ openness to spiritual things impressed me. I was aware of the Kantoli fear of evil spirits, but one day it came home to me more than usual. As Steve and the girls and I were sitting down to dinner, I noticed a small, flat object on the wall above the kitchen door for the first time. I went over to see what it was. A piece of paper with Arabic writing on it had been folded over many times and then nailed to the wall. Someone had covered it in plastic and painted over it.

Unlike our first home, which we’d rented from Christians, a Muslim family owned this house. When we looked closely, Steve and I found that each door and window had a similar paper over it. Steve took a small hammer and pried them all off. The next day, Dewi confirmed that they were Islamic amulets meant to ward off evil spirits. Kantoli people would typically pay the local imam to write verses from the Qur’an on little pieces of paper and place them strategically in places where evil spirits were likely to pass. Lowering her voice, Dewi added that many houses and buildings are dedicated with the sacrifice of a goat or chicken. The body is buried under or near the building in order to ward off evil. The idea of appeasing evil spirits is common in their culture. It wasn’t entirely unusual, in fact, for parents to “make a deal with the devil” by dedicating one of their children to him.

Steve called some of the quilters together in the backyard. He explained the power of God through Christ over the demonic realm. He read a couple of Bible verses and told them that, as followers of Christ, he and I had no reason to be afraid of evil spirits. Then he lit a match and burned the amulets. It was a rather graphic demonstration to the workers of the many important differences in our worldviews.

It was during these weeks of excitement and activity in early 1992 that we encountered one of our first major setbacks. Although I absolutely loved the local food, when lunch was served, I suddenly had to look the other way. I couldn’t bear the smell of food frying—even my favorite Indonesian dish of spicy spinach, chili peppers and rice. Steve told me to check my eyes in the mirror. I was shocked to find that the whites of my eyes were yellow, which could mean only one thing: I had hepatitis.

God knew I was worn out and needed rest, and rest is exactly what the doctor prescribed. But how was I going to help the quilters get their projects done? Our business was really taking off because several ladies in the city had recently placed orders with us. It was a dream come true to have orders because that meant we already had buyers for the quilts we were working on. It gave the workers confidence that they could continue to work and eat. If ever there was a time to get hepatitis, this was not it.

I rationalized that surely the doctor didn’t mean I had to go on total bed rest, did he? Maybe now and then I could sneak out of bed and spend time with the quilters going over their projects. But I couldn’t do even that. My skin turned yellow, and I lost all my energy. Each day I lay in bed wishing I could participate but unable to do so. At best, I could advise and encourage Dewi from my bed, offering suggestions on color choices and inspecting items she brought to me.

Hepatitis is a liver disease that brings on serious fatigue and nausea. I couldn’t eat anything that was fried, and in Indonesia almost all food is fried. Whenever a meal was cooked in our kitchen, it would make me feel nauseous. Even worse, I began to itch terribly. At nightfall, with little else on my mind, I was horribly uncomfortable. I coated my skin with anti-itch cream, but it didn’t help. Sometimes I scratched so hard I bled.

Dewi, my best friend, knew how uncomfortable I was. During the midnight hours, she took it upon herself to help me get my mind off the itching. She also made it possible for Steve to get a decent night’s rest. Because I was sick, Steve was carrying an extra heavy load, caring for the girls and me while still managing his teaching and leadership responsibilities. I was so grateful for Dewi’s companionship. During the quiet night hours, we talked about everything under the sun. As everyone else slept, God was doing a deep spiritual work in our lives. I was getting to know this intelligent woman much more deeply, and she was sharing stories about her life and asking significant questions about mine. These conversations would not have been possible if others had been listening.

Night after night I would lie on the sofa while Dewi stitched a quilt or rubbed my legs. She was always doing something constructive. The quilt she was working on was one we had designed together. We had carefully coordinated the colors in light blues. We knew it would be a masterpiece and would sell quickly. Dewi had fashioned a circular wooden hoop, and her small hands moved swiftly as we talked, adding stitch to stitch. She was amazingly accurate and consistent.

First, we usually talked about the events of the day—who said what, what had been accomplished, what problems had been encountered. We’d often break into uncontrolled laughter about something silly that had happened. Then we would talk about the business aspects of the project and dream of what this might become in the future. How could we get more capital for expansion? Could we rent another house specifically for this project, so the beehive of activity could be separated from my family life?

Sometimes we talked about the animals back in Dewi’s village that she had invested in and how they were breeding and selling. She was a businesswoman at heart. She had natural instincts in this area and knew how every penny had been spent. She also had a deep love for her extended family and village. She wanted to feed them and see them prosper. Her generosity was inspiring to me.

Inevitably, sometime during the night, the conversation would drift into matters of the heart. Sometimes we talked about difficult experiences of the past. Often we cried softly together in the semi-darkness. As Dewi began to open up and share her life experiences, I gained a deeper understanding of her world. She and her people were friendly and hospitable. They loved their land—the fertile mountain slopes and bubbling natural springs that nourished their fields. Their language was exquisite, a matter of great pride. They competed to see who could invent the best tongue twisters or word plays. They were incredibly musical and artistic.

Beneath it all, however, not far past the smiles and laughter, these people were hurting deeply. On one occasion, Dewi told me of an experience she’d had years earlier. As a young village girl desperate for work, she’d agreed to move to the city to work for a distant aunt and uncle. They offered to let her sleep on the floor of a small room in their home. Dewi didn’t realize that in return for their generosity, she was expected to provide sexual favors for the uncle. I was shocked to learn that it was a relatively common experience and was tolerated as part of the “dark side” of Kantoli culture.

“But Lina, why are you so surprised?” Dewi said when she saw my horror. “This is my destiny. Muslims believe that because Allah has all power, anything that happens must be part of his will. There is nothing I can do to change it. Who am I to fight against Allah?”

I sat there motionless, pondering how to respond. “Dewi,” I began, “The God of the Bible came to earth to heal those wounds and to free you. He loves you and wants you to be free and to know him as a friend.”

“But God cannot be known personally,” Dewi replied. “He is too distant. He doesn’t care about me individually.”

Traumatized by the abuse she had experienced, Dewi eventually fled her uncle’s home and found her way back to her village. She felt defiled and alone. A betrayal of this sort brings scars beyond words. As Dewi spoke, tears of pain fell on the beautiful quilt she was stitching. She shared story after story and I was amazed at how anyone could endure such things. I longed for the healing presence of God to reach down out of heaven and touch her hurting soul.

Night after night, I listened to Dewi and watched the quilt in her hands take shape. In time, it became a beautiful masterpiece. I thought of it as a quilt of tears. In my mind, I associated that particular quilt with the painful and emotional stories Dewi was telling me. I was a foreigner, yet she was entrusting me with her secrets—the scars and bruises of life in a broken world. My own difficulties and inconveniences faded into insignificance. Yes, I had hepatitis, but God had blessed me and was at that very moment continuing to bless me in innumerable ways. He’d given me a marvelous family and a good education. I had grown up knowing that God loved me and that He had expressed that love on a cross 2,000 years ago. I had a wonderful husband who honored and cherished me and loved sharing life’s journey with me. We had two gorgeous little girls. We had food on our table—enough to share with others. Precious friends back home loved us and prayed for us.

Dewi’s beautiful quilt of tears eventually sold. It was hard for me to see it go, but it had to sell to help us carry on the work. Its new owner had no idea what it represented to me—a reminder of a friend’s pain and the first glimmers of future hope in her life. Those inexpensive pieces of cloth, stitched together into something unique and precious, represented a life to me. Dewi was not just anyone, but a close friend whom I had come to know and love, someone who knew what it was like to really suffer. How had she survived? How did anyone survive without the tender and compassionate presence of a loving God?

During one of those midnight talks, I showed Dewi a video that had recently been produced in the heart language of the Kantoli people. Our team and some local Christians had worked on it together a year or two earlier. It was called the JESUS film and was a simple re-enactment of the life of Christ, taken word for word from the Gospel of Luke. It had been dubbed into hundreds of languages around the world and was now finally available in the heart language of 35 million Kantoli people. The recorded voices of Jesus and His disciples and other characters were familiar to us. They were the voices of some of the Kantoli Christian friends with whom Steve worked.

As Dewi and I watched, my own heart was moved. I felt like I was witnessing the life and teachings of Jesus, not through familiar Western eyes, but from the perspective of a Kantoli Muslim. From time to time, I glanced at Dewi’s face in the shadows next to me to get a feel for how she was responding. She was obviously riveted by the story, laughing as Jesus welcomed the little children onto His lap and captivated as Jesus cast out demons, healed the lame, opened blind eyes and raised the dead. Here was a man who spoke the truth, loved justice and honored the women in His life. He spoke out against religious leaders who lived hypocritical lives and exploited the poor. He didn’t hesitate to throw the cheaters and extortionists out of God’s holy temple.

Dewi was especially amazed at the interactions Jesus had with women. He related to them with obvious respect and tenderness. Rather than exploit them, He affirmed them and cared about their needs. When Christ was beaten mercilessly, then forced to carry His cross out of the city onto a rocky hill, big tears rolled down Dewi’s cheeks. Jesus’ mother and the other women who loved Him followed at a distance, mourning. It seemed to be the women who loved and appreciated Jesus the most. Dewi had never known a man like this.

I explained to Dewi that Jesus suffered voluntarily. As the soldiers drove the iron pegs through His hands, Jesus was thinking of Dewi and her family and the people of her village. By her tears, I could see that Dewi had taken a few more steps on a long spiritual journey. I knew better than to rush the process. The Spirit of God, the master Quilter, was doing His delicate work on the threads of Dewi’s life.

Our late-night talks went on for weeks. I was concerned that Dewi got so little sleep. It was understandable that I was unable to sleep because of my hepatitis, but for Dewi it was not healthy. I wondered how she had the physical stamina to carry on with the tasks of the day. She never even took naps. When I protested about Dewi’s late nights and suggested that she get more rest, she opened up to me about another part of her life. She said that she hadn’t had a good night’s rest since childhood. When she was a little girl, she told me, she was given two demonic spirits to be her life-long companions. This was a common practice among the Kantoli.

Dewi explained that the demons never left her alone. They talked with her while she worked in her garden. When she fell asleep at night, the demons woke her and harassed her. To her, this was an accepted, though painful, reality. She longed to be free from the demonic powers that did nothing but tease and intimidate her, but she also found some small comfort in knowing that she was not alone. Many of her friends described similar demonic companions who regularly controlled or interfered with their lives.

In addition to the scars of sexual exploitation, I saw that demonic abuse was an equal or even greater factor in Dewi’s life. For the Kantoli, life was inextricably intertwined with the spirit world. Though they were Muslims, every significant aspect of life—the planting of crops, harvest ceremonies, the conception and rearing of children, marriages and funerals—had strong connections in the spirit world. Nothing of significance was done without placating or seeking the blessing of the demonic powers that ruled their land.

I put my arm around Dewi’s shoulders and we sat together in the dim light. All was quiet except for the crickets outside. Sensing the Spirit’s nudging, I began to pray audibly and earnestly for Dewi. I prayed against the supernatural forces that were conspiring against her mind and body. I pleaded in the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ for Dewi’s spiritual emancipation. Dewi welcomed my prayers and hugged me. Though she came from a profoundly different religious context, she sensed that I understood what she was experiencing and was not discounting or judging her for it. She also felt that my prayers had real power. The battle for spiritual freedom in Dewi’s life was well underway. I sensed hope from God, and resistance from a very real enemy.