September 3, 2007
Santa Barbara
Dear Family, Friends, and Colleagues,
I am in California, a world away from home in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. I was surprised by an invitation to become the representative of Indonesia for the Fulbright Interfaith Community Action Program. The committee selected 10 scholars from different countries who are working for inter-religious peace. I was surprised they chose a Christian to represent the largest Muslim country in the world. Fulbright chose scholars from Egypt, Israel, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, Scotland, and Indonesia. We are now at the University of California at Santa Barbara for a three-week workshop before going to different universities. From September 17 through November I will be a visiting scholar at Barnard College, Columbia University, in New York.
I became involved in Muslim-Christian interfaith action by surprise. From a devout, Christian, Moluccan-Javanese family, I went to live with my Muslim relatives while attending high school in Yogyakarta. Later, while I was doing field research in North Moluccas, war broke out between Muslims and Christians. The Muslim village where I stayed was burned to the ground. I lost all my possessions except my precious laptop with all my research notes. By surprise, I found I had valuable field data on the rituals that chronicled the descent into mass violence that killed thousands of Muslims and Christians. I wrote my dissertation on ritual and conflict. I was surprised when PC(USA) invited me to become a mission co-worker with my husband. We built our home to be a human community where Christians and Muslims live together in mutual respect. To our surprise, our home became a safe place where Muslims and Christians from conflict areas could share their grief and hope.
I was surprised when the predominantly Muslim Indonesian Woman’s Coalition (KPI) chose me as their district leader. Surprise is an understatement for our experience of the earthquake in Yogyakarta on May 28, 2006, that killed over 6,000 people. We were grateful when friends from all over the United States sent us donations so that we could empower women in their emergency relief work. We didn’t think of it as “interfaith activism.” We were just women from different religions who organized ourselves to help people who were desperately suffering. By surprise, our house became a public kitchen serving victims. We were surprised when it evolved into the permanent office of KPI, which is still reaching out to victims without regard to religion. My husband was surprised when I told him my Indonesian Muslim sisters and I seem more alike than American Christian women and me. It may surprise you that interfaith activism has strengthened my Christian faith.
My friends in KPI were surprised when I said they should write a book about their experience with the earthquake. Some were village women with no experience of writing. We organized a series of workshops where women worked in pairs to record their experience. Funded by the government Ministry for Women’s Empowerment, a beautiful book has now been published in Indonesian titled, Women and Disaster: Yogyakarta Experiences. It includes 24 articles by 34 different women affected by the earthquake. In the process we started a new publishing house that focuses on providing a voice for women and other vulnerable groups. As director of the Institute for Research and Community Development at Duta Wacana Christian University, I’ve been surprised by how our work has expanded into research and community empowerment projects in many other parts of Indonesia. In the month before leaving for the Fulbright program, I visited projects involving Duta Wacana faculty from various departments in Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi, Ambon, and Papua. Surprisingly, for a Christian university, many of these projects are funded by the government, which is predominantly Muslim.
After a whirlwind year of surprising blessings in the midst of tragedy, I am surprised once more to find myself walking along the beach in Santa Barbara with new friends from all over the world. God is surprising. Since arrival, many of our mutual stereotypes have been challenged as we listen to the stories of colleagues from other countries and religions. In this beautiful academic setting we are exploring new ideas, cultures, and education for peace among diverse religions. We are seeing how people from different traditions shape their lives in the encounter with modernity and the struggle for justice. The diversity of America is a rich context for exploring how Indonesia can contribute to world peace.
I remember when we were having dinner with Singgih, a Muslim student who lived with us in Yogyakarta. He asked us why, as a Christian family, we never served pork at our dining table. He thought we had a right to do that because it is our house and we are Christians. I replied that we don’t serve pork because of him and other Muslims who often eat with us. He was surprised and asked whether our decision came from our religious tradition. We referred to the story of how Paul taught Christians to respect the practices of others whose consciences would not allow them to eat certain kinds of meat (I Corinthian 8: 1-13). As a Muslim country, Indonesia provides the conditions where we can practice living our faith in an inter-religious context. We are creating religious civility in our home. I am interested in small things: strengthening trust at the grassroots and building upwards. The results are surprising.
Now I am here, with time to reflect and learn. In New York I hope to write more about my journey of faith as a Christian woman in a Muslim context. I feel sad to be separated from my husband Bernie during his great challenge of beginning ICRS-Yogya. But the same Pacific Ocean washes our shores, the same moon lights our nights, and our one God watches over us all. Besides that, we talk every day by phone and Internet.
Salam (peace)
Farsijana and Bernie Adeney-Risakotta |
