September 22, 2008

Dear Friends,

With 74 years of history behind it, Jakarta Theological Seminary is actually older than the country of Indonesia, which just last month turned 63. The seminary began in 1934 as a joint effort between numerous Indonesian denominations and European missionary offices to strengthen the independence of Indonesian churches. Since its inception, the seminary has been open to all Christians, and today the students represent 31 different denominations from across Indonesia.

One of those denominations is “Gereja Masehi Injili di Minahasa” (GMIM), the Christian Evangelical Church in Minahasa. I discussed Minahasa in my July newsletter. It’s an area in north Sulawesi that was evangelized 200 years ago by the Dutch missionaries and to this day is predominantly Reformed, i.e., Presbyterian. Out of 350 students at the seminary, seven come from GMIM. Minahasa has its own Christian university, which offers a degree in theology, and most future pastors prefer to receive their education there.

As a child, Maya Menangal went from store to store selling the cakes her mother baked. She's now a student at Jakarta Seminary.

Maya Manengal is one of the seven GMIM students who courageously brave the “concrete jungle” of Jakarta in order to attend our seminary. Maya, 21, is from an area of Minahasa called Tombatu. She is the third daughter. Her father died when she was 2, leaving her mother to raise the three daughters alone by baking and selling cakes. As a child, Maya and her two sisters went from store to store to sell the baked goods. Because they were a poor family and public education in Indonesia is not free, the daughters were encouraged to study hard in order to qualify for government scholarships for economically disadvantaged families of students with high grades. Maya’s entire education was paid by scholarships. She was also very active in her church in Sunday school and youth group.

Throughout her youth Maya never thought about becoming a pastor. The way she saw it, the role of pastor had much too high status for her to consider. Having been an active volunteer with the Red Cross, she was leaning toward a career as a doctor or nurse. She had enrolled at a local nursing school when one day her older sister called, encouraging Maya to move to Jakarta and go to school with her. Maya’s desire to help out her sibling, who was homesick and wanted a companion amidst the maddening crowd of Jakarta, overrode her personal ambition.

When Maya did her clinical pastoral education she saw she could combine her love of God with her interest in medical care by ministering spiritually to the sick.

It happened that the sister was attending a seminary called Apostolos. After a couple of months there, Maya realized she didn’t fit in and transferred to Jakarta Theological Seminary. Her home congregation, and the synod of GMIM encouraged her to transfer because they had a relationship with the seminary. The current synod executive is an alumnus. During her first two semesters, Maya still frequently imagined herself switching to the medical field, but the longer she was here, the more she understood theology and began to feel it was the right calling for her.

During her Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), when she apprenticed as a chaplain in a hospital, Maya’s call to ministry become even stronger. She began to see that she could combine her love of God with her interest in medical care by ministering spiritually to the sick. Her CPE took place at the same hospital where 83-year-old Margaret Dharma-Angkuw of the seminary’s class of 1952 still serves as a chaplain (see my June 2008 newsletter). Mrs. Dharma-Angkuw is now one of Maya’s primary inspirations and role models for becoming a pastor and perhaps a chaplain.

Maya has the solid support of her family in her ambition to become ordained. The older sister who first brought her to Jakarta has graduated but decided to take a job in the business world and serve God as an active lay person in a local congregation. The second oldest sister is a high school teacher now working on a graduate degree in English. Thus Maya is the first person to enter the ministry in her family, and they are quite proud of this accomplishment.

In addition to her studies, Maya is also very active in a variety of extra-curricular activities at the seminary. She is part of several student discussion groups on topics such as Biblical studies, gender issues, and women’s perspectives in theology. She was active in a theater group but now spends more time on puppetry as a method of Christian education.

When I told her that this newsletter would be read by my faithful supporters back home, Maya made three special prayer requests: first, that the Christian church here become a church that helps provide for true peace and prosperity for the people in Indonesia, not merely preaching about the afterlife but making a difference in people’s lives on earth. She also asked for prayers that Jakarta Theological Seminary can mold students to become beacons of light who bless the world with shalom by using the knowledge they have gained here as a bridge to carry them out into the world to help God’s people in practical ways. She asked for prayers for herself, that she become a faithful servant of God who can be useful wherever she might serve.

Maya concluded our conversation by repeating a verse she had memorized as a child: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). Laughing as she admitted that she might have chosen to memorize that particular verse in Sunday school because it was so short, she said that nevertheless it has become very meaningful for her in her studies. To fear God is to be in amazement at God’s awesome power and wonderful works and to know that God does not tolerate evil. Based on our love and fear, we are motivated and eager to learn all that we can about this awesome God.

Becca Young

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 94