September 27, 2007

Dear Friends,

A covered viewing platform on the side of Jakarta Seminary's badminton court.

As I write in the early morning cool of Jakarta, I’m surrounded by the music of angels. The “angels” are members of the Jakarta Theological Seminary choir. It’s quite moving because the music seems to rise up from the landscape. I’m on the second floor and I assume they are singing downstairs somewhere, but I don’t know precisely where.

They are practicing for tonight’s event. Today is the 73rd birthday of the seminary, and there will be a big celebration. Although the singing will be lovely, the event itself is less than exciting because Indonesian speakers tend to speak for a very long time—if you give a succinct speech, it is an indication you don’t know very much. I’ve been invited to go with a group of Christians to the house of a Muslim man who wants us to join in a “break fast”—the end to the day’s fast for Ramadan, and it would be fascinating to see the daily ritual inside a Muslim home. But I know I must be a good professor and appear at the ceremonies.

Newsflash

A moment ago there was a knock on my door announcing hand-delivery of my passport, complete with the papers I need to live and work long-term in Indonesia. It is a huge relief. Also, I have been officially designated by the Republic of Indonesia to have the following occupation: Rohaniwan. “Roh” is the Spirit, so Rohaniwan is “person of the Spirit.” There isn’t an exact translation in English. I find it delightful—not a professor or a minister, but a spiritualist. Maybe they read my dissertation, which was on the Holy Spirit? Or maybe it’s just a happy coincidence.

More good news

Earlier this morning I survived my first full lecture, on the Resurrection. I was nervous because I had to teach in Indonesian. To calm myself, I decided the students need to study English (there are few theological texts in Indonesian) and I should see my imperfect Indonesian as opportunity rather than a shortcoming. It will open up communication between us, as I have to stop the lecture and say, “How do you say this in Indonesian?” plus then they have the honor of having taught the professor something.

Entrance to Jakarta Seminary.

But still I was worried about getting the language right. I wrote the lecture out word by word so someone could review it ahead of time. I didn’t have many mistakes but I had to swallow my pride. Indonesians have a habit of laughing when they are embarrassed, so as several of them stood around a computer screen and read what I had written, I sat a few feet away and held on to the tattered shreds of my ego, so as not to feel humiliated. They laughed at what I had written—well, not “laughed at” but laughed because I had made mistakes that made them embarrassed to have to point them out to me. Or maybe I’m just telling myself that, and they really did laugh at me. Oh well. I learned.

Another thing I will admit, I based my lecture on a chapter from Shirley Guthrie’s book Christian Doctrine. I hope he is watching from heaven with approval. That way I knew I covered the proper ground but in the straightforward way that is Guthrie’s trademark. It was a good place to start, considering my limited vocabulary and not knowing the students’ capacity. (To jump to the end of my story, I found out what one finds in every classroom—some of the students already knew the gist of what I was saying, some found it way beyond their grasp, but most got a little out of it, whenever they weren’t daydreaming about what they would have for lunch or wondering what my age is.)

So I printed out the lecture, practiced, and gave it at 7:30 this morning. I am not a morning person, so that’s tough for me, but also good because I wasn’t alert enough to get really nervous. Still, I had to fill an hour and 40 minutes, and that’s hard in any language!

I also knew enough not to lecture the whole time. Unfortunately, Indonesian students are taught to listen, not discuss, so you can’t get real dialogue going. One thing they do know, however, is how to read the Bible, and they enjoy it and do it well. (Another of their strengths is their capacity for singing.) God had given me great material to work with—five different versions of the Resurrection, from I Corinthians 15 and the four Gospels. We read them in chronological order—and I was glad to find that they could shout out the approximate years each Gospel is thought to have been written. Then we looked at the similarities and differences between them. One student decided to check whether there was joy in addition to doubt among the disciples. In I Corinthians, Paul doesn’t list any emotions; in Mark: only fear and doubt; in Matthew the women go out of the tomb with fear and joy; in Luke they’re perplexed, terrified, and amazed and then they doubt, as the disciples didn’t believe the women. (In a silly aside, I said to the students that what was true 2,000 years ago is true today—men always think what women say is idle talk, and one of the male students responded, “Hey, give us a break, we aren’t all like that.”) Finally, in John 20:20, we get joy again.

I ended the lecture admitting that trying to explain the Resurrection was indeed confusing (especially in my limited Indonesian), so they shouldn’t feel bad if they were confused. I told them how earlier in Christian history, preachers told jokes on Easter morning—there was no point in trying to explain what had happened—it was enough merely to laugh with the joy of it all.

Rebecca