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Bandungan, Indonesia
Indonesians celebrate healing of split

Pudjo Kartiko (left), newly-elected chair of the reunited Javanese Mennonite Church, celebrates with Lawrence Yoder, missiologist from Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Va., at the end of the special general assembly in Bandungan, Indonesia. Photos this page by Laurie L. Oswald

God answered Adi Walujo’s prayers that a long-time schism in the Javanese Mennonite Church would be healed.

Adi, who is assistant pastor of one of the 89 congregations in the Javanese Church – the largest of three Mennonite synods in Indonesia – witnessed God’s power to reunite people during a special general assembly November 9-11 at the Elika Retreat Center in the mountains of central Java.

Rival factions had been divided since 1996 over issues surrounding control of church agencies, civil court suits and sale of church property. Delegates to the general assembly elected a single, new general board, which includes an equal number of members from both sides. After sharing communion, many people estranged for years embraced and shed tears. It was the first general assembly to be held with the entire Javanese church – officially known as the Gereja Injili di Tanah Jawa (GITJ) – since 1989.

“Every year, I was waiting for this reconciliation,” said Adi, assistant pastor of the GITJ Kayu Apu church in Kudus. “Every time I prayed, I asked God, ‘Please, let us communicate again.’ I knew that I was asking something God wanted. Because as Christians and Christ’s body, we are not to be separated. . . . When we are separated, we cannot become the blessing to the people that we should be.”

With great ceremony during the final session, Adi, one of several men chosen to help lead the assembly, handed the gavel to Pudjo Kartiko, the newly-elected chair of the reunited synod.

Pudjo had been the chair of the Kartini synod, the new faction that evolved from the GITJ split. Failure of synod leadership to hold regular semi-annual delegate assemblies or organize the next general assembly on schedule sparked many younger members to protest.

The Kartini synod became the largest group, with about two-thirds of the synod churches siding with it. The Penjawi synod – the original group – was the other faction and the group recognized by the Indonesian government. Both factions had elected general boards and claimed to be the legitimate leadership of the Javanese church, organized in 1940.

The gavel-handing gesture symbolized the culmination of a reconciliation process that began in 1998. The healing of the divide – rooted in decades of discord and power struggles – is a miracle only God could achieve, said Lawrence Yoder, missiologist at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Va.

Yoder, his wife Shirlee, and Duane Ruth-Heffelbower, director of peace programs for Mennonite Central Committee in Indonesia, had helped facilitate reconciliation work done by the two sides. Lawrence Yoder and Ruth-Heffelbower attended the Bandungan meeting.

Duane Ruth-Heffelbower, director of peace programs for Mennonite Central Committee in Indonesia (left), shares a joke with Saptajaadi (center) and Agustinus Mashuri, members of the reunited Javanese Mennonite Church, during a break at the synod's special general assembly.

“If I didn’t believe I was working together with God in this, forget it,” Yoder said. “I think they [the factions] were very stuck . . . and God needed to catalyze some things. They had tried for so long to manufacture their own solution, and nothing worked. They needed to be reminded that God was at work, and because of that, they could do the impossible.”

Despite tensions within leadership, many congregations wanted unity. They had sought the mediation of others, such as the two other Mennonite synods in Indonesia – Gereja Kristen Muria Indonesia (GKMI) and Jemaat Kristen Indonesia (JKI) – and the Indonesian Council of Churches. But no results occurred.

In another try at resolving some of the issues, the Yoders, former MCC workers in Indonesia, drew together GITJ leaders for a retreat in mid-1998. The Java Committee of the Mennonite Conference of the Netherlands and MCC supported the meeting. Dutch missionaries helped plant some of the first GITJ churches.

In July 1998, the two general boards formed a joint team to work out a reunification process. This June, the Yoders invited the rival boards to meet again. Participants identified needs and developed plans for reconciliation.

The Yoders drew on resources for this meeting from Ruth-Heffelbower, a conflict transformation specialist who teaches peacemaking at Duta Wacana Christian University in Yogyakarta. In August, Ruth-Heffelbower, with a peacemaking team from the university, facilitated a reconciliation meeting with representatives of all 89 congregations.

The Holy Spirit melted hearts in a surprising outpouring of emotion, he said. The participants could barely sing during worship because of their weeping – unusual for the Javanese, who are often more reserved.

“It was clear to me that they were ready to create a situation where the Holy Spirit was able to move among them,” Ruth-Heffelbower said.

Hendro Soeradi (left), newly-elected first vice chair of the reunited Javanese Mennonite Church, enjoys a light-hearted moment with Pudjo Kartiko, newly-elected chair. The two men, once rival leaders in two factions, will now serve together.

In many ways, the reunited synod’s work is just beginning. For example, it must decide what to do about assets lost by the sale of synod properties, whether it should reopen the seminary and how to resolve some remaining mistrust.

But synod leaders and pastors said they believe they can do more together than alone. They agree that restored community is of far more value than lost assets.

“We need each other, because we can’t solve these problems by ourselves,” said Hendro Soeradi, the newly-elected first vice-chair of the reunited synod, and former first vice-chair of the Penjawi synod.

“Like it says [in the Scriptures], a cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

Former rivals now friends

That cord was demonstrated by Hendro and Pudjo in 1999 when they attended the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va. MCC had sent the estranged leaders to the institute to help heal the rift between their groups.

However, tragic news came near the outset of their sessions, when the men still resisted having to share a room and cook meals together – much less embrace each other during crisis.

Pudjo received news that his wife had suffered severe injuries in a motorcycle accident in Java and he needed prayer, comfort and someone to help him prepare for a two-day flight home, knowing his wife might die before he got there. Hendro saw Pudjo’s distress and was the first to give comfort.

“He prayed for me, he cried for me, for my family and my wife,” said Pudjo. “When I first got the information about my wife, I felt very sad. And because he felt sad with me, that released many of the feelings of the earlier conflict.”

But Hendro didn’t respond from a sense of needing to push for reconciliation, he said. He simply saw Pudjo’s pain and reached out.

“We were in the dining room at the time that Lawrence [Yoder] brought the news,” Hendro said. “I asked everyone around us to pray instantly. And Lawrence, Pudjo and I cried openly in the hallway, the three of us crying together. More people prayed, and others helped spread the news by e-mail around the world.”

Pudjo believes that those prayers helped save his wife and that the man who prayed them helped heal the synod by his willingness to love his rival.

“She had blood on her brain and was in a coma for 48 hours and spent 12 days in three hospitals,” Pudjo said. “But then there was a miracle. I believe prayers from people all over the world saved her. God heard the prayers of His children, of Hendro.”

After his wife’s recovery, Pudjo returned to the institute. Inspired by Hendro’s earlier gesture of friendship, he responded in kind. The men spent much time sharing their lives. Their relationship later helped inspire the GITJ reunification.

Hendro and Pudjo will now begin serving together on the executive committee of the reunited synod. The relationship they share as unified leaders is only a blossoming of a reconciliation seed planted in Virginia.

“We did everything together – cooked, shopped, worked on the computer,” Hendro said. “That all brought a warm friendship . . . What he felt, I felt. We learned together.”

Pudjo said, “We learned how important it is for a readiness to hear each other, and an openness to talk about what we don’t like. That produces forgiveness in our own hearts.”

Personal loss

The four-year split in the Javanese Mennonite Church came with some loss as well. The synod lost property, members lost trust, and Kamanun lost his wife.

Because of the division and subsequent financial difficulties, Kamanun, a synod clerical worker since 1966, hadn’t received full pay for months and couldn’t afford to buy

Kamanun

insulin for his diabetic wife. As a result, she died two years ago at the age of 47.

In telling his story November 10 at the special general assembly, Kamanun said he had lost the love of his life, but not his love for God and for God’s people – no matter how great his own suffering that had resulted from some of their actions.

“I certainly had many difficulties and much suffering during this time, but all of it was in the Lord’s hands,” he said, with tears pouring down his face.

“In the midst of the conflict, I experienced severe personal turmoil, and the Lord called my wife. Even so, the Lord didn’t just fold His hands. He responded to me. But my suffering is nothing at all compared to the suffering of Jesus.”

Despite his suffering, Kamanun did not speak a bitter word against anyone. Instead, he shared how he had never wanted the synod to split, and now that it was reunited, he urged it to continue as one. After the split in 1996, he had remained in the office of the Penjawi synod.

“I worked for 34 years as a clerical worker and staff for the executive board of the synod and have been there to experience all the difficulties and challenges that have come along,” he said. “But I didn’t want to look at the schism. I continued to consider all 89 churches as my churches.

“What I have to say is a plea and a hope that with the synods coming back together, we will have a good and restored relationship with all the churches, and with friends and partners overseas.”

The God Kamanun so deeply trusts seems to have blessed him personally. On the weekend after the reunification meeting, he planned to marry a new bride from Semarang.

 – Laurie L. Oswald, for Meetinghouse

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Last modified March 7, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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