The HKBP Witness Goes On

On 21 August, 2008, I was at Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Walking with me and my family members was a family who were obviously Muslim, and though excellent English speakers, did have a foreign accent. I asked where they were from.
The father answered. “Urbana, Illinois.”
“Do you teach at the University of Illinois?” I asked.
“No, I’m a graduate student.”
“Where is your home?” I asked.
“Indonesia.”
“And where in Indonesia?”
“Sumatra.”
I said I had just returned. They wanted to know where I’d been, and I named off all the places I could come up with on the spur of the moment, and when I said, “Medan,” he said, “that’s where we are from.”
“Why were you there?” he asked.
Well, I tried to be honest and careful, explaining that our geographic area of the Lutheran Church was related to the HKBP in central Sumatra.
“You mean the Nommensen University people?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“HKBP are good people,” he said as he extended his hand. I extended mine, and said, “Horas!” and immediately all three kids lined up to greet this American in their native Batak!
We then visited at some length, sharing stories and places we knew in common. The Al Mashul Mosque, the Great Palace, Nias, Parapat, Samosir, the Batak history sites, Balige, the Nommensen memorial, Pematangsiantar, and on and on. The witness of the HKBP is recognized, appreciated, and honored. The HKBP is known at the University of Illinois, and in the Black Hills too.

Lowell

Markets

One striking thing about Indonesia is the entrepreneurial culture there. Small businesses blossom everywhere. There are town market plazas, shops attached to houses, mobile carts selling things, taxi-vans and becaks (motorcycle taxis), shops in enclosed marketplaces...

Elim Orphanage

The Elim Orphanage aims to provide a safe, healthy place for children to live. When we visited they had just received 13 new children. One of them who was specifically introduced to us has been rescued from a life on the streets. The new children had just attended their first day of school. There is a Montessori-style preschool on-site, but school-age kids go to area schools.Besides providing food, clothing, a safe place to sleep and loving supervision, there are on-site opportunities for vocational training: animal husbandry (chickens), the textile trade (sewing), and human services (child care). At least one Elim graduate now works there caring for the children; another young man is hoping to attend seminary.

Scenery - Lake Toba

While we didn't go to Sumatra for the scenery, it was a nice perk. Lake Toba is a beautiful place to visit, and we particularly recommend the Sopo Toba Hotel.

Visit to STT-HKBP (The HKBP Seminary)

Tuesday July 29, 2008, 11:30A.M. the eight from Indiana and Kentucky met at the STT Seminary with Rev. Dr. Darwin Lumbantobing, Principal; Rev. Colon W.Z. Pakpahan; Rev. Dr. Bonar H Nababan; Rev. Sikpan Sihombing and Rev. Nellie Hutahaean. A report of STT-HKBP was made available; it lists the make up of the student body and lists the faculty and their curriculum.

During our visit, we saw the chapel and the dinning hall. The group having lunch were the incoming students during a few days of orientation.
Most students are single and live on campus; married students, though few, live off campus. The school has 33 lecturers; at present there are two teachers from Australia for one month. Students come from many islands and many religions. The cost for a student for one year is IRp 3,500,000 (approximately $400.00). The HKBP churchwide pays faculty staff salaries, average salary being IRp2,000,000 per month ($250). Classes are taught in Bahasa Indonesian and Batak except for English class.
Scholarships are necessary as the majority of students cannot afford the tuition. Students from the lower economic strata are able to attend if they sign a promissory note to pay (extended family usually help them). Outside support of the seminary, say, from individual HKBP congregations, needs careful planning. Support from a congregation for an individual seminarian may cut short funds for the seminary itself if the congregation reduces their benevolence level to the HKBP church.
The seminary is accredited by the church, but not to government educational accreditation. One of the main reasons for this is that the library is inadequate. Rev. Wilda Simanjuntak (pictured), is the librarian (and also teaches Hebrew). She showed us through the library and gave us each a list of books they would like to acquire. They are deeply involved in the process of computerizing the Library’s catalog and it looks quite advanced. Lowell has sent books to the STT in the past, but the cost became prohibitive when the U.S. Postal Service changed their fee structure.

Ulos Factory Visit

We visited an ulos factory and talked with some of the workers about what they do.

We heard that the making of the ulos has a long history in the Batak culture. The government has been encouraging people to learn this craft in order to preserve this part of their culture.

The women start working here at about age 16 and it takes 3-4 months to learn their craft. A well-skilled worker can make an ulos, measuring 2 meters in length, in about 2 hours.

In this factory there are about 50 workers. They work long days and their pay is based on the number of ulos they produce. A wageof about 600,000 Rupiah per month (about $65) is considered a good wage.

Rain

During our first week in Siantar we had rain everyday. A couple times it rained VERY hard as you can see here.

The rain made it easy for this big snail to stroll across the sidewalk outside of our hotel rooms.

Thankfully, the really heavy rain only happened a couple times, and the rain we did get didn't have much impact on our itinerary.