Religion Role To Shape Leader’s Character Aprialdo Altrians Hermanus, Theology, STT GKS Lewa
Thursday, 27 June 2019by adminstube
The Indonesian government understands a term of ‘government is from people, by the people and for the people’ so that sovereignty is in the hands of the people. Simultaneous elections to vote leaders have been held on April 17, 2019. People have high hopes for the leaders who have been chosen, therefore the leaders must keep their promises made during the campaign by doing their duties as best and fair as possible. The community has responsibility to control and even ask promises or work programs to be carried out. Unfortunately, political promises during the campaign were often forgotten when the leaders got a comfortable chair and strong authority. Worse they committed corruption, did power abuse, involved in prostitution even domestic violence, and so on.
The importance of religion role
What kinds of effort should be taken to reduce those bad things above? We know that success of a country is closely related to the leaders’ ethics and morals. Indonesia is a country that upholds the values of divinity, proven from the first principle of Pancasila, Believe in one supreme God. It means that religion has strong influence on the whole life of this nation in which every religion teaches good ethics and morals in establishing good relations among people.
Any religion has a role and responsibility to prepare qualified leaders and to respect the existing norms in life. Religion is one of the drivers in creating nation leaders with good integrity values, daring to criticize when leaders violate norms of life. The magnificent worship construction should be in line with human quality development. The reinforcement of ethics and moral aspects in educational institutions from kindergarten to college, even workplace should be maintained continuously.The writer believes that religion can play a role in creating cadres of honest leaders with good integrity that is supported by families at the basic level. Let us prove it to achieve Indonesia’s dreams to be fair, well-developed and prosperous.***
Empowering Farmer Through Credit Union Nina Ndoda, a Theology Student, Theological Institute of Lewa-Sumba
Tuesday, 25 June 2019by adminstube
Lewa, one of sub-districts in Eastern Sumba regency has inhabitant majority working as farmers, relying on their farms to earn for living. If you have ever visited Lewa, your sight will be delighted with the sprawling beauty of paddy fields. No wonder if Lewa has become East Sumbanese’s granary and Lewa rice is dominating Sumbanese markets.
Unfortunately, Lewa farmers are still living far from prosperity, even though if we analyzed, actually farming will give big profit, because Lewa farmers can harvest 3-4 times a year and receive money up to fifty million rupiahs at the minimum. But there are many farmers in Lewa that couldn’t afford to feed themselves everyday, many children dropped out of school, many of them are living in dilapidated houses, etc. It is very ironic that a place rich with arable land but many of inhabitants not living in prosperity.
Many farmers went debt-ridden with loan sharks became one of the reasons for the stagnation of the farmer’s living standards. Their freshly harvested rice is instantly given to loan sharks to pay their debt. When its time to sow the lands, farmers borrowed money from loan sharks to buy fertilizers and other accommodations, neglecting the high-interest rate, just focusing to have some money to start sowing rice. It is what is often called “digging a hole to close another”.Empowering farmer through Credit Union is one of the methods to solve current issues. The principle of a Credit Union is togetherness and mutual cooperation with low interest, and of course, it will help farmers fulfill their economic needs. Farmer Credit Union, built upon the foundation of togetherness and mutual, CU will not be easy to break because it has a good foundation. Not only aiming to improve economic backgrounds, but CU also functions to accommodate farmers to be able to share their farming experiences. So, farmer’s CU can be a venue to share information and experience.
Attention from the government is very expected to get rid of loan shark practices that harm the farmers’ life, and to help them to manage CU through proper management training and many more. Let us empower the farmers through CU because it is rooted deep in one of the basic Indonesian values. Through high mutual spirit and empowering of CU, then our common goal, to eradicate hunger, to have bed-ridden free, and to enable farmers to have good health can be achieved. Long live our farmers!
The Awakening Presence For Togetherness Reflection on the presence of Exploring Sumba Participants in Sumba Christian Church of Kaliuda
Saturday, 22 June 2019by adminstube
Kaliuda is a small village, part of Pahunga Lodu district located on the eastern tip of Sumba Island, about 110 km to the east of Waingapu, the capital of East Sumba regency. Pahunga Lodu means Rising Sun because the sun rises earlier here than other districts in Sumba.
In this village I am serving a congregation of Sumba Christian Church (GKS) Kaliuda. My name is Mora Henggi, born in Mburukullu from Umbu Nggaba Kahu and Rambu Hada H. Mila, from a common farmer family that formed me to be diligent in worshiping, honest, kind to others and independent. I graduated from Theology Faculty of Kupang Artha Wacana Christian University in 2006 and became a vicar at GKS synod. On December 12, 2008 I was ordained as a pastor at GKS Kaliuda having 2.148 members, consisting of 1.068 adult members and 1.080 teenagers and children. Based on the vision and mission of GKS and Church duties there are several forms of service that I do, namely worship, preaching, fellowship prayer, spiritual guidance or catechism, evangelism, pastoral, and social services to society.
My recognition about Stube-HEMAT Sumba started in 2010 during a seminar on Law and Human Rights at GKS Kaliuda with students and youth participants. It gave us a new understanding of Law and Human Rights in living in a community so that we are aware of respecting human rights, not committing violence and respecting the law. Besides new material, the church members worked together to support the event. We wanted to regain the atmosphere by keeping contact with Yulius Anawaru and Rev. Dominggus, Stube-HEMAT Sumba team, and wished a chance of activity involving GKS Kaliuda.
This longing was realized in 2014, Novia Sih Rahayu was sent to Kaliuda as a participant in Exploring Sumba. She came from Yogyakarta and brought training material how to be event leader or Master of Ceremonies (MC) for youth and church youth. At first they were not confident enough to speak in public, but Novi was patient enough to train them so that they slowly dared and were confident to come forth and practice leading an event. At present some of them become leaders of the youth fellowship and leader of Sunday worship liturgy.
The following participants of Exploring Sumba came in 2016 was Imelda Dewi Susanti from West Kalimantan. She delivered material and training on hypertension and how to deal with gymnastics and traditional medicines. Imelda's presence greatly helped the church members to behave healthy and diligently go to church. She often visited church members’ house and had dialogue with them, giving advice on healthy living and checking heart rate and practising exercise as a cheap, natural and simple medicine.
From both of them, I found memorable experiences when Novi woke up early and went to beach, took selfie photos during waiting for the sunrise, after that we went home and visited one house of the church member. The family felt so happy because of the visit and then gave Novi a hen to be taken home to Java. When I was with Imelda, she often woke up early to visit the house of church's koster and waited for him from the palm tree to harvest ‘tuak’ tree water.
I hope Stube continue to strive to realize its motto, through its programs and activities that are beneficial and needed by the young generation of Sumba as assets of church and society. For the Exploring Sumba participants, it needs seriousness in preparing materials and training contents so the guidance and training can be optimally obtained.So, young students, take the opportunity to leap on to other areas with different cultures to share knowledge and discover new experiences and enlightenments that are 'exciting' and growing you and others up. (TRU).