JP/19/MK1

JP/19/MK1

checked --JSR
From Kalimantan to Malang via Birmingham

Duncan Graham
Contributor/Malang

The life of a missionary kid (they call themselves MKs) is so
dramatically different from the upbringing of most children that
there is even an Indonesian webpage devoted to the experience.

Sample: MKs fly before they can walk. They speak two languages
but can't spell in either. They have passports but no driver's
licenses. When watching National Geographic TV specials they
recognize someone. Or think the featured wildlife looks tasty.

Obviously the trauma rate is high. The quandary facing English
MK Jonathan Heath was adjusting to life in the industrial city of
Birmingham, England. His formative years had been in a West
Kalimantan village in a high-stump house eating fresh-killed meat
from the forest. A wide, brown river outside the garden was his
swimming pool.

How does anyone handle the concrete jungle after a boyhood
spent in the real jungle with Dayak playmates?

Answer: They don't. Well, not without a lot of difficulty.

Solution: Return to Indonesia.

But the days of gaunt, God-driven white folk in pith helmets
trekking their version of salvation into the heart of darkness
have all but gone. The Indonesian government no longer welcomes
foreign pastors unless they're headed for seminaries where they
can preach to the already converted, and Malang in central East
Java seems to have more than most.

So whether by happenstance, or through the mysterious workings
of the Deity, teacher Heath found himself back in the archipelago
with plans to stay indefinitely as the principal of Malang's
Wesley International School.

Now when such cherished ambitions are let loose by the husband
they often founder on the rock of marriage. He may want to
revisit the land of his childhood and bask in the tropical sun of
happy memories, but his partner will surely have other plans.

Fortunately for Heath his English wife, Esther, is also a
former MK. She's been well immunized to adapt and make the best
of whatever she finds.

She was raised in poor, landlocked Malawi in southern Africa.
So she has also experienced a childhood quite out of the
ordinary. Consequently, the culture shock of moving to East Java
has been little more than a language jolt.

Life's spiritual dimension

A similar destiny awaits their children Nathanael, 5, and
Abigail, 3, with another on the way who will be born in East
Java. The kids are already in a local kindergarten so they will
pick up Indonesian and the culture, but, as the couple are quick
to note, Malang is far from Pontianak.

"This is a very safe city to the point where some families
from Jakarta and Surabaya prefer that their children study here,"
Heath said. "Although there have been threats of church closures
following the problems in Bekasi regency, this is not West Java."

Nonetheless, the school takes security for its 100 students
from 10 countries seriously. Their new, purpose-built campus has
a winding entrance and a modern take of the drawbridges that
protected castles in medieval Europe.

In the Wesley version a flick of a switch sends a steel-plated
section of the road skidding away, leaving a big and impassable
pit.

The school started in a house in 1971 when missionaries --
mainly from the U.S. -- wanted their kids to have an American
schooling.

Most of the missionaries have long gone but the school has
moved three times and expanded to cover all study years and meet
the educational needs of expatriates' kids. These are now mainly
Korean, in business or as staff in the seven, government-
approved, local Bible colleges.

The curriculum remains U.S. based, and Heath -- the school's
first non-American principal -- claims that graduates have no
trouble entering most American and Korean universities.

"This is an evangelical, non-denominational Protestant
school," he said. To get enrolled here you must be fluent in
English as that's the means of instruction.

"It's getting more difficult to recruit teachers because of
the reports of violence and political tension. We want our
teachers to have the support of congregations back in their
hometowns so we maintain partnerships with the rest of the
world."

Heath stayed in Indonesia till he was 18. Apart from
schooling in Kalimantan he was also educated in Bandung, Jakarta
and Malaysia. After graduating from Loughborough University in
Leicestershire he taught mathematics in Birmingham schools where
most students were Asian immigrants. He also went to theological
college for three years.

After many years in Britain the pull to Indonesia became too
much. The family moved to Malang a year ago with Heath as a
teacher. Now he's been promoted as the boss.

Heath's experiences growing up as a proclaimed Christian in a
predominantly Muslim nation have made him a hard-nosed realist.
The school was briefly closed during the political unrest
following the fall of Soeharto in 1998.

"There's no direct threat to Christianity in Indonesia, but
almost every day we hear about an incident somewhere in the
country where a church has been closed," he said. "That tends to
create an impression of threat.

"People are far more alive in their faith in Indonesia than
Britain, which professes to be a Christian country but where most
do not practice.

"Here we are constantly aware of the spiritual dimension of
life. The challenge is to be aware of our spirituality.

"Christianity will continue to thrive as a strong and
tolerated minority religion in Indonesia but the future depends
on the government -- whether it leans towards Pancasila or an
Islamic state.

"We cannot proselytize. Our role as Christians and whites is
to set a positive example through the way we live and behave as
peaceful people. We all have to work hard to ensure good
relations with the rest of the community.

"If there's any trouble then both sides need to stand up and
promote tolerance together. I don't think it's difficult to be a
Christian in Indonesia."

(Pic caption) Jonathan and Esther Heath