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