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Reflection Journal
Back Home for a Year Now
Yuergen Tjia
I have been back home for one year now after spending my six years of college and work in Texas. I flew back to Indonesia right after attending TPM 12 in Chicago on September 2005. The decision of coming back to Indonesia did not come easy. I remember going through a lot of prayer and counsel before I finally decided to come back to Indonesia. While I was in the U.S., I have heard from many people about how challenging it is to live in Indonesia, especially if you are a Christians who want to honor the Lord with your life. After being in Indonesia for a year, I find it to be true. Experiencing the challenges myself has allowed me to better appreciate the Christian principles that we learned in the U.S. In this short journal I will share the challenges that I face and hope that the reader can benefit from what I have encountered in Indonesia.
Integrity Vs. Corruption
Currently, I am working as a contractor and helping my parents taking on a project for a private real estate developer. Basically, we have been assigned to build 2 units of houses for their customers. In the U.S when we discussed about integrity, the challenges comes to my mind are like cheating during exams, telling lies while selling a product and some others. However, I can't think of any case where I have to bribe during my stay in the U.S. In Indonesia, I have to face that kind of choice and challenges almost on a daily basis.
One example would be when there is one time I have to collect a payment that has been delayed for 1 month. While I was waiting for the finance director who wasn't in the office that time, I was sitting in a lounge. It is so happen that the CEO, the operational manager, and one senior finance staff were sitting in the same lounge. Since I have known them pretty well, we discussed many issues, and after not too long talking they were rebuking me saying that I have not being flexible in dealing with them. I know that they were referring to the occasion where I always want to follow a rule as much as I can and refused their offer for 'help'. They said that if I continue being like that and not following how the 'Indonesian-way' of doing business, I will not survive in Indonesia and it's better for me to go back to the U.S. While I was talking with them in the lounge, the finance director came in. Then they changed the conversation, telling me how they used to do project for a government-owned company (BUMN). They shared how they had to buy the finance person in that BUMN company a cell-phone in order to get the payment. I realized that they were basically telling me that I should do the same to him in order for me to get my payment fast (they have delayed my payment for 1 month). At that time, I didn't really know how to respond to that, basically, I just ended the conversation by asking them a question, whether they think what happen in the BUMN company is something that we can be proud about or not? I didn't have the courage to say anything else at that time. But since that is not the last time they do it to me, I have given some thought on what I could say to them next time. I think I could try to convince them to see that keeping that kind of work ethic will be a disadvantage to their company as well. Even in a corrupt business system in Indonesia, we could not deny that there is a growing tide to be better (maybe not due to a moral change, but maybe due to globalization) everywhere in any private institution and government. I will have to read to get more data to support my argument.
This is not a new story for many of us. In fact, it reminds me of what a TPM speaker, Vishal Mangalwadi, once said about corruption. How corruption can turn everything upside down. For instance, with corruptions a hospital as an institution which purpose is to give life, could become an institution that kills.
Love Thy Neighbor
We are told to love our neighbor by the Lord. In the U.S. although I was still learning to better love my brothers and sisters in Christ in the fellowship or a co-worker with a different character, but still it has never become as hard as what I experience in the context of loving my neighbor in Indonesia.
This is happening especially when I have to face thugs at my project site. In the project site, we have to pay them to unload goods from our truck as we are not allowed to unload it ourselves. These thugs do not operate by themselves. They have the support and approval from the “community leader” (RT and RW), where he also benefits from the income. These thugs are basically people who live in the neighborhood to the project site and spending their day sitting around and doing nothing. I used to think that these people are lazy and do not have the willingness to work. After I have the chance to develop some trust with them thru dialogue and informal chats, I learned that some of them are actually skilled labors, such as car mechanics, technicians, who lost their job during the recent economic downturn (high inflation, etc). Some others chose to join this 'thug group' because the income from unloading goods is more than if working in a shop as technicians. I just realized that not all of these thugs enjoy being thugs themselves. They do it out of their need to make a living. What disturbed me is that by paying the 'unloading fee' I feel like giving the incentive to the lazy for being content of where they are and the incentive for the skillful labor to move from their skilled job into doing hard labor / unskilled labor. At the same time, I have not come up with any real solution that can help them at the moment, and I have to ask God to give me a creative idea on what I can do to love my neighbor in this context.
Living in the US for many years gave me easy access to a good bible teaching every Sunday, weekly fellowship, good bible study group, and a good annual conference. Not to mention mentors or friends in our life who supported and believed in what we value in life. Living in this kind of Christian environment is great. But living and grow up in such environment doesn't expose me to the context where I have to put 'thugs' as part of my neighbor. Thus, living-out the Christian principle, i.e. “love thy neighbor”, in the U.S would have a different challenge than in Indonesia. This is one of the toughest adjustments that I have to make when I got back to Indonesia. Besides having a different context, I also have to change my paradigm about my work life. I have to see that my work place is also a ministry and not just a place to work. Only by having this new paradigm about work, I can start thinking how to make my workplace to be a more Christ-like community.
In conclusion, it is true that living in Indonesia is challenging, however it is also true that through those challenging life experience our character is being refined. I have always come to learn new thing after facing challenges. Not only learning new ideas, but many times I also learn more about my weaknesses and shortcomings through challenges. It reminds me to a biblical history of how God uses challenges and hardships in shaping his people's character. God allowed Joseph to live far from his family as a slave before God finally put Joseph in Egypt, God also allowed Moses be trained in the wilderness before He asked Moses to take his people out from Egypt. In the same way, God is preparing His people's character for a greater thing in Indonesia through the challenges that we face. It is a journey of faith that we have to undergo before we have a clearer picture of how God wants to use us to serve our community in Indonesia.
Yuergen Tjia graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.Sc. in Electrical
Engineering. He is now working as a general contractor in Jakarta.
