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Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Christian Education

This Christmas holiday is really a joy for me. Aside from the opportunity to further develop my social relationship (with my family and friends), this holiday also gives me the chance to read some books—one of them is the late Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Sekali Peristiwa di Banten Selatan.

The book describes clearly, how the spirit of mutual cooperation really blossoms in the daily life of rural Indonesians. How they can counteract many community problems with working together.

But the book also highlights one of Indonesia’s weakest points: education. It is a public secret that the government paid little attention to the development of education in Indonesia—aside maybe, to gain some profit from corruption via the ever-changing education policy.

What is the correlation to Christianity? Simple, education is one of Christianity’s biggest contributions to humankind’s history. You can find many schools or universities which roots on Christianity basis, not just outside Indonesia, but also in Indonesia. Some are even the pioneer of education in their location. And they simply do education on the purpose of serving (as a humble servant).

Shame for us that the tradition of Christian Education (thus, contributing to community) has becoming weaker. True, Christian Schools do exist. But are they still doing their Christian way of life (and way of teaching) in their daily life? We can no longer distinguish some Christian educator from those who are not. Some “Christian educator” are even worse than their counterparts (I happens to face some of these “educators”).

It is our chance to fix what has to be fixed. There are those who chose to smear the world of Christian Education—it is their choice. We, meanwhile, can do the opposite: doing what he has to do for Christian Education. You do not have to be a formal teacher; you do not have to be a staff in a formal education foundation. You can start it in your very own community: be a proactive and resourceful, yet educating man. I am lucky enough to find a group which gives me the opportunity to do education activities (although not a formal one). I do trust that there are still enough Christians with a passion of Christian Education that conducts groups such as the one I’m in. And it is your doorway to be a high-impact Christian.