Indonesia is a nation consisting of tribes with cultural and religious diversity. In Java, where I live, the majority of the people are Muslim.
When my mother died at the age of 81 on Nov. 3, 2021, young women in the village made flower arrangements called “rencong” at the front of our house. Before the coffin was lifted up, they put the rencong on top of the crate.
An article recently published by the Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) explored the aspects of racism present in U.S. Christian missions to Korea during the time of Japanese colonization of Korea (1905–1945) and reaching into the first years after the end of World War II but just before the Korean War broke out in 1950.
The COVID-19 pandemic is growing rapidly in Indonesia, which has one of the highest number of coronavirus cases in Asia. But with fewer than 100,000, the total number of confirmed cases is still relatively small compared to those in the United States.
My grandmother was a farm wife during the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. For the rest of her life, she was meticulous
about not wasting food. She wouldn’t use a vegetable peeler on potatoes or carrots because she could remove less peel using a knife.
I felt trepidation as I entered the auditorium at the Indonesian Islamic University (UII) in Yogyakarta. More than 500 students filled every seat and many sat on the floor. The women sat on the left and the men on the right. I knew I was not the main attraction. A radical Muslim cleric, who had been in and out of jail, was one of the speakers. Some of his students had been suicide bombers in Bali.
