Dream of Dreams

It was three years after I concluded my term as a volunteer teacher in Micronesia. The memory about that great two years over the hill on the tiny island was fading out. However, there is some idea who put me back on fire. It convokes  my spirit to go from my comfort zone. The area that I built for this three years. It is so comfortable until I forgot the meaning of life. Everything is over there. I may go out to chill out without obstacles. In Chuuk, I couldn't go anywhere except outside of my room or my office as long as I was in the compound. In my place right now, I got lose of direction in my life. Every thing looks like okay. Nothing disturbing on the surface. On the artificial level, it seems alright. Actually inside of myself, it is becoming rotten. 

I just read about Indonesia Mengajar. It is an outreach program for the best student whom just graduated from the undergraduate program to serve as an elementary teacher. They will prepare with many competencies such as teaching skills, survival techniques, leadership, and many things before they will be sending to the remote places in Indonesia. I found two purposes for this program. The first, their services helps many children in some elementary schools in the peripheries area of Indonesia. The chosen places are still underdeveloped. The basic infrastructures like electricity, water, and even for the education is still limited. Their presence and action over there hopefully accompany the local people to taste the basic standard education from the best under graduated students from all over Indonesia. The encounters between the have and haven't would encourage both of them to be and do more for the brighter future. 

Besides for the local needs, the program also put the volunteers to have an experience. A year live between the natives increases their awareness about the gap between their own life and the local. The experience itself glued tightly in the deep of their heart. It is important for the next Indonesian generation to have such experience. Later they will be the next leader. With that experience, it is broadening their world view. Hopefully, they will put in consideration the voiceless people who live far away from the center of the authority. 

Indonesia Mengajar vision is burning again my dream of dreams. I was lucky since I had such kind of experience to serve as a teacher in the place of nowhere. I never think and imagine that I would spend my life on that tiny island of Weno, Chuuk, Micronesia. It was just two years. Honestly, I want to expand my term. However, the life must go on. The dream is coming from that encounters with the natives with their limited life but wonderful simple life there. That experience brings me want to create something similar like Indonesia Mengajar. If they do for fifties some fresh graduates, I could add more numbers with another similar movement. 

Jesuit Volunteer Corps from USA contributes in my dream. It is a kind similar like Indonesia Mengajar but in a broader sense and specific. It is broader since JVC doesn't serve as a teacher. They also provides volunteers for another kind of works such as pastoral ministries, etc. It is specific because it based on Catholic Christianity formation especially Ignatian Spirituality. I'm still counting my energy and collecting many similar visions and ideas to execute this dream: The Indonesian Jesuit Volunteers.