Author: Sebastien Berger
Publication: The Daily Telegraph,
London
Date: January 22, 2005
URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/22/wtsun22.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/22/ixportal.html
Nevertheless, some foreigners are
prepared to run the risk of being caught trying to turn Muslims into Christians.
"I'm not here to do relief work,"
said John, a Malaysian Chinese lawyer who did not want his surname published.
His calling was missionary work, he admitted. "They are looking for answers,"
he said of the disaster victims, whom he described as particularly good
candidates for conversion.
"Now we are befriending them, giving
them food aid, clothes and stuff. We need to make friends with them first
rather than telling them the concept of salvation.
"Long term that's where we are heading
towards, to save their souls.''
About 300 aid workers, almost half
of them foreigners, from various Christian groups have taken over a Banda
Aceh hotel in an operation led by Indonesia's National Prayer Network.
Pastor Sukendra Saragih, 44, of
the Tabernacle of David Church in Medan and the operation's co-ordinator,
was aware of local sensitivities about conversion. He sent home 10 people
who described evangelism as their motive for coming, he said.
"We are not coming here to Christianise
the people but to share our life with them," he insisted. "We don't tell
them directly about Jesus but we show our love through our actions and
the people will ask us,'Why are you so different, why are you being so
kind to us?'
"I answer,'That's the way we have
been taught'. They ask,'Who taught you?'. And I answer,'It's Jesus' . "
Such attitudes are especially unwelcome
in a region where signs outside the airport inform visitors that they are
entering territory governed by Islamic sharia law.
Yesterday, only yards from scenes
of devastation, thousands filled Banda Aceh's Masjid Raya Baiturrahman
mosque and its grounds for their religion's holiest festival, Eid al-Adha.
Prayers and a sermon were followed
by sacrifices of a score of cattle and several sheep.
One slaughterer found comfort in
his faith: "Actually I am one of the victims," said Daud Hanafia. "From
my family 22 people are gone and 18 survive. It is the will of Allah, it
is not our will. We are very sad but I am still patient.
One of the mosque's imams warned
Christian aid groups not to cross the line between charity and proselytising.
"If they give help but at the end of the help they have a special mission
to make the Aceh people become Christian, then forget it. We won't take
the help at all," he said.
"If there is preaching then we will
be very angry with them. We have our own religion, we believe it. You have
your own religion, so believe it. Don't try to persuade others."
Several radical Islamic groups have
also arrived in Aceh, partly to carry out relief work - some specialise
in corpse collection - and partly to spread their own message.
"We watch foreign volunteers' activities,"
said Muhammad Rizieq Syihab, the leader of the Front Pembela Islam (Islamic
Defenders' Front), which would like a global Islamic state and claims to
have five million members.
"If they are breaking the rules,
if they make mistakes, we will warn them, very very smoothly," he said
at his base in a cemetery.
"So far we have not carried out
any violence against Christians.
"But I have received many local
guests and they tell me that if they get Christians taking Acehnese children
and asking them to change religion, they will cut their throats."
