Starting a new mission from scratch was not easy. "I was confused about what to do with this new foundation."
An Indonesian Holy Spirit nun accompanies young people and families on Lembata Island in the Lesser Sunda Islands, which is a regency of the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur.
Sister Margaretha Ada, a member of the Missionary Congregation of Sisters, Servants of the Holy Spirit (SSpS), who are popularly known as Holy Spirit Sisters, is the founder of the Lembata Sisters Vocational Training Center (BLK). She is also the head of the Gunthild Karitas Peduli Foundation, among the SSpS nuns in East Flores.
On December 13, she and her team held a program to lay the first stone for the construction of the building for youth on the rocky hills of Bukit Pada, Lembata, East Nusa Tenggara.
The 54-year-old nun, who walks with the help of a cane with a group from the Kompas Humanitarian Fund Foundation (DKK), is helping to build a community center in an area of 300 square meters.
Three platinum plates were put in her right leg two months ago after she fell off her bike while riding a bike on her way home from Church and uphill to the nunnery.
Despite her physical challenges, she has the indomitable spirit to work for the welfare of the community, especially youth and families in the area.
“Though I am recovering from the injury, I continue to oversee activities from morning to night, from cooking, teaching, receiving guests, meetings, and supervising craftsmen,” Sister Margaretha said.
In 2019, she started working for the Community Development Foundation in Lembata after getting her Master of Science in Human Resources from DePaul University in Chicago, USA. She got a top grade and graduated with honors.
“Every new beginning has a set of challenges. We are committed to the welfare of people.”
After graduation, she was happy to serve in the new mission in Lembata, together with two other nuns. She anticipated her assignment to the new mission. “Every new beginning has a set of challenges. We are committed to the welfare of people,” she said.
In the beginning, the three nuns rented a house for their living. They still use this house for their English classes, fashion shows, and catering.
Starting a new mission from scratch was not easy. "I was confused about what to do with this new foundation," she said. She came up with the name of the foundation, its vision and purpose, and its program, and raised funds to start activities.
Concern for young people, young families, and children on Lembata Island, where there have been many cases of human trafficking, Sister Margaretha explained.
Many young people go to Malaysia without permission and end up being worried. Giving people these skills is kind of like trying to boost their self-esteem, she said.
Along with prayers and a vision for Lembata, BLK was the first person to teach English, cooking, and fashion.
Upon arrival at a house with a leaking roof, the staff found tables and chairs set up under a tree in the yard. The organization obtains chairs and classrooms from nearby schools and provides rice aid to the local government for distribution and use.
After five years, BLK is slowly getting better. The Culinary Class tried to get food approval for tuna cakes, tuna meatballs, and processed tuna shred meatballs. All plans fell apart, though, when the certification team visited the assembly kitchen. A mouse crossed the kitchen during the team's check, which was not what they expected to happen. "I felt ashamed,” she said.
"That made us feel bad about putting off the whole thing," Margaretha said.
There have been 276 BLK graduates so far, with 12 groups majoring in informatics engineering.
Some of them are already using their computer skills to get jobs, start sewing businesses, and take orders for cakes and fish-based snacks.
Seven of the students who graduated already had college degrees. In the area of computer engineering, they want to learn more skills.
The foundation got a land gift of 18,000 square meters in Bukit Pada to help it grow.
Over time, the helpers constructed two buildings: a class and office for computer engineers and a six-room house for nuns.
Because funds are scarce, only five nuns are living there, and there are no men to help.
From dawn until dusk every day, the nuns do everything on their own: cook, clean, teach, and handle paperwork.
About 140,000 people live on the island, and there are several teachers at the only BLK there (2022).
Margaretha said that one of these problems is getting people to change their minds because they think that getting skilled and competent takes time and hard work.
In contrast to having an instant mindset and hanging on to money quickly, "When you wake up early in the morning and sell fish or take motorbike taxis between passengers, you have money right away, even though it doesn't last long."
The skills students learn, on the other hand, will last a long time because they are theirs.
"We are working hard to raise awareness to change mindsets," she said.
When Margaretha was a child in a poor farming family, she developed an artistic, responsible, test-avoidant, and strong personality.
They passed away when she was four years old. She is the fifth child and the youngest.
“I will never forget my childhood in Wekaseko Village, Nagekeo, Central Flores,” she said.
Every day, they go hungry and search for tubers in the bush when no one is around to help them. For almost a week, there was no food at all. They filled themselves up with cooked papaya leaves.
In her early years, Margaretha met an SVD missionary priest from Germany. He was the parish priest that her older brothers used to help.
This meeting changed the course of her life. The priest also paid for Margaretha to go to junior high school in Nagekeo and high school in Ende.
She said this was a rare chance because many of her friends had already finished elementary school and had to get married.
She told him, "I never thought I would go to junior high school. I then studied hard."
She was in her third year of high school and majoring in languages when she got a job offer to edit books and proofread papers at the Nusa Indah newspaper. For three years, Margaretha worked there as a book editor, but she chose to leave her job to become a nun.
She felt called to become a nun because she read and edited spiritual books. She always felt reflective when she wrote these things.
At that time, she watched black-and-white TV and saw stories about poverty in Ethiopia. These stories made her call stronger. She wants to keep praying for people who are in need so that everyone will notice them.
"Through the nine-day Novena prayer, I gained the courage to decide to enter a monastery," he shared. After working with the nuns on their mission at the monastery for a few years, they sent her to Sanata Dharma University (USD), Yogyakarta, to study in 1999.
"God alone did everything."
Margaretha's determination also got stronger while she was at USD. She not only helped her with her schoolwork, but he also helped her become more organized by being the leader of a study group at UIN Sunan Kalijaga that did things like hold interfaith talks.
Her drive to be competitive also stands out. A linguist who is also a Professor of Indonesian Language and Linguistics, Anton Moeljono, asked her to share her thesis on cross-disciplinary psychology and linguistics at the Atmajaya Linguistics Conference (Kolita). She accepted the invitation and spoke in Jakarta. She had never been to the main city before.
Margaretha earned the title of best graduate for completing college in seven semesters and excelling in all her classes. She said, "God alone did everything."
All these accomplishments are a duty for her. Her hard work to start BLK led to an accident she refused to admit was her fault. There is no name there. Everyone should help each other feel better about their self-worth.
