Christmas in Timor

Along the roadsides throughout Timor people have been building nativity scenes for weeks. They are made of bamboo, wood and various grasses. Additional touches are loud speakers and lights to turn on when the electricity comes on at night. At Immanuel church we started on the 23rd with a trip to the small Protestant Church in Illilopa. This village has only about a dozen Protestant families, down from Indonesian times when it was full every Sunday. Nowadays the church is largely empty and has no pastor, so each week a few from Immanuel go there to hold a service for the few folks who come. This afternoon there were more who came since it was Christmas (actually Dec. 23). As usual the service was held in 3 languages; Tetum, Indonesian, and Fataluku the local language. Often times older people speak only the local language, so most of the time there is translation of some kind going on.

Bomb Shell Bell

Outside the church at Illilopa is a bell which calls people to worship on Sunday. The bell is an old bomb from the World War 2 period when the Japanese invaded Timor and fought the Australians and Timorese for 2 years. The bell is reminiscent of the bell at our local church, Peace United Church of Christ in Duluth, MN. There we have 3 bells from war ships, once part of the destruction of humanity which now signal the start of worship each Sunday. Each time we hear them, we are reminded that one of God’s hopes for the world lies in the transformation our weapons of war into instruments of peace. (Is 2:4).

On the morning of the 24th we loaded up the truck with about 12 youth and drove down to the village of Livie, on the sea about an hour and a half away on the road to Dili. Like the church in Illilopa, this church does not have a pastor and has been largely abandoned, in fact today’s service was the first held in 5 years! About a dozen people came, half of them children. After the service a few of us went to a members house across the street where a family member has been sick for a long time. We prayed for her health and I interviewed her about the illness so I could inform Monica about it. Next time we pass by we’ll stop and Monica can consult with her.

Christmas eve services at Immanuel Church in Lospalos started somewhere between 6 and 7. At last minute request, I did the opening prayer in Tetum, the youth did all their performances in Indonesian and Tetum, and recent seminary graduate preached for about 45 minutes in Indonesian and it was translated to Makasse. The clinic nurse sat next to me and translated the Indonesian into Tetum!

English Class is Los Palos, East Timor

The two local languages most common here are Fataluku and Makassae (though there are several other smaller languages). Unlike Tetum, which is an “Austronesian” language like Indonesian, Fataluku and Makassae are both“Papuan” languages, originating from the eastern end of the Indonesian Archipelago and having nothing in common with Tetum, though Fataluku it is a very simple language so loanwords from Indonesian, Tetum and Portuguese are used with it. Fataluku is spoken by most of the people in the Lautem district of Timor, the far Eastern end of the island. In the Western part of Lautem district, most people speak Makassae, so in Lospalos about 20% are ‘ema Makassae’ (a Makassae speaking person). With the exception of older people, most people in Lautem now speaks at least some Tetum, one of East Timor’s two national languages (the other is Portuguese). Throughout East Timor, linguists estimate that about 80% speak Tetum as a first language, or fluently as a second language.