A joke that I heard spoken once was this: “What do the Chinese have in common with the Jews?” Answer: “They are found everywhere in the world”. Just as Jewish Diaspora is a well documented fact, so are overseas Chinese. Chinese in China make up 19.8% of world population plus the Diaspora Chinese (60 million, not counting Taiwan), you will have more than 20% of world population. That’s an incredible fact, numbering close to 1.4 billion of 6.7 billion of all human beings on earth. I read some years ago (in Times or Newsweek) that the wealth of all overseas Chinese combined amounts to the third largest economy in the world after USA and Japan.

Diaspora Chinese of Indonesia is a unique grouping of people. As much as they are bound by racial origins, they are more closely knit together by their shared language, the Indonesian language which is spoken by 230 million people in Indonesia irrespective of ethnic origins. Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is part of the language called Malay, the lingua franca of the Malay Archipelago since the 15th century. This Malay language is spoken by more than half the population or 250 million people of South East Asia, in countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Southern Philippines, Timor Leste, and Southern Thailand. Though there are significant variants of the language depending on the country and location, but on the whole I think about 80% of the linguistic features are common to all speakers of the language. The Indonesian language is probably 80% similar to Malay (Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia) spoken by Peninsular Malaysians, but 90% similar to the Malay spoken by peoples of the Malaysian Borneo (Sabah and Sarawak).

I led a mission team to Medan (Sumatra, Indonesia) a few years ago and I preached in 7 or 8 different churches there over 10 days. My host commented that my Malay was easily understood by the locals (maybe he was being polite) while according to him, they had some difficulty in understanding the Malay spoken by West Malaysians. This is mainly due to two reasons. Sabah and Sarawak (East Malaysia) are part of the island, Borneo where we share a border with Indonesian Kalimantan and by reason of geographical proximity and inter-cultural exchanges between Kalimantan and East Malaysia, our shared Malay language has become more similar in terms of pronunciation and intonation.

Secondly, it is because many Christians (as many as 90% of Sabah’s and Sarawak’s indigenous Christians) use the one and same Bible, the Alkitab Indonesia (Indonesian Bible). Within my own denomination, it has become a tradition very soon after the founding of our Church that Indonesian preachers are invited every year in our churches to speak at Revival Meetings, Bible and Youth Conferences. I myself have read and used the Indonesian Bible for the last 20 years and preach from the Indonesian Bible in the past fourteen years as pastor and full-time church worker. I have been a pastor-in-charge of a Malay-Indonesian speaking congregation for the last five years before taking a break from the pastorate and now starting as Lecturer in New Testament in Singapore.

Thus, I felt much at home yesterday at Bethany Church, Singapore which holds its worship services at Hyatt Hotel, Orchard Road. My spirits were very much lifted when my wife and I went inside the church with Indonesian worship songs being played: Tuhan Maha Besar and Tuhan yang Dekat (God is Almighty and the God who is near). The congregation numbers 1,500 adults in its second service at 10:30am. I felt the presence of God several times during the service, especially that the Malay songs drew me closer to the Lord. The preaching was good and the speaker was hilarious (in a good way). I felt like a prodigal son, returning to my family and to my Pentecostal roots. I had great liberty in worship whether in clapping or lifting up of hands unto the Lord. Though Pentecostalism has its baggage (I even once said in my blog that I wished not to be called a Pentecostal: I retract!) and its extreme elements, it has got the basics right. No matter how theologically sophisticated you are or may claim to be, but if you do not have freedom in worship (stiff and dry), joyless and worse, no sense of God’s awesome presence in your midst, all your traditions and learning amount to naught. “For rejoicing and salvation are in the tents of the righteous” (Psa 118:15).

Tony Siew