IofC Gathering in Bandung

This year’s Iedul Qurban for Moslems around the globe was on the 22 August, following the spirit of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son, Ismail and to celebrate the life we have now.  The School of Reconciliation (SR) team set a gathering to reflect and celebrate the life we have now. It was on Sunday, 26 August 2018 in Bandung.  This was really the space for everyone. I Accept You Completely was the theme for this gathering.

There were 4 activities in this gathering. The first one was a Quiet Time and Sharing session. People were so keen to join this session. They long for the space where they can listen and connect with themselves. The input for today’s quiet time was “How would we return the love that we received from God”. People shared freely their insights and thoughts after the quiet time. It is releasing to each person in this gathering to share, refresh and awaken to listen to the others’ sharing as well.

After sharing, we read the book On the Family. We discussed the first chapter about the crisis happening in the family. We participated and interacted to share our experiences based on the paragraph we just read.  At lunch time, we had a BBQ as we received a lot of beef from a neighboring mosque and families from the Qurban. After that, we listened to the Talk about Life (TAL) session from Arijal. He shared there are many beauties in his life. One he quoted - we find the beauty of life when we pass conflicts smoothly. Febri and Rayhan, the cousins who came back from Syria, shared deeply on what the motives were for their family to go to Syria, how they lived there and how they struggled to get out of the country. Febri expressed that this was the second life for him from God. Living in Syria was full of feeling scared, every hour hearing the exploding of bombs. He did not know what would happen to him and his family in the next few hours. He already surrendered to God with his life. Rayhan’s father died there because of the bombing. After a lot of drama, luckily the response of the Indonesian Embassy in Iraq helped them transfer and to finally touch down in Indonesia. Febri and Rayhan shared that they will use their life to inspire other people and share their valuable experience to the Indonesian younger generation, so that no one will be deceived by ISIS on the internet any more. They started a new life in the land of hope, Indonesia, their home country to share the light they gained from this very rare story in their life. We closed the sessions and learnings for all with a photo opportunity.

Reported by Nur Hayati Syafii