Martina and Jek are people you can count on. They are poor by western standards, but they have big hearts. They are raising four kids of their own, but also have taken care of dozens of their nieces, nephews and aunties who come from even leaner circumstances. It’s who they are, and it’s what is expected in their community.
Martina is originally from the island of Sumba. Thanks to our friend Ibu Gedong, she lived with us in Berkeley for three years, and helped raise Max when he was a baby. She had met Jek before coming to America and planned to marry him. However, Martina was a careful young woman, and vowed to make sure that Jek didn’t play around too much while she was away. Fortunately, he lived up to her high expectations, and she married him and moved to his home island of Flores. We have visited them several times over the past several years at their simple home in Maumere and have admired their generosity and the love and service they give to their family and community.
I’ve traveled to many places in the world that are destitute, so I wasn’t particularly shocked that Maumere was poor but it was also very dry. Probably poor because it’s dry since there’s very little rainfall on the coastal plain where it sits and only a few puny streams flow down from the mountains. That means meager water resources to grow food or support industry.
Martina and Jek rank among the middle class in Maumere mainly because Jek earned a college degree and worked for many years for development organizations building schools and hospitals throughout eastern Indonesia. Martina is an enterprising woman who has raised pigs and chickens and ran a small snack shop outside their front door. Jek had also bought a two-hectare piece of land he hoped to farm which is located a mile from their house. Middle class in Maumere means they live in a simple tin house with an outdoor kitchen where they cook over a wood fire. Importantly, however, they can afford to take care of their family members from both Flores and Sumba who need a home and a meal.
When I visited them in 2019, they were having a hard time. A few months before Jek had refused to allow a corrupt government official to skim money off a hospital project he was directing. The price he paid for this honesty was his job. He decided to focus on turning his property into a farm and he was raising goats and trying to grow corn. But there wasn’t enough water and the crops died, and soon after so did the goats. Martina’s pig business also hit hard times after a wave of Asian swine flu killed all her animals.
In April 2023, I visited them again with my Balinese friends Puji and Putu joining me. I warned them that they would see a generous but very poor family. However, when we arrived, I noticed a new brick house under construction next door. I inquired if they had new neighbors, but Martina said it was their new house. In the backyard, the pig stalls were once again full of grunting, hungry and growing animals. After a sumptuous meal, we all decided to take a walk up to the farm. Again, I warned Puji and Putu that we were likely to see a tangle of dry and dying crops and some skinny goats. It was getting dark when we arrived, but as we rounded the last hill, the landscape was bathed in bright lights from a structure above the farm. And instead of the scrubby goat pasture I’d seen before there was row after row of healthy corn stalks with pipes and irrigation ditches bringing the plants a bountiful supply of water.
I was flummoxed by the transformation of the farm, not to mention the new house and thriving pig farm. It took a while for Jek to tell me the story because my Indonesian language skills are weak. But here’s what he told me: About a year before he was stressed because after losing his job and the pig farm, there just wasn’t enough money to provide for his family. He had hoped to make a go of farming, but there was no chance due to the lack of water. So, he had gone up to the top of the farm and sat on a rock where he often meditated. This time he asked God for a miracle. He specifically asked for water to help grow his crops and feed his family. Jek and Martina have close relationship with God and Jesus. Like most of the other people on Flores they are Catholic, a religion which arrived with the Portuguese colonists. It’s a different kind of Catholicism though because it overlays the original animist religion that was here before. It’s a religion alive with ancestors and spirits which are everyday parts of Martina and Jek’s life.
About two weeks after his prayer, Jek met a man walking around his property. The man said he was a water surveyor and wanted to do a test well. Jek agreed. A few weeks after that he found out that there is a vast aquifer under his farm which would supply enough water for the entire town of Maumere. The municipal water authority said they would like to lease the rights to the water. While Jek considered this, the water agency also found an aquifer on another property. That owner wanted a substantial sum of money for the water rights. Jek didn’t think this discovery was about money. “This was a gift from God and an answer to my prayer,” he told me. “I didn’t think it would be right to take money for what God had given.” The water agency and Jek worked out an agreement in which he would lease them the rights to the water in exchange for water for his farm, and his house. The rest would be sent by pipeline down to the thirsty town of Maumere.
Jek was already well respected in Flores. But his gift of water to the people of Maumere was a very big deal on the island. He was at his house one day when a delegation of local leaders arrived. He served them tea while they asked him to be a candidate to the provincial parliament. He subsequently agreed and will be on the ballot this February when elections are held in Indonesia.
As a retired political consultant, I quizzed Jek how he planned to remind the voters of the bounty he had given to his community. He failed to take my very valuable advice and reminded me: “Pak Dave this water was a miracle from God. It’s not for me to brag about.”