menurut opini saya pribadi ,dari sudut pandang saya setelah membaca kisah ini, pada dasarnya,kisah ini mengungkap kenyataan peristiwa hidup,suatu pergumulan untuk menentukan suatu pilihan,yang di hadapi manusia di saat perang...antara perasaan kemanusianya terhadap sesamanya dan kewajibanya untuk membela tugas dari negaranya, dan adanya suatu peristiwa peristiwa yang tidak terduga yang menunjukan bahwa,manusia itu uniq tidak terduga dalam menentukan apa tidankan dan pilihan nya sekalipun dalam tekanan perang dimana nyawa nya sendiri adalah taruhanya,begitupun akan aksi dan reaksi dalam suatu kondisi yang terpuruk ,tidak ada harapan hidup namun, sepertinya selalu ada harapan...arigatho good day and be blessed
according to my personal opinion, from my point of view after reading this story, basically, this story reveals the reality of life events, a struggle to make a choice, which humans face in times of war...between their human feelings towards each other and their obligation to defend the duty of his country, and the existence of an unexpected event which shows that, humans are uniquely unpredictable in determining what their actions and choices are even under the pressure of war where his own life is at stake, as well as actions and reactions in a deteriorating condition, there is no hope of life however, it seems there is always hope...arigatho good day and be blessed
私の個人的な意見によると、この物語を読んだ後の私の観点からすると、基本的に、この物語は、戦争の時代に人間が直面する人生の出来事、選択をするための闘争の現実を明らかにしています...それぞれに対する人間の感情の間でまた、予期せぬ出来事の存在は、自分の命が危険にさらされている戦争の圧力の下でさえ、人間が自分の行動と選択が何であるかを決定する際に独特の予測が不可能であることを示しています.悪化した状態での行動や反応だけでなく、生命の希望はありませんが、常に希望があるようです.
https://www.4shared.com/office/araprVzGba/2_e-books_christen_in_englis_p.html
https://www.4shared.com/office/Ipi1zntcce/1_e-books_christen_in__indones.html
https://www.4shared.com/office/araprVzGba/2_e-books_christen_in_englis_p.html
Th is Kristen story is actually an epiphany which stirred a deep yearning within my soul to share it with you. It is my hope that it will also encourage you to share your stories. it the editing it needed and got this story “camera-ready;” the fi ne people I met in January 2012 at the Universitas Kristen Indonesia Tomohon Th eological Faculty in the Minahasa and who represent, for me, a spiritual and physical conduit through whom this Kristen story can be distributed to the people of the Minahasa; and especially Vian Togas of this UKI Tomohon Th eological Faculty who enthusiastically encouraged me to make some important Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge and thank a number of people who encouraged and assisted me in writing this Kristen Story so others may read it and hopefully have it resonate deep within their souls.
Th e people listed below are only some of the untold crowd of participants and partners in this real-life story; a story that, keeps growing and expanding to include many more participants as it is retold and absorbed into the souls of everyone who hears it. Barbara Vander Leek, my sister-in-law, whose enthusiasm to share this story with everyone she knows; John Zylstra, my good friend, who coached and encouraged me to write it and who gave Universitas Kristen Indonesia Tomohon Th eological Faculty Barabara and Peter Vander Leek Vian Togas of the UKI Tomohon Th eological Faculty with the author Jake Masselink. John Zylstra editorial additions to the original draft of this story and to have it translated into Bahasa Indonesia; an old family friend in Toronto, Bill Ubbens, who encouraged me to make a number of small but important grammatical corrections and who helped to fi nd a young Indonesian couple who were willing to translate this story into Bahasa Indonesia: Linda Sari Panggabean, a post graduate student at the University of Indonesia and her husband Johanes Hartono, an IT consultant in Singapore; and my dear wife Joyce, who quietly endured my self-doubt and stayed the course with me.
Kristen? Saya Kristen. Indonesian for “Christian? I am Christian.” Dedication Th is true Kristen story is dedicated to the people of the Minahasa region of Indonesia, for the hospitality and authenticity they showed towards my father, Frederik Masselink, from 1938 to 1941.
Th e people listed below are only some of the untold crowd of participants and partners in this real-life story; a story that, keeps growing and expanding to include many more participants as it is retold and absorbed into the souls of everyone who hears it. Barbara Vander Leek, my sister-in-law, whose enthusiasm to share this story with everyone she knows; John Zylstra, my good friend, who coached and encouraged me to write it and who gave Universitas Kristen Indonesia Tomohon Th eological Faculty Barabara and Peter Vander Leek Vian Togas of the UKI Tomohon Th eological Faculty with the author Jake Masselink. John Zylstra editorial additions to the original draft of this story and to have it translated into Bahasa Indonesia; an old family friend in Toronto, Bill Ubbens, who encouraged me to make a number of small but important grammatical corrections and who helped to fi nd a young Indonesian couple who were willing to translate this story into Bahasa Indonesia: Linda Sari Panggabean, a post graduate student at the University of Indonesia and her husband Johanes Hartono, an IT consultant in Singapore; and my dear wife Joyce, who quietly endured my self-doubt and stayed the course with me.
Kristen? Saya Kristen. Indonesian for “Christian? I am Christian.” Dedication Th is true Kristen story is dedicated to the people of the Minahasa region of Indonesia, for the hospitality and authenticity they showed towards my father, Frederik Masselink, from 1938 to 1941.
the story like this...^^
Th ey made those his best years, that resonated with him for the rest of his life. Foreword Each human life is packed with personal real-life stories that resonate in every other human heart in some way or other. What is remarkable is that each of our personal real-life stories relates especially to the personal real-life stories of all the persons who either play a direct or an indirect part in our individual stories, or with whom we enjoy a special bond in the ongoing process of developing new life stories. And, what is especially remarkable, is that the sharing of our real-life stories securely binds us together as a family, throughout the history of mankind and across this beautiful planet we “Earthlings” call home.
Th at is why our stories resonate naturally in the hearts and souls of our fellow human beings. Th at is why we oft en yearn to share our stories with each other, regardless of our individual race, religion, age, education, station in life, or culture. In days gone by, before mankind could write and we were an Our world is fi lled with ordinary people like you and me whose lives are packed with extra-ordinary reallife stories in the diaries of their respective lives. the diaries of their lives. It is most important for the health of all mankind that we maintain this ancient and sacred story telling tradition. It is the extra-ordinary, real-life stories of our human family that need to be shared and passed on. It is the free exchange of extra-ordinary, real-life stories with which each ordinary human life is packed, that ennobles and encourages us as individuals and as a civilization, to realize the hope we inherently desire in our heart of hearts, for a wholesome future for this beautiful planet.
Our personal, real-life stories are just that, real! Th at is what motivated me to want to share this story with you. It is my hope that this will encourage you to share your stories. And as you read this story, observe how each of the characters project and express the ordinariness of their respective lives—that together, make this an extra-ordinary story. oral society, we sat around and shared our real-life stories for the benefi t of everyone in our circle. Th is oral tradition provided our lives with a meaningful context. Th e sharing of personal, real-life stories linked us seamlessly with the real-life stories of our forebears. It intimately connected us to our contemporaries in a bond of trust and understanding which, in turn, generated a spirit of meaning, hope and courage for the future.
Our world is fi lled with ordinary people such as you and me, whose lives are packed with extra-ordinary, real-life stories in Th e Kristen Story The monsoon season in Indonesia takes place from November to March. Th at is when it can literally pour buckets of water daily in torrential cloudbursts. It’s an ideal time for story telling as people are comfortably huddled together in their homes. And that is what my brother Bill and I remember with fondness as we recall our father telling us stories about his childhood roaming the heather fi elds around his home town in Holland and his adventures as a young man in Indonesia. Especially interesting were those remarkable stories about his encounters with the North Sulawesi people who live in harmony with their spectacularly diverse and beautiful tropical natural environment. And yes, he did share a few stories of his war experiences as well. Th ose experiences always highlighted his deep Christian faith and his memorable relationships with the people of Indonesia and their beautiful islands home. My father fi rst told me this story when we lived in Makassar, Celebes, (now also known as Ujung Pandang, Sulawesi) Indonesia in 1948. I was 8 years old. It made a very deep and life-long impression on me. It is the pivotal story in my life that permanently sealed the reality of the Christian faith in my soul. Let me begin by placing this “Kristen” story in the context of our family’s life. My father, Frederik Masselink, and my mother, Antje Broekema, grew up in the town of Hoogeveen in the Netherlands.
Th ey were childhood sweethearts. When Fred graduated from high school, Holland was an economically depressed country with few prospects for its young people to create a meaningful future for themselves. Frederik Masselink studying for high school examinations. Fred and Antje were married on Oct. 9, 1935. Indonesia However, he happened to come across a newspaper advertisement from the Dutch government inviting young high school graduates to consider a career in the Dutch colonial administration of the East Indies (now Indonesia) in exchange for a free university education. He applied, was accepted and in 1935 graduated from the University of Utrecht with a law degree. He and Antje were married on October 9 and the trip to Indonesia was their honey moon. Fred was 24 and Antje was 23 years old. Th ey were stationed in various places in Indonesia during the next two years and in 1937 he was called up for military training in Bandung on Java, the year my brother Bill was born. Th en in 1938 he joined the colonial administration in northern Sulawesi and moved to Kotamubagu in the Minahasa which was primarily a Christian territory in this Muslim country. One of his duties was that of an economic development offi cer. He travelled extensively throughout this region on foot, horseback and by boat, oft en by outrigger canoe, and in that way got to know the leaders of many of the communities quite well. Th e numerous stories he told us of the people and the natural history of this part of the world infl uenced me to later study forestry and wildlife management in Canada and pursue a career with the British Columbia provincial government in its nature conservation programs. Th e island of Sulawesi is located east of Borneo, north-east of Bali, and south of the Philippines.
In 1940 our family was moved to Parigi (a few kilometers south of the equator) when my mother was expecting me. Th ere was no hospital in Parigi so my mother went west over the mountain ridge to Palu where I was born. And a short time later we were all moved to Poso on the south shore of the large and beautiful Gulf of Tomini. Poso was where the regional colonial government for the Island of Sulawesi was located, I believe. Meanwhile, Holland was occupied by Nazi Germany and communications between Holland and its East Indies colony was thereby Fred holding his fi rst-born, Bill, on his day of baptism. nesia would be one of Japan’s next targets because of the large oil fi eld in eastern Borneo across the Strait of Makassar from Sulawesi. Father Fred was called up for military duty the very next day and the European women and children were ordered to leave Poso for their safety. My 29 year old mother and four year old brother and I travelled 400km overland, south to Makassar accompanied by several native guides. We travelled partly on foot, partly on horseback, and probably by automobile where roads were available. Bill has recollections of the two of us being carried in large baskets. Mom was able to catch the last boat to Surabaya, on the island of Java, before the Japanese navy took control of the Java Sea. In Surabaya she found refuge with cut off . However, since the USA was not at war with Germany, lett ers could be sent from Holland to the USA and forwarded from there to the Dutch East Indies. My father’s brother Evert, who was a pastor in a church in Rott erdam, tried this communications route to inform Fred of the wellbeing of the Masselink families in Holland. In November 1941, Evert sent a lett er to his second cousin, a Dr. Edward Masselink who was also a pastor and lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan with the request to forward it to his brother Fred. But sudden events in Hawaii shut that communications route off and the lett er never reached Fred. On December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbour, on the Hawaiian Islands, was bombed by the Japanese.
Th e Dutch government knew that IndoLieutenant Frederik Masselink, seated on right, in military training in Bandung in 1937. her older brother, uncle Wout, and his family. On March 12, 1942 the Dutch government signed the “formal instrument of surrender” of the Netherlands East Indies. Over the next six months, all Europeans were interned in Japanese concentration camps. Women and children were placed in separate camps from the men. Aunt Ely and her three children, Jaap, Ineke, and Th ea, and my mother and brother and I were fortunate to be placed in several of the same camps over the next 3 1/2 years. Uncle Wout was sent to the infamous railway labour camp in Burma, an ordeal which he miraculously survived. Shortly aft er my mother left Poso, Lieutenant Fred was transferred to the city of Manado in north Sulawesi and assigned a platoon of 36 men armed with old bolt action carbines. Th e city had no anti-aircraft guns, no aircraft , no naval vessels nor anything more potent than a couple of old iron-wheeled canons, some machine guns and a few hundred bolt action carbines to defend itself from an imminent Japanese invasion. Lt. Fred and his platoon took up their assigned defensive positions west of the Manado suburb of Sario in the evening of January 10, 1942. At 2:30 the next morning the Japanese landed. Fred told his troops to make peace with their Maker as the batt le would be only moments away. While he was instructing his radio offi cer to notify his commanding offi cer of the enemy landing, Japanese soldiers were seen in the dark of the night silently running along the waterfront road. Th e small platoon immediately opened fi re and a fi refi ght erupted with hundreds of semi-automatic Japanese guns blazing into the night. Fred and his platoon retreated (minus the radio offi cer) to the main road from Amurang to Manado where they encountered another large group of Japanese soldiers in the dark and engaged them as well. Jake and Bill with their mother Antje, Jan. 1942. Antje’s Japanese identity certifi cate. Th e fi rst group of Japanese on the waterfront road was still fi ring and now this second group of Japanese was also fi ring. Somehow Fred’s platoon managed to extract itself without further losses and retreated up the ManadoTomohon road.
In the confusion of this dark night encounter the two Japanese groups inadvertently engaged each other in this fi refi ght until daybreak, with terrible loss of life. At about 11 o’clock that morning Lt. Fred and his platoon arrived at the Tinoor defense post (the 18 km mark of the Manado-Tomohon road). He was placed in charge of a handful of native soldiers operating a machine gun with a clear view of the road as it crossed the deep canyon below. Lt. Fred later reported that these soldiers were “excellent and so calm and secure in their fi ring under heavy enemy mortar fi re as if they were involved in a routine machinegun training exercise”. His men held the advancing Japanese at bay until 3 o’clock in the aft ernoon when sergeant Siwy (of Manado) very calmly informed Lt. Fred that they had run out of ammunition. “Bagaimana, letnan, mati, mati saja, tetapi pelor sudah habis.” Th is is freely translated as, “Well, how about that, lieutenant, if we die, then we die, but that was our last bullet”. Since they were almost fully surrounded by the encircling enemy Th e Bay of Manado from the Tinoor viewpoint. Tinoor Restaurant located on the spot of the Jan 1942 defence post. and the batt le was lost, he told his men to strip themselves of their uniforms and go home. However, Sergeant Siwy refused to leave him and the two of them struck out through the jungle to try and get Lt. Fred connected with other retreating Dutch soldiers, which he did. For the next 5 weeks this motley group crept through the jungle unsuccessfully plott ing to engage in guerilla warfare. On February 20 they arrived in the hamlet (“kampong”) of Lion near Gorontalo and were able to contact their troop commander in Poso who sent out a motor boat to get them the next day. Th e Manado invasion, which included the establishment of a Japanese naval base in the nearby town of Bitung, was part of a four pronged attack by the Japanese in their plan to occupy the East Indies. Th e second prong was the occupation of the oil fi elds of Borneo. Th e third and most important prong was the capture of the British stronghold of Singapore. And the fourth prong was the destruction of the allied fl eet on the Java Sea and the occupation of the island of Java. All four batt les took place in a relatively short period of time. Following the surrender of the Dutch colonial government, the six senior Government and Military personnel in Poso (which included Lt. Fred and an Australian military att aché) decided then to also surrender and made contact with the Japanese Naval commander in Manado to do so. Th ey crossed the Gulf of Tomini by motor boat and capitulated to the Japanese in the community of Belang located in Minahassa territory of North Sulawesi south of Manado on March 25, 1942. From there they were transported to the town of Langoan to be interrogated by the Japanese commander. Th is is the background and context in which this “Kristen” story takes place.
Th e two senior Dutch military persons in this surrendering group, Captain Abbink and Lt. Masselink, were publicly brutalized in Langoan. When Lt. Fred was called up, the Japanese naval commander interrogating him was fl anked by the elders of the neighbouring communities who had been ordered to be there by the Japanese. One young Japanese sailor was placed in front of Fred and one immediately behind him. Th e Japanese commander then proceeded to ask him these two questions: a) “How did you dare to oppose the Holy Emperor of Japan?” And b) “Why did you not do the honourable thing and commit ‘hara-kiri’?” In the split second Fred took to consider how he should answer these questions he knew that if he answered them honestly, he would be badly beaten. So while he considered answering them apologetically by falsely admitt ing he had made a mistake, his eyes caught the eyes of the row of elders from the neighbouring communities who were standing behind this angry Japanese commander to witness the response from a now defeated colonial Dutch offi cer in military garb. He recognized each one of them. Th ey were fellow Christians. He had worked with them and had gone to church with them. Th is gave him the courage he needed to answer these two questions truthfully. So he immediately responded as follows; “I, like you, am an honourable soldier, sir. My word is my bond. I swore allegiance to my queen just as you swore allegiance to your emperor. And why did I not commit ‘hara-kiri’? Because my God forbids me to take my own life.” At the very next moment the sailor in front of him gave him a knock-out punch to the jaw while the sailor behind him simultaneously gave a knockout punch to the back of his head. When he came to, the questions A technical school now occupies the site where the Manado jail stood in 1942. were repeated, he answered the same way, and the blows to his head kept coming. Th is went on numerous times until the lobes of his ears and the jowls of his cheeks were swollen and fi lled with blood. At which time he was dragged away. Th e next day, March 26, he was transported on the back of a truck to the jail in Manado where he was to be be-headed. It was very hot when he arrived at Manado jail and the young Japanese soldier guarding Lt. Fred took pity on him in this sweltering heat and led him outside to sit under the shade of a tree next to the jail house. He was very sure that this batt ered and bruised Dutchman wasn’t in any condition to go anywhere anyway. As he was sitt ing there in the shade half conscious and alone, a group of Dutch prisoners-of-war (POWs) were escorted past him to board a Japanese minesweeper in order to be transported to a POW camp in Makassar at the south end of Sulawesi. One of them recognized him and said to a comrade “Hey that is Lt. Masselink, give me a hand.” Th e two broke rank without being detected and dragged Lt. Fred between them onto a truck that transported them to the harbour and the waiting minesweeper. As they were boarding the ship they passed through a crowd of native women who fearlessly ignored the Japanese guards brandishing their bayonet mounted guns. Th ey pressed forward reassuring these Dutch POWs to “Take courage, we will be praying for you”, while handing them Bibles. Th e POW who had initiated Fred’s exit took one of these Bibles and stuck it in Fred’s back pocket. It was the only possession Fred carried on board with him besides the clothes he wore.
Th ree days later they arrived in Makassar. One of the people who met them as they disembarked was a Dutch POW employed as an interpreter in the Japanese offi ce there who said he was looking for Lt. Masselink. He then told Lt. Fred he had overheard a message exchange between the Japanese commander in Manado and the commander in Th e Bible Fred received from the women in Manado on March 26, 1942. Makassar with the former demanding the return of prisoner Masselink to Manado for execution and the latt er responding: “Whoever is here (in Makassar) is staying here”. He went on to explain that the commander in Manado was Navy while the one in Makassar was army and there was no love lost between the two. Th e result was that for the next 42 months as a POW, Lt. Fred lived in daily fear of being found out as having escaped execution. He now very intentionally lived as unobtrusively as possible to avoid drawing att ention to himself. A few months later, he was transferred to a very large Japanese POW camp in Bandung, on the island of Java. Th is is where the British soldiers from Singapore were interned as well as Australians, New Zealanders and Americans captured by the Japanese in this part of the world. He recalled that the barrack in which they were initially housed held 250 men who slept on two platf orms with a gangway in between. Th ey were packed in so tight that if one turned over to lie on his other side the other 124 would have to do so as well. But as the months went by and they lost weight and fellow compatriots, it became roomier. All the while he worried about being found out by his captors that he had escaped execution. Th en one day a very severe monsoon rainstorm poured down on the camp and sent all of them running for cover into their barrack. A young Japanese guard also stepped inside with his bayoneted rifl e. If looks could kill he would have died 250 times over in a matt er of minutes, but eventually he managed to collect his composure and sheepishly looked around. As he did so he focused on Lt. Fred who in turn did his best to ignore him. But eventually this Japanese stare could no longer be ignored and as the two made eye contact, the young Japanese soldier pointed to the litt le Bible lying beside Fred and asked, “Kristen”? My father nodded affi rmatively.
Whereupon the soldier then pointed to himself and quietly said, “Saya Kristen”! My Father was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of awe and wonder. It was as if in that instant the soldier’s uniform, gun and bayonet evaporated. He wondered what it was like to be a Christian conscripted into the Japanese army in a culture which deifi ed its emperor and where less than 0.01% of the Japanese population was Christian. And then he came to the realization of something extraordinary. All this time, every waking minute, as he was held captive and surrounded by thousands of Japanese soldiers he had been living in constant fear that they would eventually fi nd out he’d missed execution. And who is sent to remind him in whose sovereign care he really was? A fellow Christian in the person of a uniformed enemy Japanese “brother”. Th en several images fl ashed through his mind: the row of Christian village elders who silently encouraged him to respond truthfully during that brutal interrogation in Langoan; the POW acquaintance marching by the Manado jail who recognized him and instinctively dragged him away; and the crowd of courageous and caring women who promised to pray for him and his compatriots and gave him this Bible which connected him now in a most meaningful way with this Japanese soldier. His fi nal thought was for that young Japanese guard who took pity on him at that Manado jail and he agonized if that young compassionate enemy soldier may have been executed in his place. (Th e last postcard Antje wrote to Fred on August 3, 1945) My Dear Fred: I’m glad to receive three postcards from you. Now we are together with Elly. (censored line) Bill and Jake are well and smart. I heard from Rie that mother Masselink died. Rie died in December. I hope to be together with all the family soon. Also, Wout don’t worry. Regards Antje He knew that the Japanese armed forces could be as brutal toward their own soldiers as they were to their enemies. Th e war in the Pacifi c ended on August 15, 1945. But the Dutch POWs weren’t released until mid September.
Th at was when my father learned that all of his civilian colleagues in Poso had been summarily beheaded by the Japanese in April 1942 and he realized that if he hadn’t been called up for military duty, he’d now be dead as well. In November 1945 my mother and brother and I were re-united with my father in Bandung. We had been separated from him for almost four years and I was now fi ve pounds lighter. During their internment they were granted the privilege of exchanging four strictly censured postcards. However, what could not be censured was what was writt en between the lines: that all of us were still alive; and that was the only news both my mother and father cherished to read. And as my father and mother met, and before they even had a chance to embrace each other, I tugged on her dress and said, “How do you know that is Papa?” In April 1946 my father was granted an extended furlough and we moved to Holland where we stayed with his oldest brother Jan and his family in the town of Soest. In December of that year my sister Ann was born. Th en in early 1948 we moved back to Indonesia to the city of Makassar where my brother Bill and I were enrolled in a school housed in the old Fort Rott erdam that had served the trading interests of the Netherland’s East Indies Company (VOC) from the 1600’s to 1800. Holland offi cially recognized Indonesia as a sovereign nation in December 1949. Th is heralded our departure from that beautiful country. But before we left Indonesia in May 1950, my father had already decided to try to immigrate to Canada. Th en on Easter Sunday, March 26, 1951, exactly nine years Th e Masselink family immigrate to Canada in March 1951. My sister Ann was born Soest, Holland in1946. aged his lymph glands giving him serious discomfort during his three and a half year POW incarceration. Th is head trauma at the hands of the Japanese interrogators may well have been the trigger for his death from Alzheimer’s Disease in 1996. I hope you can appreciate why this story has been, and continues to be, such a persuasive prompting deep within my soul to follow Jesus the Christ and his teaching. I believe it’s a story that graphically illustrates what Jesus meant when he said in Matt hew 10: 19 “...do not worry what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” And a litt le later in Matt hew 18:21, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am also”. I have used this story many times, when leading a new group through a part of the Alpha Program, entitled “How does God lead us?” (Alpha is a ten week introduction to the tenets of the Christian Faith).
And I know all too well, on a very personal level, how weak my faith-life oft en is. Yet this story keeps prompting me on. Kristen? Ya, saya Kristen! to the day of my father’s miraculous escape from execution in Manado, we arrived in Halifax to start a new life in Canada. It was a new beginning in another beautiful country. Isn’t that the essence of what the Easter resurrection of Jesus is all about with respect to our individual lives? Several weeks later we were welcomed into the Kitchener Christian Reformed Church in Ontario by a visiting pastor from Grand Rapids Michigan, Dr. Edward Masselink, my father’s second cousin. I can still hear him saying to the congregation, “I, more than any of you, am most eager to meet them.” When my father retold this story to us in Canada when I was a teenager, he confessed that his faith was oft en very weak. Even aft er his extra-ordinary encounter with that Kristen Japanese guard as graphic evidence that he could daily rely on God’s providence, it didn’t take him long to fall back on worrying that the Japanese might yet get him before the end of the war. Many years later when I was an adult, he told me that when he read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s account of his incarceration in the Soviet Gulag Archipelago in his book “One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich” Alex described very accurately what my father had experienced in keeping a low profi le as a Japanese POW. He also said that the brutalization he endured in Langoan severely dam- Epilogue Allow me to share four thoughts that come to my mind as this Kristen story sett les into your soul. Naturally, these come from my personal Kristen perspective. First is the importance of sharing our real-life stories. And as you read this story, I hope you noticed that what makes this an extraordinary story is because of the way each of the characters lived the ordinariness of their respective lives. Th at is what I fi nd so remarkable and so profound about the tradition of the telling of real-life stories. Th ese stories are always about ordinary people, living ordinary lives that intermingle to develop into extraordinary stories for the benefi t of future generations. It is a tradition that seems to be slipping away in our current fast-paced digital world. We now seem to have so litt le opportunity to huddle together in the comfort and security of our homes to do this. I will always treasure the evenings during the monsoon season in Indonesia and later during the cold winters in Canada when we huddled around a warm, wood-fi red stove and listened to my father tell his stories. Th ere are now so many distractions in today’s world that inhibit regular intercourse at the hearths in our homes about real things in our lives that would help to shape each of us to become the person our Creator desires us to become. Second is the presence of our Creator in our ordinary lives. Here, in the West, and regardless of our religious persuasion, we seem to have intentionally acquired a mindset with respect to God, that He is there for our beck and call only when we need him. We behave as if He is totally uninvolved with us for the rest of the time. It’s as if we have relegated Him to be our personal butler, or that genie we carry in an imaginary fl ask, to be called upon when we determine that we need divine intervention. Th at places us in control of our lives. Sometimes He surprises us, we think, when we encounter what seems like an unnatural but pleasant happening. Perhaps you could think of such happenings as coincidences. I suppose that is one way you could describe my father’s rescue from execution. I’ve oft en thought this as well; coincidence. But somehow that has never registered with me for very long. As I look back on my life there has been so litt le that I had any control over. For example, I had no control over anything in this Kristen story that aff ected me.
And there have just been so many coincidences in my life that I do not believe they were coincidental at all. I’ve come to believe that everything happens for a reason. But then, whose reason are we talking about? God’s reason? Yes. I believe that it is His carefully thought through and reasoned unfolding of His creation in which we are involved. And that brings me to the third point. Th ird is the question I oft en ask myself, if it is God who is in control and it is he whose reasoning prevails in our lives, what about the many individuals on both sides of the confl ict who unlike my father didn’t make it through that war? I fi nd myself unable to answer that. I do not know. But then when I wrestle with questions like that, I fi nd something in this Kristen story that profoundly stills my troubl ed heart because it draws me into the real-life story of Jesus. Jesus’ mission was to help His Father restore the kingdom of heaven and to reconnect us with Him on a very personal level. He lived this mission with actions that came to him naturally. Th ere never was any pretense in how he presented himself or projected himself to those around him. Th at is also the way he encourages us to follow his example with our individual lives. Just like the elders in Langoan witnessing my father’s brutal beating or those women in Manado encouraging those Dutch POW’s and handing them bibles. Neither Jesus nor these individual Minahasars were pre-occupied with themselves. Both were inherently pre-occupied with their Father’s kingdom in their respective stations in life. Th at entailed among other things that their Father’s will was to be done and His standards of practice were naturally to be followed. Th at is where Jesus’ allegiance lay. Inherently, that is where the allegiance of those Minahasars lay as well. And if Jesus in particular hadn’t lived his life in that ordinary “my word is my bond to my Father” way, there would not be that extraordinary Easter result of a resurrection that is also seamlessly passed on to us. It is that 1951 Easter arrival in Canada, exactly nine years to the day aft er my father escaped execution in Manado, and what that symbolizes for me, that redirects me to the hope of a real-life Easter resurrection experience that awaits us all. And, yes, that includes both the folks that didn’t survive the war Jake and Joyce Masselink - Manado, January 11, 2012. and those that did and died later of “natural causes”. Fourth is the reality of what Saint Augustine prayed 1600 years ago. “God, you made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until we fi nd our rest in You.” Th is Kristen story illustrates this fact very clearly for me. To be created for His pleasure and in His image is to live in partnership with Him. To live a life at “rest” is expressed in our living our ordinary lives as natural as God means for us to live it in His presence. Our stories then are also His stories.
On second thought, let me hasten to restate this. It is not our story in which He participates as if He is our personal butler or a bott led up genie. It is in His cosmic story we are created and personally invited to participate. Th e story of an evolving cosmos in which we are inherently involved encompasses a divine struggle of good overcoming evil, of love transforming hate, and compassion displacing condemnation as St. Paul seems to imply in the lett er he wrote to his friends in Ephesus (6:12) almost 2000 years ago. “ for our struggle is not against fl esh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities and the powers of the darkenss in this world and against the forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. Aft er all, history is an account of His real-life story. It is the Creator who is, aft er all, the Master story teller. And each of our individual real-life stories resonates within His ongoing evolving cosmic story. Th at is what transforms our personal stories into such extra-ordinary real-life stories. Our personal real-life stories are just that, “real”! Th e period of time that this story covers shaped my life and continues to mold the person I am destined to become. Ten formative years fi lled with events totally beyond my control. Upon refl ection, we are all in process of becoming from the moment of conception to the moment of death; or should I say resurrection? Th is Kristen story is actually an epiphany which stirred a deep yearning within my soul to share it with you. It is my hope that it will also encourage you to share your stories. it the editing it needed and got this story “camera-ready;” the fi ne people I met in January 2012 at the Universitas Kristen Indonesia Tomohon Th eological Faculty in the Minahasa and who represent, for me, a spiritual and physical conduit through whom this Kristen story can be distributed to the people of the Minahasa; and especially Vian Togas of this UKI Tomohon Th eological Faculty who enthusiastically encouraged me to make some important Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge and thank a number of people who encouraged and assisted me in writing this Kristen Story so others may read it and hopefully have it resonate deep within their souls.
Th e people listed below are only some of the untold crowd of participants and partners in this real-life story; a story that, keeps growing and expanding to include many more participants as it is retold and absorbed into the souls of everyone who hears it. Barbara Vander Leek, my sister-in-law, whose enthusiasm to share this story with everyone she knows; John Zylstra, my good friend, who coached and encouraged me to write it and who gave Universitas Kristen Indonesia Tomohon Th eological Faculty Barabara and Peter Vander Leek Vian Togas of the UKI Tomohon Th eological Faculty with the author Jake Masselink. John Zylstra editorial additions to the original draft of this story and to have it translated into Bahasa Indonesia; an old family friend in Toronto, Bill Ubbens, who encouraged me to make a number of small but important grammatical corrections and who helped to fi nd a young Indonesian couple who were willing to translate this story into Bahasa Indonesia: Linda Sari Panggabean, a post graduate student at the University of Indonesia and her husband Johanes Hartono, an IT consultant in Singapore; and my dear wife Joyce, who quietly endured my self-doubt and stayed the course with me.
Th ey made those his best years, that resonated with him for the rest of his life. Foreword Each human life is packed with personal real-life stories that resonate in every other human heart in some way or other. What is remarkable is that each of our personal real-life stories relates especially to the personal real-life stories of all the persons who either play a direct or an indirect part in our individual stories, or with whom we enjoy a special bond in the ongoing process of developing new life stories. And, what is especially remarkable, is that the sharing of our real-life stories securely binds us together as a family, throughout the history of mankind and across this beautiful planet we “Earthlings” call home.
Th at is why our stories resonate naturally in the hearts and souls of our fellow human beings. Th at is why we oft en yearn to share our stories with each other, regardless of our individual race, religion, age, education, station in life, or culture. In days gone by, before mankind could write and we were an Our world is fi lled with ordinary people like you and me whose lives are packed with extra-ordinary reallife stories in the diaries of their respective lives. the diaries of their lives. It is most important for the health of all mankind that we maintain this ancient and sacred story telling tradition. It is the extra-ordinary, real-life stories of our human family that need to be shared and passed on. It is the free exchange of extra-ordinary, real-life stories with which each ordinary human life is packed, that ennobles and encourages us as individuals and as a civilization, to realize the hope we inherently desire in our heart of hearts, for a wholesome future for this beautiful planet.
Our personal, real-life stories are just that, real! Th at is what motivated me to want to share this story with you. It is my hope that this will encourage you to share your stories. And as you read this story, observe how each of the characters project and express the ordinariness of their respective lives—that together, make this an extra-ordinary story. oral society, we sat around and shared our real-life stories for the benefi t of everyone in our circle. Th is oral tradition provided our lives with a meaningful context. Th e sharing of personal, real-life stories linked us seamlessly with the real-life stories of our forebears. It intimately connected us to our contemporaries in a bond of trust and understanding which, in turn, generated a spirit of meaning, hope and courage for the future.
Our world is fi lled with ordinary people such as you and me, whose lives are packed with extra-ordinary, real-life stories in Th e Kristen Story The monsoon season in Indonesia takes place from November to March. Th at is when it can literally pour buckets of water daily in torrential cloudbursts. It’s an ideal time for story telling as people are comfortably huddled together in their homes. And that is what my brother Bill and I remember with fondness as we recall our father telling us stories about his childhood roaming the heather fi elds around his home town in Holland and his adventures as a young man in Indonesia. Especially interesting were those remarkable stories about his encounters with the North Sulawesi people who live in harmony with their spectacularly diverse and beautiful tropical natural environment. And yes, he did share a few stories of his war experiences as well. Th ose experiences always highlighted his deep Christian faith and his memorable relationships with the people of Indonesia and their beautiful islands home. My father fi rst told me this story when we lived in Makassar, Celebes, (now also known as Ujung Pandang, Sulawesi) Indonesia in 1948. I was 8 years old. It made a very deep and life-long impression on me. It is the pivotal story in my life that permanently sealed the reality of the Christian faith in my soul. Let me begin by placing this “Kristen” story in the context of our family’s life. My father, Frederik Masselink, and my mother, Antje Broekema, grew up in the town of Hoogeveen in the Netherlands.
Th ey were childhood sweethearts. When Fred graduated from high school, Holland was an economically depressed country with few prospects for its young people to create a meaningful future for themselves. Frederik Masselink studying for high school examinations. Fred and Antje were married on Oct. 9, 1935. Indonesia However, he happened to come across a newspaper advertisement from the Dutch government inviting young high school graduates to consider a career in the Dutch colonial administration of the East Indies (now Indonesia) in exchange for a free university education. He applied, was accepted and in 1935 graduated from the University of Utrecht with a law degree. He and Antje were married on October 9 and the trip to Indonesia was their honey moon. Fred was 24 and Antje was 23 years old. Th ey were stationed in various places in Indonesia during the next two years and in 1937 he was called up for military training in Bandung on Java, the year my brother Bill was born. Th en in 1938 he joined the colonial administration in northern Sulawesi and moved to Kotamubagu in the Minahasa which was primarily a Christian territory in this Muslim country. One of his duties was that of an economic development offi cer. He travelled extensively throughout this region on foot, horseback and by boat, oft en by outrigger canoe, and in that way got to know the leaders of many of the communities quite well. Th e numerous stories he told us of the people and the natural history of this part of the world infl uenced me to later study forestry and wildlife management in Canada and pursue a career with the British Columbia provincial government in its nature conservation programs. Th e island of Sulawesi is located east of Borneo, north-east of Bali, and south of the Philippines.
In 1940 our family was moved to Parigi (a few kilometers south of the equator) when my mother was expecting me. Th ere was no hospital in Parigi so my mother went west over the mountain ridge to Palu where I was born. And a short time later we were all moved to Poso on the south shore of the large and beautiful Gulf of Tomini. Poso was where the regional colonial government for the Island of Sulawesi was located, I believe. Meanwhile, Holland was occupied by Nazi Germany and communications between Holland and its East Indies colony was thereby Fred holding his fi rst-born, Bill, on his day of baptism. nesia would be one of Japan’s next targets because of the large oil fi eld in eastern Borneo across the Strait of Makassar from Sulawesi. Father Fred was called up for military duty the very next day and the European women and children were ordered to leave Poso for their safety. My 29 year old mother and four year old brother and I travelled 400km overland, south to Makassar accompanied by several native guides. We travelled partly on foot, partly on horseback, and probably by automobile where roads were available. Bill has recollections of the two of us being carried in large baskets. Mom was able to catch the last boat to Surabaya, on the island of Java, before the Japanese navy took control of the Java Sea. In Surabaya she found refuge with cut off . However, since the USA was not at war with Germany, lett ers could be sent from Holland to the USA and forwarded from there to the Dutch East Indies. My father’s brother Evert, who was a pastor in a church in Rott erdam, tried this communications route to inform Fred of the wellbeing of the Masselink families in Holland. In November 1941, Evert sent a lett er to his second cousin, a Dr. Edward Masselink who was also a pastor and lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan with the request to forward it to his brother Fred. But sudden events in Hawaii shut that communications route off and the lett er never reached Fred. On December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbour, on the Hawaiian Islands, was bombed by the Japanese.
Th e Dutch government knew that IndoLieutenant Frederik Masselink, seated on right, in military training in Bandung in 1937. her older brother, uncle Wout, and his family. On March 12, 1942 the Dutch government signed the “formal instrument of surrender” of the Netherlands East Indies. Over the next six months, all Europeans were interned in Japanese concentration camps. Women and children were placed in separate camps from the men. Aunt Ely and her three children, Jaap, Ineke, and Th ea, and my mother and brother and I were fortunate to be placed in several of the same camps over the next 3 1/2 years. Uncle Wout was sent to the infamous railway labour camp in Burma, an ordeal which he miraculously survived. Shortly aft er my mother left Poso, Lieutenant Fred was transferred to the city of Manado in north Sulawesi and assigned a platoon of 36 men armed with old bolt action carbines. Th e city had no anti-aircraft guns, no aircraft , no naval vessels nor anything more potent than a couple of old iron-wheeled canons, some machine guns and a few hundred bolt action carbines to defend itself from an imminent Japanese invasion. Lt. Fred and his platoon took up their assigned defensive positions west of the Manado suburb of Sario in the evening of January 10, 1942. At 2:30 the next morning the Japanese landed. Fred told his troops to make peace with their Maker as the batt le would be only moments away. While he was instructing his radio offi cer to notify his commanding offi cer of the enemy landing, Japanese soldiers were seen in the dark of the night silently running along the waterfront road. Th e small platoon immediately opened fi re and a fi refi ght erupted with hundreds of semi-automatic Japanese guns blazing into the night. Fred and his platoon retreated (minus the radio offi cer) to the main road from Amurang to Manado where they encountered another large group of Japanese soldiers in the dark and engaged them as well. Jake and Bill with their mother Antje, Jan. 1942. Antje’s Japanese identity certifi cate. Th e fi rst group of Japanese on the waterfront road was still fi ring and now this second group of Japanese was also fi ring. Somehow Fred’s platoon managed to extract itself without further losses and retreated up the ManadoTomohon road.
In the confusion of this dark night encounter the two Japanese groups inadvertently engaged each other in this fi refi ght until daybreak, with terrible loss of life. At about 11 o’clock that morning Lt. Fred and his platoon arrived at the Tinoor defense post (the 18 km mark of the Manado-Tomohon road). He was placed in charge of a handful of native soldiers operating a machine gun with a clear view of the road as it crossed the deep canyon below. Lt. Fred later reported that these soldiers were “excellent and so calm and secure in their fi ring under heavy enemy mortar fi re as if they were involved in a routine machinegun training exercise”. His men held the advancing Japanese at bay until 3 o’clock in the aft ernoon when sergeant Siwy (of Manado) very calmly informed Lt. Fred that they had run out of ammunition. “Bagaimana, letnan, mati, mati saja, tetapi pelor sudah habis.” Th is is freely translated as, “Well, how about that, lieutenant, if we die, then we die, but that was our last bullet”. Since they were almost fully surrounded by the encircling enemy Th e Bay of Manado from the Tinoor viewpoint. Tinoor Restaurant located on the spot of the Jan 1942 defence post. and the batt le was lost, he told his men to strip themselves of their uniforms and go home. However, Sergeant Siwy refused to leave him and the two of them struck out through the jungle to try and get Lt. Fred connected with other retreating Dutch soldiers, which he did. For the next 5 weeks this motley group crept through the jungle unsuccessfully plott ing to engage in guerilla warfare. On February 20 they arrived in the hamlet (“kampong”) of Lion near Gorontalo and were able to contact their troop commander in Poso who sent out a motor boat to get them the next day. Th e Manado invasion, which included the establishment of a Japanese naval base in the nearby town of Bitung, was part of a four pronged attack by the Japanese in their plan to occupy the East Indies. Th e second prong was the occupation of the oil fi elds of Borneo. Th e third and most important prong was the capture of the British stronghold of Singapore. And the fourth prong was the destruction of the allied fl eet on the Java Sea and the occupation of the island of Java. All four batt les took place in a relatively short period of time. Following the surrender of the Dutch colonial government, the six senior Government and Military personnel in Poso (which included Lt. Fred and an Australian military att aché) decided then to also surrender and made contact with the Japanese Naval commander in Manado to do so. Th ey crossed the Gulf of Tomini by motor boat and capitulated to the Japanese in the community of Belang located in Minahassa territory of North Sulawesi south of Manado on March 25, 1942. From there they were transported to the town of Langoan to be interrogated by the Japanese commander. Th is is the background and context in which this “Kristen” story takes place.
Th e two senior Dutch military persons in this surrendering group, Captain Abbink and Lt. Masselink, were publicly brutalized in Langoan. When Lt. Fred was called up, the Japanese naval commander interrogating him was fl anked by the elders of the neighbouring communities who had been ordered to be there by the Japanese. One young Japanese sailor was placed in front of Fred and one immediately behind him. Th e Japanese commander then proceeded to ask him these two questions: a) “How did you dare to oppose the Holy Emperor of Japan?” And b) “Why did you not do the honourable thing and commit ‘hara-kiri’?” In the split second Fred took to consider how he should answer these questions he knew that if he answered them honestly, he would be badly beaten. So while he considered answering them apologetically by falsely admitt ing he had made a mistake, his eyes caught the eyes of the row of elders from the neighbouring communities who were standing behind this angry Japanese commander to witness the response from a now defeated colonial Dutch offi cer in military garb. He recognized each one of them. Th ey were fellow Christians. He had worked with them and had gone to church with them. Th is gave him the courage he needed to answer these two questions truthfully. So he immediately responded as follows; “I, like you, am an honourable soldier, sir. My word is my bond. I swore allegiance to my queen just as you swore allegiance to your emperor. And why did I not commit ‘hara-kiri’? Because my God forbids me to take my own life.” At the very next moment the sailor in front of him gave him a knock-out punch to the jaw while the sailor behind him simultaneously gave a knockout punch to the back of his head. When he came to, the questions A technical school now occupies the site where the Manado jail stood in 1942. were repeated, he answered the same way, and the blows to his head kept coming. Th is went on numerous times until the lobes of his ears and the jowls of his cheeks were swollen and fi lled with blood. At which time he was dragged away. Th e next day, March 26, he was transported on the back of a truck to the jail in Manado where he was to be be-headed. It was very hot when he arrived at Manado jail and the young Japanese soldier guarding Lt. Fred took pity on him in this sweltering heat and led him outside to sit under the shade of a tree next to the jail house. He was very sure that this batt ered and bruised Dutchman wasn’t in any condition to go anywhere anyway. As he was sitt ing there in the shade half conscious and alone, a group of Dutch prisoners-of-war (POWs) were escorted past him to board a Japanese minesweeper in order to be transported to a POW camp in Makassar at the south end of Sulawesi. One of them recognized him and said to a comrade “Hey that is Lt. Masselink, give me a hand.” Th e two broke rank without being detected and dragged Lt. Fred between them onto a truck that transported them to the harbour and the waiting minesweeper. As they were boarding the ship they passed through a crowd of native women who fearlessly ignored the Japanese guards brandishing their bayonet mounted guns. Th ey pressed forward reassuring these Dutch POWs to “Take courage, we will be praying for you”, while handing them Bibles. Th e POW who had initiated Fred’s exit took one of these Bibles and stuck it in Fred’s back pocket. It was the only possession Fred carried on board with him besides the clothes he wore.
Th ree days later they arrived in Makassar. One of the people who met them as they disembarked was a Dutch POW employed as an interpreter in the Japanese offi ce there who said he was looking for Lt. Masselink. He then told Lt. Fred he had overheard a message exchange between the Japanese commander in Manado and the commander in Th e Bible Fred received from the women in Manado on March 26, 1942. Makassar with the former demanding the return of prisoner Masselink to Manado for execution and the latt er responding: “Whoever is here (in Makassar) is staying here”. He went on to explain that the commander in Manado was Navy while the one in Makassar was army and there was no love lost between the two. Th e result was that for the next 42 months as a POW, Lt. Fred lived in daily fear of being found out as having escaped execution. He now very intentionally lived as unobtrusively as possible to avoid drawing att ention to himself. A few months later, he was transferred to a very large Japanese POW camp in Bandung, on the island of Java. Th is is where the British soldiers from Singapore were interned as well as Australians, New Zealanders and Americans captured by the Japanese in this part of the world. He recalled that the barrack in which they were initially housed held 250 men who slept on two platf orms with a gangway in between. Th ey were packed in so tight that if one turned over to lie on his other side the other 124 would have to do so as well. But as the months went by and they lost weight and fellow compatriots, it became roomier. All the while he worried about being found out by his captors that he had escaped execution. Th en one day a very severe monsoon rainstorm poured down on the camp and sent all of them running for cover into their barrack. A young Japanese guard also stepped inside with his bayoneted rifl e. If looks could kill he would have died 250 times over in a matt er of minutes, but eventually he managed to collect his composure and sheepishly looked around. As he did so he focused on Lt. Fred who in turn did his best to ignore him. But eventually this Japanese stare could no longer be ignored and as the two made eye contact, the young Japanese soldier pointed to the litt le Bible lying beside Fred and asked, “Kristen”? My father nodded affi rmatively.
Whereupon the soldier then pointed to himself and quietly said, “Saya Kristen”! My Father was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of awe and wonder. It was as if in that instant the soldier’s uniform, gun and bayonet evaporated. He wondered what it was like to be a Christian conscripted into the Japanese army in a culture which deifi ed its emperor and where less than 0.01% of the Japanese population was Christian. And then he came to the realization of something extraordinary. All this time, every waking minute, as he was held captive and surrounded by thousands of Japanese soldiers he had been living in constant fear that they would eventually fi nd out he’d missed execution. And who is sent to remind him in whose sovereign care he really was? A fellow Christian in the person of a uniformed enemy Japanese “brother”. Th en several images fl ashed through his mind: the row of Christian village elders who silently encouraged him to respond truthfully during that brutal interrogation in Langoan; the POW acquaintance marching by the Manado jail who recognized him and instinctively dragged him away; and the crowd of courageous and caring women who promised to pray for him and his compatriots and gave him this Bible which connected him now in a most meaningful way with this Japanese soldier. His fi nal thought was for that young Japanese guard who took pity on him at that Manado jail and he agonized if that young compassionate enemy soldier may have been executed in his place. (Th e last postcard Antje wrote to Fred on August 3, 1945) My Dear Fred: I’m glad to receive three postcards from you. Now we are together with Elly. (censored line) Bill and Jake are well and smart. I heard from Rie that mother Masselink died. Rie died in December. I hope to be together with all the family soon. Also, Wout don’t worry. Regards Antje He knew that the Japanese armed forces could be as brutal toward their own soldiers as they were to their enemies. Th e war in the Pacifi c ended on August 15, 1945. But the Dutch POWs weren’t released until mid September.
Th at was when my father learned that all of his civilian colleagues in Poso had been summarily beheaded by the Japanese in April 1942 and he realized that if he hadn’t been called up for military duty, he’d now be dead as well. In November 1945 my mother and brother and I were re-united with my father in Bandung. We had been separated from him for almost four years and I was now fi ve pounds lighter. During their internment they were granted the privilege of exchanging four strictly censured postcards. However, what could not be censured was what was writt en between the lines: that all of us were still alive; and that was the only news both my mother and father cherished to read. And as my father and mother met, and before they even had a chance to embrace each other, I tugged on her dress and said, “How do you know that is Papa?” In April 1946 my father was granted an extended furlough and we moved to Holland where we stayed with his oldest brother Jan and his family in the town of Soest. In December of that year my sister Ann was born. Th en in early 1948 we moved back to Indonesia to the city of Makassar where my brother Bill and I were enrolled in a school housed in the old Fort Rott erdam that had served the trading interests of the Netherland’s East Indies Company (VOC) from the 1600’s to 1800. Holland offi cially recognized Indonesia as a sovereign nation in December 1949. Th is heralded our departure from that beautiful country. But before we left Indonesia in May 1950, my father had already decided to try to immigrate to Canada. Th en on Easter Sunday, March 26, 1951, exactly nine years Th e Masselink family immigrate to Canada in March 1951. My sister Ann was born Soest, Holland in1946. aged his lymph glands giving him serious discomfort during his three and a half year POW incarceration. Th is head trauma at the hands of the Japanese interrogators may well have been the trigger for his death from Alzheimer’s Disease in 1996. I hope you can appreciate why this story has been, and continues to be, such a persuasive prompting deep within my soul to follow Jesus the Christ and his teaching. I believe it’s a story that graphically illustrates what Jesus meant when he said in Matt hew 10: 19 “...do not worry what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” And a litt le later in Matt hew 18:21, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am also”. I have used this story many times, when leading a new group through a part of the Alpha Program, entitled “How does God lead us?” (Alpha is a ten week introduction to the tenets of the Christian Faith).
And I know all too well, on a very personal level, how weak my faith-life oft en is. Yet this story keeps prompting me on. Kristen? Ya, saya Kristen! to the day of my father’s miraculous escape from execution in Manado, we arrived in Halifax to start a new life in Canada. It was a new beginning in another beautiful country. Isn’t that the essence of what the Easter resurrection of Jesus is all about with respect to our individual lives? Several weeks later we were welcomed into the Kitchener Christian Reformed Church in Ontario by a visiting pastor from Grand Rapids Michigan, Dr. Edward Masselink, my father’s second cousin. I can still hear him saying to the congregation, “I, more than any of you, am most eager to meet them.” When my father retold this story to us in Canada when I was a teenager, he confessed that his faith was oft en very weak. Even aft er his extra-ordinary encounter with that Kristen Japanese guard as graphic evidence that he could daily rely on God’s providence, it didn’t take him long to fall back on worrying that the Japanese might yet get him before the end of the war. Many years later when I was an adult, he told me that when he read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s account of his incarceration in the Soviet Gulag Archipelago in his book “One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich” Alex described very accurately what my father had experienced in keeping a low profi le as a Japanese POW. He also said that the brutalization he endured in Langoan severely dam- Epilogue Allow me to share four thoughts that come to my mind as this Kristen story sett les into your soul. Naturally, these come from my personal Kristen perspective. First is the importance of sharing our real-life stories. And as you read this story, I hope you noticed that what makes this an extraordinary story is because of the way each of the characters lived the ordinariness of their respective lives. Th at is what I fi nd so remarkable and so profound about the tradition of the telling of real-life stories. Th ese stories are always about ordinary people, living ordinary lives that intermingle to develop into extraordinary stories for the benefi t of future generations. It is a tradition that seems to be slipping away in our current fast-paced digital world. We now seem to have so litt le opportunity to huddle together in the comfort and security of our homes to do this. I will always treasure the evenings during the monsoon season in Indonesia and later during the cold winters in Canada when we huddled around a warm, wood-fi red stove and listened to my father tell his stories. Th ere are now so many distractions in today’s world that inhibit regular intercourse at the hearths in our homes about real things in our lives that would help to shape each of us to become the person our Creator desires us to become. Second is the presence of our Creator in our ordinary lives. Here, in the West, and regardless of our religious persuasion, we seem to have intentionally acquired a mindset with respect to God, that He is there for our beck and call only when we need him. We behave as if He is totally uninvolved with us for the rest of the time. It’s as if we have relegated Him to be our personal butler, or that genie we carry in an imaginary fl ask, to be called upon when we determine that we need divine intervention. Th at places us in control of our lives. Sometimes He surprises us, we think, when we encounter what seems like an unnatural but pleasant happening. Perhaps you could think of such happenings as coincidences. I suppose that is one way you could describe my father’s rescue from execution. I’ve oft en thought this as well; coincidence. But somehow that has never registered with me for very long. As I look back on my life there has been so litt le that I had any control over. For example, I had no control over anything in this Kristen story that aff ected me.
And there have just been so many coincidences in my life that I do not believe they were coincidental at all. I’ve come to believe that everything happens for a reason. But then, whose reason are we talking about? God’s reason? Yes. I believe that it is His carefully thought through and reasoned unfolding of His creation in which we are involved. And that brings me to the third point. Th ird is the question I oft en ask myself, if it is God who is in control and it is he whose reasoning prevails in our lives, what about the many individuals on both sides of the confl ict who unlike my father didn’t make it through that war? I fi nd myself unable to answer that. I do not know. But then when I wrestle with questions like that, I fi nd something in this Kristen story that profoundly stills my troubl ed heart because it draws me into the real-life story of Jesus. Jesus’ mission was to help His Father restore the kingdom of heaven and to reconnect us with Him on a very personal level. He lived this mission with actions that came to him naturally. Th ere never was any pretense in how he presented himself or projected himself to those around him. Th at is also the way he encourages us to follow his example with our individual lives. Just like the elders in Langoan witnessing my father’s brutal beating or those women in Manado encouraging those Dutch POW’s and handing them bibles. Neither Jesus nor these individual Minahasars were pre-occupied with themselves. Both were inherently pre-occupied with their Father’s kingdom in their respective stations in life. Th at entailed among other things that their Father’s will was to be done and His standards of practice were naturally to be followed. Th at is where Jesus’ allegiance lay. Inherently, that is where the allegiance of those Minahasars lay as well. And if Jesus in particular hadn’t lived his life in that ordinary “my word is my bond to my Father” way, there would not be that extraordinary Easter result of a resurrection that is also seamlessly passed on to us. It is that 1951 Easter arrival in Canada, exactly nine years to the day aft er my father escaped execution in Manado, and what that symbolizes for me, that redirects me to the hope of a real-life Easter resurrection experience that awaits us all. And, yes, that includes both the folks that didn’t survive the war Jake and Joyce Masselink - Manado, January 11, 2012. and those that did and died later of “natural causes”. Fourth is the reality of what Saint Augustine prayed 1600 years ago. “God, you made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until we fi nd our rest in You.” Th is Kristen story illustrates this fact very clearly for me. To be created for His pleasure and in His image is to live in partnership with Him. To live a life at “rest” is expressed in our living our ordinary lives as natural as God means for us to live it in His presence. Our stories then are also His stories.
On second thought, let me hasten to restate this. It is not our story in which He participates as if He is our personal butler or a bott led up genie. It is in His cosmic story we are created and personally invited to participate. Th e story of an evolving cosmos in which we are inherently involved encompasses a divine struggle of good overcoming evil, of love transforming hate, and compassion displacing condemnation as St. Paul seems to imply in the lett er he wrote to his friends in Ephesus (6:12) almost 2000 years ago. “ for our struggle is not against fl esh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities and the powers of the darkenss in this world and against the forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. Aft er all, history is an account of His real-life story. It is the Creator who is, aft er all, the Master story teller. And each of our individual real-life stories resonates within His ongoing evolving cosmic story. Th at is what transforms our personal stories into such extra-ordinary real-life stories. Our personal real-life stories are just that, “real”! Th e period of time that this story covers shaped my life and continues to mold the person I am destined to become. Ten formative years fi lled with events totally beyond my control. Upon refl ection, we are all in process of becoming from the moment of conception to the moment of death; or should I say resurrection? Th is Kristen story is actually an epiphany which stirred a deep yearning within my soul to share it with you. It is my hope that it will also encourage you to share your stories. it the editing it needed and got this story “camera-ready;” the fi ne people I met in January 2012 at the Universitas Kristen Indonesia Tomohon Th eological Faculty in the Minahasa and who represent, for me, a spiritual and physical conduit through whom this Kristen story can be distributed to the people of the Minahasa; and especially Vian Togas of this UKI Tomohon Th eological Faculty who enthusiastically encouraged me to make some important Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge and thank a number of people who encouraged and assisted me in writing this Kristen Story so others may read it and hopefully have it resonate deep within their souls.
Th e people listed below are only some of the untold crowd of participants and partners in this real-life story; a story that, keeps growing and expanding to include many more participants as it is retold and absorbed into the souls of everyone who hears it. Barbara Vander Leek, my sister-in-law, whose enthusiasm to share this story with everyone she knows; John Zylstra, my good friend, who coached and encouraged me to write it and who gave Universitas Kristen Indonesia Tomohon Th eological Faculty Barabara and Peter Vander Leek Vian Togas of the UKI Tomohon Th eological Faculty with the author Jake Masselink. John Zylstra editorial additions to the original draft of this story and to have it translated into Bahasa Indonesia; an old family friend in Toronto, Bill Ubbens, who encouraged me to make a number of small but important grammatical corrections and who helped to fi nd a young Indonesian couple who were willing to translate this story into Bahasa Indonesia: Linda Sari Panggabean, a post graduate student at the University of Indonesia and her husband Johanes Hartono, an IT consultant in Singapore; and my dear wife Joyce, who quietly endured my self-doubt and stayed the course with me.
imanuel & frends ministry share free christian story like a book etc.more info feal free contec me +62(0)85240109300 vian.togas.good day🤗👍be blessed
kristen saya kristen buku..christian yes i am christian..
colaboration 2012/2013 famely jake maselink and imanuel ministry until now good day be blessed sunday
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7kMcXeBUQ-/?igshid=1kqr7nujwc9v9
have a nice sunday and be blessed hope u like this true story totaly free...a true famely story during warld world 2 ...a jepan soldier help save the ducth and the influance of the minahasa christian....
https://imanuelministry.blogspot.com/2018/11/jake-masselink-books-christian-yes-i-am.html...
in indonesia ...https://www.4shared.com/office/Ipi1zntcce/1_e-books_christen_in__indones.html..
in englis ...https://www.4shared.com/office/araprVzGba/2_e-books_christen_in_englis_p.html...make peace whit jesus love
https://imanuelministry.blogspot.com/2018/11/jake-masselink-books-christian-yes-i-am.html?m=1
the distance from canada to minahasa celebes island indonesia 12.878 km a sterke traveler opa jake and wife to share story good day be blessed
een sterke oude opa ...^^ ...buku kiriman dari opa jake masselink post canada...Berbagi buku geratis ...Kisah Kasih Kristiani semasa perang dunia ke dua di minahasa ...^^
a book sent by opa jake masselink post canada ... Share a free book ... A Story of Christian Love during the second world war in minahasa ...all offer the world in canada,usa,holland,germany,jepan,indonesia,australia...
boek inzending van opa jake masselink post canada ... Deel geratis boeken ... Verhaal van Christian Love tijdens de tweede wereldoorlog in minahasa ... ^^ een boek verstuurd door opa jake masselink post canada...
good day be blessed..goede dag wees gezegend
for more about this story u can read or dowloud at grup and page christian yes i am christian
voor meer over dit verhaal kun je lezen of dowloud op grup en pagina christen ja ik ben christen
fb grup/page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/533847006778969/announcements/
https://www.facebook.com/Share-free-Christian-story-personal-and-famely-254880261875822/?ref=bookmarks
https://www.facebook.com/Christian-Yes-i-am-Christian-406772419505317/
downloud free
for ingglis
.at 4 shared
.https://www.4shared.com/office/araprVzGba/2_e-books_christen_in_englis_p.html
.https://sharefreechristianstory.blogspot.com/2018/11/blog-post.html
for indonesia
https://sharefreechristianstory.blogspot.com/2018/11/jake-masselink-kristen-saya.html
https://www.4shared.com/office/Ipi1zntcce/1_e-books_christen_in__indones.html
cerita pendek opa jake ini opa yang sekalipun dah ber umur masih nekat jalan jalan sebrang benua canada to minahasa.... lahir di indonesia dari ayah tentara belanda 1945 dan kemudian ber migrasi ke canada tuk kemudian 2012 di usia yang dah 80an balik minahasa tuk menceritakan kisah nya di tanah ini tanah minahasa dan mulai mengirimkan kisahnya dalam buku gratis sejak 2013 sampai ini ...This short story of Opa Jake this is a blessed story of strong old opa..travel long way in old body to share her story acroos continetal canada to minahasa... This short story of Opa Jake ... was born in Indonesia from the father of the Dutch army in 1945 and then migrated to Canada and then in 2012, when he was in his 80s ,,he and wife back travel her to minahasa, he told his story in this land of Minahasa and began sending his stories in free books from 2012 to 2013. to this days..Dit korte verhaal van Opa Jake dit is een gezegend verhaal van sterke oude opa..reizen lange weg in oud lichaam om haar verhaal acroos continetal canada naar minahasa te delen... werd geboren in Indonesië uit de vader van het Nederlandse leger in 1945 en migreerde vervolgens naar Canada en vervolgens in 2012, toen hij in de 80 was, reisden hij en zijn vrouw terug naar Minahasa, hij vertelde zijn verhaal in dit land van Minahasa en begon zijn verhalen van 2012 tot 2013 in gratis boeken te verzenden...good day and be blessed ...goede dag gezegend
このクリステンの物語は、あなたと分かち合いたいという私の魂の奥底にあるひらめきです。また、皆さんのストーリーを共有するきっかけにもなれば幸いです。それは必要な編集であり、このストーリーを「カメラ対応」にしました。 2012 年 1 月にミナハサのクリステン インドネシア大学トモホン神学学部で出会った素晴らしい人々であり、私にとって、このクリステンの物語をミナハサの人々に広めることができる精神的および物理的な導管を表しています。特に、この UKIT トモホン神学学部の Vian Togas 氏には、私にいくつかの重要な重要なことを熱心に勧めていただきました。彼らの魂の奥深くに響き渡る。 以下にリストされている人々は、この実生活の物語の参加者とパートナーの無数の群衆の一部にすぎません。物語は成長し、拡大し続け、それを聞くすべての人の魂に語り継がれ、吸収されるにつれて、より多くの参加者を含みます.私の義理の妹であるバーバラ・ヴァンダー・リーク。ジョン・ジルストラは私の良き友人であり、私にこの本を書くように指導し励まし、クリステン・インドネシア大学にトモホン神学学部バラバラとピーター・ヴァンダー・リーク、UKI トモホン神学学部のヴィアン・トガスと著者のジェイク・マセリンクを与えてくれました。ジョン・ジルストラの編集によるこの記事の原案への追加とインドネシア語への翻訳。ビル・ウベンスはトロントの古い家族の友人で、小さいながらも重要な文法上の修正をいくつか行うように私を励まし、この話をインドネシア語に喜んで翻訳してくれる若いインドネシア人カップルを見つけるのを手伝ってくれました: Linda Sari Panggabean, a postインドネシア大学の大学院生と、シンガポールの IT コンサルタントである夫の Johanes Hartono 氏。そして愛する妻のジョイスは、私の自己不信に静かに耐え、私と一緒に道を歩み続けました。.
クリステン？サヤ・クリステン。インドネシア語で「キリスト教徒？私はクリスチャンです。"献身 クリステンの物語は、1938 年から 1941 年にかけて、インドネシアのミナハサ地方の人々が私の父、フレデリック マセリンクに対して示したもてなしと誠実さのために捧げられたものです。 こんな話…^^ 彼らは彼の最高の年を作り、彼の残りの人生に共鳴しました。序文 それぞれの人間の人生には、何らかの形で他のすべての人間の心に共鳴する、個人的な現実の物語が詰まっています。注目に値するのは、私たちの個人的な実生活の物語のそれぞれが、私たちの個々の物語で直接的または間接的な役割を果たしている、または私たちが特別な絆を楽しんでいるすべての人の個人的な実生活の物語に特に関連していることです。新しいライフストーリーを開発する進行中のプロセス。そして、特に注目に値するのは、私たちの実生活の物語を共有することで、人類の歴史を通じて、そして私たちが「地球人」と呼ぶこの美しい惑星全体で、家族として私たちをしっかりと結びつけることです. だからこそ、私たちの物語は、仲間の人間の心と魂に自然に共鳴します。だからこそ、人種、宗教、年齢、教育、立場、文化に関係なく、私たちは自分の話を共有したいと思うことがよくあります。私たちの世界は、あなたや私のような普通の人々でいっぱいで、それぞれの人生の日記には、並外れた現実の物語が詰め込まれています。彼らの人生の日記。この古くからの神聖な物語を伝える伝統を維持することは、全人類の健康にとって最も重要です。共有され、伝えられる必要があるのは、私たち人間家族の非日常的で現実的な物語です。それは、平凡な人間のそれぞれの生活に詰め込まれている非日常的で現実的な物語を自由に交換することであり、個人として、また文明として、私たちが本質的に心から望んでいる希望を実現するために、私たちを高貴にし、励ますものです。この美しい地球に健全な未来を。.
私たちの個人的な実生活の話はまさに本物です！これが、この話を皆さんと共有したいと思った動機です。これがあなたのストーリーを共有することを奨励することを願っています.そして、この物語を読みながら、それぞれの登場人物がそれぞれの人生の平凡さをどのように投影し、表現しているかを観察してください。オーラル ソサエティでは、私たちは周りに座って、サークルの全員の利益のために実生活の話を共有しました。これは口頭伝承であり、私たちの生活に意味のある文脈をもたらしました。個人的な実生活の話を共有することで、私たちは先祖の実生活の話とシームレスに結び付きました。それは、信頼と理解の絆で私たちを同時代の人々と密接に結びつけ、それが今度は未来への意味、希望、勇気の精神を生み出しました. 私たちの世界は、あなたや私のような普通の人々で満たされています。彼らの生活には、非常に平凡で現実的な話がたくさんあります。クリステン ストーリー インドネシアのモンスーン シーズンは 11 月から 3 月までです。これは、激しい集中豪雨で毎日文字通りバケツの水を注ぐことができるときです。人々が家でくつろぎながらくつろいでいるこの時期は、物語を語るのに理想的な時期です。兄のビルと私が懐かしく思い出すのは、父が幼少期にオランダの故郷周辺のヘザー畑を歩き回ったことや、青年時代のインドネシアでの冒険について語ってくれたときのことです。特に興味深いのは、驚くほど多様で美しい熱帯の自然環境と調和して暮らす北スラウェシの人々との出会いについての驚くべき話でした。そして、はい、彼は戦争体験のいくつかの物語も共有しました.これらの経験は、彼の深いキリスト教信仰と、インドネシアの人々と彼らの美しい島々の故郷との思い出に残る関係を常に際立たせていました。 1948 年にインドネシアのセレベス州マカッサル (現在はスラウェシ島のウジュン パンダンとしても知られています) に住んでいたとき、父が最初にこの話をしてくれました。私は 8 歳でした。それは私に非常に深く、生涯にわたる印象を与えました。私の魂のキリスト教信仰の現実を永久に封印したのは、私の人生の極めて重要な物語です.この「クリステン」の物語を私たちの家族の生活に当てはめることから始めましょう.父のフレデリック・マセリンクと母のアンチェ・ブローケマは、オランダのホーヘフェーンという町で育ちました。.
目は子供時代の恋人でした。フレッドが高校を卒業したとき、オランダは経済的に低迷していた国で、若者たちが有意義な未来を自分たちで切り開く見込みはほとんどありませんでした。高校受験勉強中のフレデリック・マセリンク。フレッドとアンジェは 1935 年 10 月 9 日に結婚しました。無料の大学教育への交換。彼は申請し、受け入れられ、1935 年にユトレヒト大学で法律の学位を取得して卒業しました。彼と Antje は 10 月 9 日に結婚し、インドネシアへの旅は新婚旅行でした。フレッドは 24 歳、アンジェは 23 歳でした。彼らは次の 2 年間、インドネシアのさまざまな場所に駐留し、1937 年に弟のビルが生まれた年に、ジャワ島のバンドンでの軍事訓練に召集されました。その後、1938 年に彼は北スラウェシの植民地政府に加わり、このイスラム教の国で主にキリスト教徒の領土であったミナハサのコタムバグに移りました。彼の職務の 1 つは、経済開発担当官でした。彼はこの地域を徒歩、乗馬、ボート、そしてしばしばアウトリガー カヌーで広範囲に旅し、そのようにして多くのコミュニティの指導者たちと親しくなりました。世界のこの地域の人々と自然史について彼が私たちに語った数々の物語は、後にカナダで林業と野生生物管理を学び、ブリティッシュコロンビア州政府の自然保護プログラムでキャリアを追求することに影響を与えました.スラウェシ島は、ボルネオ島の東、バリ島の北東、フィリピンの南に位置しています。.
1940年、母が私を出産したとき、家族はパリギ（赤道から数キロ南）に引っ越しました。パリギには病院がなかったので、母は山の尾根を越えて西に向かい、私が生まれたパルに行きました。そしてしばらくして、私たちは皆、大きく美しいトミニ湾の南岸にあるポソに移動しました。ポソは、スラウェシ島の地方植民地政府があった場所だったと思います。一方、オランダはナチス・ドイツに占領されており、オランダとその東インド諸島植民地との間の通信は、洗礼式の日に、フレッドが最初に生まれたビルを抱いていたことによるものでした。ネシアは、スラウェシ島からマカッサル海峡を隔てたボルネオ島東部に広大な油田があるため、日本の次の標的の 1 つになるでしょう。フレッド神父は翌日兵役に召集され、ヨーロッパの女性と子供たちは安全のためにポソを離れることを命じられました。 29 歳の母と 4 歳の兄と一緒に、400 km の陸路を南にマカッサルまで、数人のネイティブ ガイドと共に旅しました。私たちは、一部は徒歩で、一部は馬に乗って移動し、道路が利用できる場合はおそらく自動車で移動しました。ビルは私たち二人が大きなかごで運ばれた記憶があります。ママは、日本海軍がジャワ海を制圧する前に、ジャワ島のスラバヤ行きの最後の船に乗ることができました。スラバヤで、彼女は断ち切られた避難所を見つけました。しかし、アメリカはドイツと戦争をしていなかったので、オランダからアメリカに手紙を送り、そこからオランダ領東インドに転送することができました。ロッテルダムの教会で牧師をしていた父の兄弟エバートは、オランダのマセリンク家の安否をフレッドに知らせるために、この通信経路を試みました。 1941 年 11 月、エバートは、ミシガン州グランドラピッズに住む牧師でもあるエドワード マセリンク博士に、兄弟のフレッドに転送するように依頼する手紙を送りました。しかし、ハワイでの突然の出来事により、その通信ルートが遮断され、手紙はフレッドに届くことはありませんでした. 1941 年 12 月 7 日、ハワイ諸島の真珠湾が日本軍によって爆撃されました。.
オランダ政府は、1937 年にバンドンで軍事訓練を受けていたフレデリック・マセリンクインド中尉が右側に座っていることを知っていました。彼女の兄である叔父の Wout とその家族。 1942 年 3 月 12 日、オランダ政府はオランダ領東インドの「正式な降伏文書」に署名しました。その後の 6 か月間、すべてのヨーロッパ人は日本の強制収容所に収容されました。女性と子供は、男性とは別の収容所に入れられました。イーリーおばさんと彼女の 3 人の子供、ジャープ、イネケ、テア、そして母と弟と私は幸運にも、その後 3 年半にわたっていくつかの同じ収容所に入れられました。ウートおじさんは悪名高いビルマの鉄道労働収容所に送られましたが、奇跡的に生き延びました。母がポソを去った直後、フレッド中尉は北スラウェシのマナド市に移送され、古いボルトアクションカービン銃で武装した 36 人の小隊を割り当てられました。市には対空砲、航空機、海軍艦艇はなく、差し迫った日本の侵略から身を守るために、古い鉄輪の大砲、機関銃、数百のボルトアクションカービン銃以上のものはありませんでした。フレッド中尉と彼の小隊は、1942 年 1 月 10 日の夕方、サリオ郊外のマナドの西に割り当てられた防御陣地に着きました。翌朝 2 時 30 分、日本軍は上陸しました。フレッドは、戦いがすぐ近くにあるので、彼の軍隊に彼らのMakerと和解するように言いました.彼が無線士官に敵の上陸を指揮官に知らせるように指示している間、日本兵が夜の暗闇の中、静かに海辺の道路を走っているのが見えた。小さな小隊はすぐに発砲し、数百の日本の半自動銃が夜に燃え上がる銃撃戦が勃発しました。フレッドと彼の小隊はアムランからマナドへの幹線道路に退却し（通信士を除いて）、暗闇の中で別の大規模な日本兵のグループに遭遇し、彼らと交戦した.ジェイクとビル、母親のアンチェと。1942 年 1 月。アンジェの日本人の身分証明書。海岸沿いの道路にいる最初の日本人グループはまだ発砲していましたが、今度はこの 2 番目の日本人グループも発砲していました。どういうわけか、フレッドの小隊はそれ以上の損失を被ることなく脱出し、マナド・トモホン・ロードを後退した。.
この暗い夜の遭遇の混乱の中で、2 つの日本のグループは、うっかりして夜明けまでこの戦いに巻き込まれ、ひどい命が失われました。その朝の 11 時ごろ、フレッド中尉とその小隊はティヌール防衛基地 (マナド トモホン道路の 18 km 地点) に到着した。彼は、下の深い峡谷を横切る道路がはっきりと見えるように、機関銃を操作している少数の先住民兵士を担当していました。フレッド中尉は後に、これらの兵士は「敵の迫撃砲の激しい砲火の下での射撃において、優れており、非常に落ち着いており、定期的な機関銃の訓練演習に参加しているかのように安全であった」と報告しました。彼の部下は、進軍する日本人を午後3時まで寄せ付けなかった.その時、（マナドの）シウィ軍曹は非常に落ち着いてフレッド中尉に弾薬がなくなったことを知らせた. 「Bagaimana, letnan, mati, mati saja, tetapi pelor sudah habis.」これは自由に訳すと、「それはどうですか、中尉、もし私たちが死ぬなら、私たちは死ぬのですが、それが私たちの最後の弾丸でした」.ティヌールの視点から見ると、彼らは包囲する敵マナド湾にほぼ完全に包囲されていたからです。 1942 年 1 月の防衛ポストの場所にある Tinoor レストラン。そして戦いに負けたので、彼は部下に制服を脱いで家に帰るように言いました。しかし、シウィ軍曹は彼を離れることを拒否し、2人はジャングルを抜けて攻撃し、フレッド中尉を他の退却中のオランダ兵と結びつけようとしました。次の 5 週間、この雑多なグループはジャングルを忍び寄り、ゲリラ戦を企てましたが失敗に終わりました。 2 月 20 日、彼らはゴロンタロ近くのライオンの集落 (「カンポン」) に到着し、ポソの部隊司令官と連絡を取ることができました。.
近くのビトゥンの町に日本海軍基地を設置することを含むマナド侵攻は、東インド諸島を占領する計画における日本軍による 4 つの方面からの攻撃の一部でした。 2 番目の分岐点は、ボルネオの油田の占領でした。第 3 の最も重要な分岐点は、英国の拠点であるシンガポールの占領でした。そして第 4 の分岐点は、ジャワ海での連合艦隊の撃破とジャワ島の占領でした。 4回の戦闘はすべて比較的短期間で行われました。オランダ植民地政府の降伏に続いて、ポソの 6 人の高官と軍関係者 (フレッド中尉とオーストラリア軍アチェを含む) も降伏することを決定し、マナドの日本海軍司令官と連絡を取りました。彼らは 1942 年 3 月 25 日、モーター ボートでトミニ湾を横断し、マナドの南にある北スラウェシのミナハッサ地域にあるベランのコミュニティで日本人に降伏しました。日本の司令官。これが、この「クリステン」の物語の背景と文脈です。.
この降伏グループの 2 人の上級オランダ軍人、アビンク大尉とマセリンク中尉は、ランゴアンで公然と残虐行為を受けました。フレッド中尉が召集されたとき、彼を尋問していた日本海軍司令官の側には、日本人から出頭を命じられていた近隣地域の長老たちが並んでいた。フレッドの前に日本人の若い水夫が一人、フレッドのすぐ後ろに一人が配置された。その後、日本の司令官は次の 2 つの質問を彼に尋ねました。そして b) 「どうして、立派なことをしてハラキリしなかったのですか?」フレッドがこれらの質問にどのように答えるべきかを考えるのにかかった一瞬で、正直に答えたらひどく殴られるだろうとわかっていました。そのため、彼が間違いを犯したことを誤って認めて謝罪することを考えていたとき、彼の目は、この怒った日本の司令官の後ろに立っていた近隣のコミュニティの長老たちの目に留まり、今や敗北した植民地オランダの役人からの反応を目撃しました。軍服を着たサー。彼はそれらのそれぞれを認識しました。彼らは仲間のクリスチャンでした。.
彼は彼らと一緒に働き、彼らと一緒に教会に行きました。この 2 つの質問に正直に答える勇気が彼に与えられました。それで彼はすぐに次のように答えました。 「私はあなたと同じように名誉ある兵士です。私の言葉は私の絆です。あなたが皇帝に忠誠を誓ったように、私も女王に忠誠を誓った。で、なんでハラキリしなかったの？私の神は私が自分の命を奪うことを禁じているからです。」次の瞬間、前方の船員が彼の顎をノックアウトし、後方の船員が同時に彼の後頭部をノックアウトした。彼が来たとき、1942年にマナド刑務所があった場所は現在、専門学校が占めているという質問が繰り返され、彼は同じように答え、頭への打撃が続きました。彼の耳たぶと頬のあごが腫れて血でいっぱいになるまで、これは何度も続きました。その時、彼は引きずり出されました。翌日の 3 月 26 日、彼はトラックの荷台でマナドの刑務所に運ばれ、そこで首を切られることになっていた。彼がマナド刑務所に到着したときはとても暑かった。フレッド中尉を見守っていた若い日本兵は、このうだるような暑さの中で彼を憐れみ、彼を外に連れ出し、刑務所の家の隣の木陰に座らせた。彼は、打撲傷を負ったこのオランダ人が、とにかくどこにも行けない状態ではないことを確信していました。彼が半意識で一人で日陰に座っていたとき、オランダ人捕虜（POW）のグループが彼のそばを通り過ぎて護衛され、日本の掃海艇に乗り込み、南端のマカッサルの捕虜収容所に移送されました。スラウェシの。そのうちの 1 人が彼を認識し、同志に「マセリンク中尉です。手を貸してください」と言いました。 2 人は検出されることなくランクを破り、フレッド中尉をトラックに引きずり込み、港と待機中の掃海艇に輸送しました。彼らが船に乗り込むとき、彼らは、銃剣に取り付けられた銃を振り回している日本の警備員を恐れることなく無視した先住民の女性の群れを通り抜けました.彼らはオランダ人捕虜に聖書を手渡しながら、「勇気を出して、あなたのために祈ります」と安心させるように働きかけました。フレッドを退去させた捕虜は、これらの聖書の 1 つを取り出し、フレッドの後ろポケットに入れました。フレッドが着ていた服を除いて、フレッドが機内に持ち込んだ唯一の所持品でした。.
三日後、彼らはマカッサルに到着した。彼らが下船する際に会った人の一人は、日本の事務所で通訳として雇われていたオランダ人捕虜で、マセリンク中尉を探していると言った。それから彼はフレッド中尉に、フレッドが 1942 年 3 月 26 日にマナドの女性たちから受け取った聖書の中で、マナドの日本軍司令官と司令官との間のメッセージ交換を耳にしたと語った。処刑と後者の応答：「ここ（マカッサル）にいる人は誰でもここにとどまっています」。彼は続けて、マナドの司令官は海軍であり、マカッサルの司令官は陸軍であり、両者の間に失われた愛はなかったと説明した.その結果、その後 42 か月間捕虜として過ごしたフレッド中尉は、処刑を逃れたことが発覚することを恐れて毎日を過ごしました。彼は今、自分自身に注目を集めることを避けるために、非常に意図的にできるだけ目立たないように暮らしていました.数か月後、彼はジャワ島のバンドンにある大規模な日本人捕虜収容所に移送されました。これは、シンガポールからのイギリス兵が抑留された場所であり、世界のこの地域で日本軍に捕らえられたオーストラリア人、ニュージーランド人、アメリカ人も収容された場所です。彼らが最初に収容されたバラックには 250 人の男性が収容され、間に通路を挟んで 2 つのプラットフォームで寝ていたことを彼は思い出しました。彼らは非常にぎっしり詰まっていたので、一方が反対側に寝転がると、もう一方の 124 人も同様に寝返りを打たなければなりませんでした。しかし、月日が経ち、体重が減り、同胞が減るにつれて、部屋はよりゆとりをもったものになりました。その間ずっと、彼は自分が処刑を免れたことを捕虜に知られることを心配していました。ある日、非常に激しいモンスーンの暴風雨がキャンプに降り注ぎ、全員が避難所を求めてバラックに逃げ込みました。.
若い日本人警備員も銃剣を持って中に入りました。見た目で殺せるなら数分で250回以上死んでいただろうが、ようやく落ち着きを取り戻し、恥ずかしそうにあたりを見回した。彼がそうするとき、彼はフレッド中尉に焦点を合わせ、フレッド中尉は彼を無視するために最善を尽くしました.しかし、やがてこの日本人の視線は無視できなくなり、二人がアイコンタクトをとったとき、若い日本兵はフレッドのそばにある小さな聖書を指して、「クリステン？」と尋ねました。父は肯定的にうなずいた。 するとその兵士は自分自身を指さし、静かに「サヤ・クリステン」と言いました！父はすぐに畏敬の念と驚きに圧倒されました。その瞬間、兵士の制服、銃、銃剣が蒸発したかのようでした。彼は、天皇を神格化し、日本人のキリスト教徒が 0.01% 未満である文化の中で、日本軍に徴兵されたキリスト教徒であることがどのようなものか疑問に思いました。そして、彼は驚くべきことに気づきました。この間ずっと、目を覚ますたびに、彼は捕らえられ、何千人もの日本兵に囲まれていたため、処刑を逃したことが最終的に彼らに知られるのではないかという絶え間ない恐怖の中で生きていました。
そして、彼が本当に誰の主権の世話をしていたかを彼に思い出させるために誰が送られますか?制服を着た敵対する日本人「兄弟」の仲間のキリスト教徒。そのとき、いくつかのイメージが彼の心に浮かびました。ランゴアンでの残忍な尋問の間、正直に答えるよう静かに励ましたキリスト教徒の村の長老たちの列。マナド刑務所のそばを行進していた捕虜の知人は、彼を認識し、本能的に彼を引きずり出しました。そして、彼と彼の同胞のために祈ることを約束し、この聖書を彼に与えた勇敢で思いやりのある女性の群衆は、彼とこの日本兵を最も有意義な方法で結びつけました.彼の最終的な考えは、あのマナド刑務所で彼を憐れんでくれたあの若い日本人警備員のことであり、彼は、その若い思いやりのある敵の兵士が彼の代わりに処刑されたのではないかと苦しんだ。 (1945 年 8 月 3 日にアンジェがフレッドに書いた最後のはがき) 親愛なるフレッド: あなたから 3 通のはがきを受け取ってうれしいです。今はエリーと一緒です。 (検閲されたセリフ) ビルとジェイクは元気で頭がいい。リエから母マセリンクが亡くなったと聞いた。理恵は12月に亡くなりました。早く家族みんなと一緒にいられますように。また、心配しないでください。よろしく アンジェ 彼は、日本軍が敵に対してと同様に自国の兵士に対しても残忍である可能性があることを知っていました。太平洋戦争は 1945 年 8 月 15 日に終結しました。しかし、オランダ人捕虜は 9 月中旬まで解放されませんでした。.
その時、私の父は、1942 年 4 月にポソの民間人同僚全員が日本人によって即座に斬首されたことを知り、兵役に召集されていなければ、自分も死んでいたことに気づきました。 1945 年 11 月、母と兄と私はバンドンで父と再会しました。彼とは 4 年近く別居していましたが、今では 5 ポンド軽くなりました。強制収容中、彼らは厳重に検閲された 4 枚のはがきを交換する特権を与えられました。しかし、非難できなかったのは、行間に書かれていたことでした。それが父と母の両方が読みたがっていた唯一のニュースでした。そして、父と母が出会ったとき、抱き合う前に、私は彼女のドレスを引っ張って、「どうしてパパだとわかるの？」と言いました。 1946 年 4 月、父は一時帰休の延長を認められ、私たちはオランダに移り、そこで彼の長兄ヤンとその家族と一緒にゾーストの町に滞在しました。その年の12月に妹のアンが生まれました。その後、1948 年の初めに、私たちはインドネシアのマカッサル市に戻り、そこで兄のビルと私は、オランダ東インド会社 (VOC) の貿易権益に役立っていた古いフォート ロット エルダムにある学校に入学しました。 1600 年代から 1800 年代。オランダは 1949 年 12 月に公式にインドネシアを主権国家として認めました。しかし、1950 年 5 月に私たちがインドネシアを離れる前に、父はすでにカナダに移住しようと決心していました。それからちょうど 9 年後の 1951 年 3 月 26 日の復活祭の日曜日、マセリンク一家は 1951 年 3 月にカナダに移住しました。妹のアンは 1946 年にオランダのゾーストで生まれました。 3年半の捕虜収容期間中、リンパ腺が老化し、深刻な不快感を覚えました。日本人尋問者の手による頭部外傷は、1996 年に彼がアルツハイマー病で亡くなる引き金になった可能性があります。なぜこの話が私の魂の奥深くにこれほど説得力のある刺激を与え続けてきたのか、そして今もそうであり続けているのかを理解していただければ幸いです。イエス・キリストとその教えに従うこと。これは、イエスがマット ヘウ 10: 19 で言った意味をグラフィカルに説明する物語だと思います。何をどのように言うべきか心配しないでください。なぜなら、それはあなたが話すのではなく、あなたの父の御霊があなたを通して話すからです。」そして、その少し後のマタイによる福音書 18 章 21 節で、「わたしの名において 2 人か 3 人が集まっているところに、わたしもいる」とあります。私は、「神はどのように私たちを導くのか」というタイトルのアルファ プログラムの一部を通じて新しいグループを導く際に、この話を何度も使用してきました。 (アルファは、キリスト教信仰の教義への 10 週間の導入です)。 そして、私は非常に個人的なレベルで、私の信仰生活がいかに弱いものであるかをよく知っています.それでも、この話は私を刺激し続けます。クリステン？はい、クリステンさん！父がマナドでの処刑から奇跡的に逃れる日まで、私たちはハリファックスに到着し、カナダでの新しい生活を始めました。それは別の美しい国での新たな始まりでした。それが、私たち個人の生活に関するイエスのイースター復活の本質ではないでしょうか。数週間後、オンタリオ州のキッチナー クリスチャン改革派教会に、ミシガン州グランドラピッズから訪れた訪問牧師、父の従兄弟であるエドワード マセリンク博士に迎えられました。 「私は、あなた方の誰よりも、彼らに会いたいと思っています。」私が 10 代の頃、父がカナダで私たちにこの話をしたとき、父は自分の信仰がたいてい非常に弱いことを告白しました。クリステンの日本人警備員との特別な出会いの後でも、彼は神の摂理に日々頼ることができるという明白な証拠として、日本人が終戦までに彼を捕まえるのではないかと心配するのにそれほど時間はかかりませんでした. .何年も後、私が大人になったとき、彼は著書「イヴァン・デニソビッチの生涯のある日」で、ソ連の強制収容所群島での投獄についてのアレクサンドル・ソルジェニーツィンの記述を読んだとき、私に次のように語った。.
アレックスは、私の父が日本軍捕虜として目立たないようにしていたことを非常に正確に説明してくれました。彼はまた、彼がランゴアンで耐えた残虐行為がひどく心を痛めたと言いました-エピローグ このクリステンの物語があなたの魂に落ち着くにつれて、私の心に浮かぶ4つの考えを共有させてください.当然、これらは私の個人的なクリステンの視点から来ています.まず、実生活のストーリーを共有することの重要性です。そして、この物語を読んで、これが並外れた物語である理由は、各登場人物がそれぞれの人生の平凡さを生きた方法のおかげであることに気づいたことを願っています.それこそが、実生活の物語を語るという伝統について、私が非常に注目に値し、非常に深遠だと感じていることです。これらの物語は常に普通の人々に関するものであり、普通の生活を送っていますが、それらが混ざり合って、将来の世代の利益のために並外れた物語に発展します.これは、現在の急速に変化するデジタル世界で失われつつある伝統です。私たちは今、快適で安全な家に集まってこれを行う機会がほとんどないように思われます.インドネシアのモンスーン シーズンの夜と、その後のカナダの寒い冬の間、暖かい薪の赤い赤いストーブの周りに集まって、父の話を聞いたときの夜を、私はいつも大切にします。今日の世界には非常に多くの気晴らしがあり、家庭の囲炉裏で、私たち一人一人が私たちの創造主が私たちになることを望んでいる人になるように形作るのに役立つ、私たちの生活の中で現実のものについて定期的に性交することを妨げています.第二に、私たちの日常生活における創造主の存在です。ここ西洋では、私たちの宗教的信念に関係なく、私たちは意図的に神に対する考え方を身につけているようです。それ以外の時間は、神が私たちにまったく関与していないかのように振る舞います。それはあたかも私たちが神の介入が必要であると判断したときに呼び出されるように、彼を私たちの個人的な執事、または架空のフラスコに運ぶその魔神に追いやったかのようです。これにより、私たちは自分の人生をコントロールできるようになります。不自然ではあるが楽しい出来事に遭遇したとき、神は私たちを驚かせることがあると私たちは思います。おそらく、そのような出来事を偶然と考えることができます。
それが私の父の処刑からの救出を表現する一つの方法だと思います。私もこれをよく考えていませんでした。一致。しかし、どういうわけか、それは非常に長い間私に登録されていません.自分の人生を振り返ってみると、自分でコントロールできるものはほとんどありませんでした。たとえば、このクリステンの話で私に影響を与えたものは何も制御できませんでした. そして、私の人生には非常に多くの偶然があったので、それらが偶然だったとはまったく信じていません.すべての出来事には理由があると信じるようになりました。しかし、それでは、誰の理由について話しているのでしょうか。神の理由？はい。私たちが関わっているのは、彼の慎重な考察と論理的な展開であると私は信じています。そして、それは私を3番目のポイントに導きます。 3 番目は、私がよく自問する質問です。神が私たちの生活を支配しており、神が私たちの生活を支配しているとすれば、紛争の両側にいる、父とは異なり、何も起こさなかった多くの個人についてはどうでしょうか。それはその戦争を通してですか？私はそれに答えることができないと思います。私は知らない。しかし、私がそのような質問に取り組むとき、私はこのクリステンの物語の中に、イエスの現実の物語に私を引き込むので、私の悩まされた心を深く静める何かを見つけます.イエスの使命は、父が天国を回復するのを助け、私たちを非常に個人的なレベルで彼と再び結びつけることでした.彼はこの使命を自然に思いついた行動で生きました。彼が自分自身をどのように提示したり、周囲の人々に自分自身を投影したりする方法には、決して見せかけはありませんでした.それはまた、彼が私たちの個人的な生活で彼の例に従うことを奨励する方法でもあります.父の残忍な殴打を目撃したランゴアンの長老たちや、オランダ人捕虜を励ますマナドの女性たちのように。
そして彼らに聖書を手渡します。イエスもこれらの個々のミナハサールも、自分自身に夢中になっていませんでした。どちらも、人生のそれぞれの立場で、父の王国に本質的に夢中になっていました。それにはとりわけ、彼らの父の意志が行われるべきであり、彼の実践の基準が自然に守られるべきであった.それは、イエスの忠誠が置かれた場所です。本質的に、それはミナハサールの忠誠心も同様に横たわっていた場所です.特にイエスが、「私の言葉は私の父との絆です」という普通の方法で人生を送っていなかったとしたら、復活という特別なイースターの結果がシームレスに私たちに受け継がれることはなかったでしょう。父がマナドでの処刑を逃れてからちょうど 9 年後の 1951 年にカナダにイースターが到着したこと、そしてそれが私にとって象徴することは、私たち全員を待っている実際のイースターの復活の経験への希望に私をリダイレクトします.ジェイクとジョイス・マセリンク - マナド、2012 年 1 月 11 日。四つ目は、1600 年前に聖アウグスティヌスが祈ったことの現実です。 「神よ、あなたは私たちをご自分のために造られました。私たちの心は、あなたの中に安らぎを見つけるまで落ち着きません。」このクリステンの話は、この事実を私にとって非常に明確に示しています。彼の喜びのために、彼のイメージで作成されることは、彼と協力して生きることです. 「安らかな」生活を送ることは、私たちが日常生活を送ることで表現されますが、それは、神が神の前でそれを生きることを意味するのと同じように自然なことです。私たちの物語は神の物語でもあります。.
考え直して、急いでこれを言い直させてください。あたかも彼が私たちの個人的な執事であるか、ボットが率いる精霊であるかのように彼が参加するのは私たちの物語ではありません.私たちは彼の宇宙の物語の中で創造され、個人的に参加するよう招待されています。私たちが本質的に関与している進化する宇宙の物語は、聖パウロがエフェソスの友人たちに宛てた手紙の中で暗示しているように、悪に打ち勝つ善、憎しみを変える愛、非難に取って代わる慈悲という神の闘争を含んでいます。 6:12) ほぼ 2000 年前。 「私たちの戦いは肉と血に対するものではなく、この世界の支配者と権威と闇の勢力に対するものであり、天の領域における悪の勢力に対するものです。」結局のところ、歴史は彼の実生活の物語です。結局のところ、マスターストーリーテラーであるのは創造主です。そして、私たちの個々の現実の物語のそれぞれは、彼の進行中の進化する宇宙の物語の中で共鳴しています.それが、私たちの個人的な物語をそのような並外れた現実の物語に変えるものです.私たちの個人的な実生活の話はまさに「本物」です！この物語がカバーする期間は私の人生を形作り、私がなる運命にある人を形作り続けています.形成期の 10 年間は、私の手に負えない出来事でいっぱいでした。振り返ってみると、私たちは皆、受胎の瞬間から死の瞬間まで、なる過程にあります。それとも復活と言うべきですか？クリステンの物語は、あなたと分かち合いたいという私の魂の奥底にあるひらめきです。また、皆さんのストーリーを共有するきっかけにもなれば幸いです。それは必要な編集であり、このストーリーを「カメラ対応」にしました。 2012 年 1 月にミナハサのクリステン インドネシア大学トモホン神学学部で出会った素晴らしい人々であり、私にとって、このクリステンの物語をミナハサの人々に広めることができる精神的および物理的な導管を表しています。特に、この UKI トモホン神学学部の Vian Togas 氏には、私にいくつかの重要な重要なことを熱心に勧めていただきました。彼らの魂の奥深くに響き渡る。.
以下にリストされている人々は、この実生活の物語の参加者とパートナーの無数の群衆の一部にすぎません。物語は成長し、拡大し続け、それを聞くすべての人の魂に語り継がれ、吸収されるにつれて、より多くの参加者を含みます.私の義理の妹であるバーバラ・ヴァンダー・リーク。ジョン・ジルストラは私の良き友人であり、私にこの本を書くように指導し励まし、クリステン・インドネシア大学にトモホン神学学部バラバラとピーター・ヴァンダー・リーク、UKI トモホン神学学部のヴィアン・トガスと著者のジェイク・マセリンクを与えてくれました。ジョン・ジルストラの編集によるこの記事の原案への追加とインドネシア語への翻訳。ビル・ウベンスはトロントの古い家族の友人で、小さいながらも重要な文法上の修正をいくつか行うように私を励まし、この話をインドネシア語に喜んで翻訳してくれる若いインドネシア人カップルを見つけるのを手伝ってくれました: Linda Sari Panggabean, a postインドネシア大学の大学院生と、シンガポールの IT コンサルタントである夫の Johanes Hartono 氏。そして愛する妻のジョイスは、私の自己不信に静かに耐え、私と一緒に道を歩み続けました。 インドネシアで https://www.4shared.com/office/Ipi1zntcce/1_e-books_christen_in__indones.html クリステン？サヤ・クリステン。
キリスト教徒？私はクリスチャンです。信仰の実話 キリスト教徒の信仰、愛、キリスト教徒の情熱、愛と情熱の実話 by Jake Masselink ake Masselink 奉納 この真のキリスト教徒の物語は、インドネシアのミナハサの人々に捧げられます。 、フレデリック・マセリンク (1938 – 1941)
