Four years ago, on 18 July 2004, the two bullets were among those fired from an assassin’s automatic rifle which ended the life of Rev Susianti Tinulele, who had just finished preaching during an evening worship service. Tinulele, 28, was one of a growing number of women pastors in Indonesia.
The death of Tinulele and another pastor formed part of a wave of violence and killing which erupted in 2000 in the Muslim-dominated Central Sulawesi district of Poso. Reports say a brawl between a Christian and a Muslim youth triggered the violence.
In the anti-Christian attacks that followed, people were killed and homes were destroyed. So-called Christian "Black Bat" raiders retaliated in May 2000, killing hundreds of Muslims.
The violence further intensified when the armed Laskar Jihad in August 2001 declared jihad or "holy war" and dispatched fighters to Poso. The radical group provided Muslim paramilitary troops with AK-47s, grenade and rocket launchers, bulldozers and tanker trucks and launched "a scorched-earth campaign", destroying dozens of Christian villages and pushing 50,000 refugees into the Christian majority lakeside town of Tentena, reports the International Crisis Group.
Currently a "Living Letters" group from the World Council of Churches (WCC) is visiting the region to learn about the situation and how the Christian and Muslim communities have worked toward peace.
The Living Letters teams travel to locations around the world where Christians strive to overcome violence and encourage the church and local leaders to promote peaceful means of resolving differences. The teams are traveling in advance of the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation to be held in Jamaica in May 2011.
Leaders and members of Tinulele’s church in this capital city of Central Sulawesi still mourn the loss of their beloved pastor. But they see a "greater message" from that evening's tragedy – how to live their faith in Christ despite all violence.
That message must have something to do with "how we could practise our discipleship" because what happened "couldn’t even compare to the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the cross," says Desyiranti Tengkende in a written testimony.
Tengkende, who was only a ten-year old girl then, lost an eye during that fateful evening. She was among four injured during that shooting by a masked sniper positioned at the main door of the church. The church was filled with more than 500 mostly young parishioners. The assassin was accompanied by three other men who all fled on two motorcycles after the incident.
In her testimony in Bahasa she shares how, by further strengthening her faith, she overcame the trauma she suffered.
