May 2011 - Subud Voice

A family’s wish fulfilled
Rashidah MacDonald has sent us this story about the family of Faustina, a Subud member originally from Bali,
now living near Rungan Sari in Central Kalimantan. The story illustrates the extraordinary difficulties of life that
some people must face and overcome. It also draws attention to the difference the Subud Education Fund can make
in people's lives. The Subud Education Fund is a project of the Muhammad Subud Foundation. Rashidah writes...
In July 2009 Alvira, a young Subud member from Kalimantan, was awarded a grant from The Subud Education
Fund to help pay her university fees. In January 2011, The Subud Education Fund approved a further grant to make
it possible for Alvira to complete her final year of nursing studies. Thank you to all those who support this fund.
When I asked Faustina to tell me a little about her life and her own educational background for the application for a
scholarship for her daughter Alvira, she went home that night and wrote many pages about her life. She said it all
came out like that, and she cried many times as she remembered what her life was like when her daughter was still
a small baby before they joined Subud. She is extremely grateful for how much their lives have improved since
they joined Subud. This is her story.
Dear Subud Education Fund,
My name is Faustina and I was born on the 21st of June 1968. I
come from a poor family with limited education. I am the seventh
child of a family of eight children. My six older siblings only were
able to attend school until the second grade and my parents didn’t
go to school whatsoever.
Because we had not enough money to live and no land, my parents
joined the government transmigration program and we left Bali to
our new life in Kalimantan on 22/2/1982. We were helped by the
transmigration program and during that time I was able to study up
to the end of 9th Grade.
When the government program ended, I also was no longer able to
go to school, and my younger sister finished her schooling in the
8th Grade. I really wanted to continue my education but my parents
couldn’t afford it, but despite this, I felt very grateful to have studied
that much, as I had achieved the highest education in my family,
including my own parents.
At the time I had many dreams to continue my studies and have a
career as a nurse or something like that, but my parents were
already elderly and poor, and there was no possibility of any further studies.
Faustina and Alvira
When the government support ended, we were living in desperate times because our crops were destroyed by mice
and wild pigs. We had no rice, and only had cassava roots and leaves to eat each day.
I worked hard to help my parents in the fields in any way I could. In order to help my heart feel lighter, I was active
in social organizations like Posyandu (child clinic) and Ibu PKK, (Family wellbeing/women’s discussion group),
hansip (village security) and other community events. I was strongly motivated to help the development of our new
community in this new land.
Marriage
When I was 23, I met my husband, and we were married on the 24th of August 1990. He took me from South
Kalimantan where my family was, to where his parents lived, 35 km north of Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan.
He was also from a poor Balinese family and was brought by his parents to Kalimantan in search of a better life.
A year after we married, I gave birth to my daughter, Niluh. When she was 8 months old, my husband found work
and we had the opportunity to learn to live independently for the first time. We lived in a small hut that measured 4
x 3 meters and we had no bed, no mattress or any furniture. It was only 5 kilometers from the Subud land, but at
SUBUD VOICE PAGE 16 MAY 2011