English Corner
Gagasan
My Shocking Encounter with Father Darmin Mbula
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Komkat-kwi.org |
I
never get tired of telling the story of my experience of visiting the
Franciscans in the community of St. Joseph Copethino, Galur-Tanah Tinggi, central
Jakarta, six years ago (2014). This experience is one of the interesting
experiences of my life.
At
that time, I had just completed the formation period at the novitiate in Depok,
West Java. I still remember, after attending the Eucharist on Christmas Day
2014, I and a brother went to visit the friars in the St Yosep Coperthino community.
There,
there is a brother named Darmin Mbula (a franciscan priest) who has a habit
of playing trick on people, especially those who just met him. It may be said
that playing trick on people is one of his hobbies. So, you can imagine, we
would risk being played trick on. In fact, it happens.
When
going to lunch, after enjoying talking about many things, father Darmin took us
to the dining room. And you know, he took the rice, then put in a glass,
including vegetables and side dishes.
Seeing
the act, I was shocked because I had never heard any information about this
brother before. I never imagined that there was any such friar. But, he himself
seemed relaxed doing that, and eating from it.
Then,
after having lunch, he made another weirdness, where he picked up a couple of
bottles of beer and poured them into a sail place, then invited us to drink
together from it. Again, I was shocked and reluctant to drink beer on the
grounds I was not used to drinking beer.
Father
Darmin said, "You should try drinking beer so I think of you as a true
fransiscan". He said it seriously, and really embarrassed me, and was
finally willing to drink beer with him. She seemed to enjoy drinking that beer,
but I was tormented doing it.
Saw
me drinking beer, he then said, "You are a true Franciscan". I just
smiled and it was hard to imagine that there was a fransiscan like that. But
maybe that's the variety of life as fransiscan, and I'm grateful for that. (Joan Udu)
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