Today I decided to ask a couple of the teachers about what Muslims believe concerning lying. Like Christianity, not all Muslims believe the exact same things. Those that are very conservative and who try to be like their counterparts in Arabia, believe that there is nothing wrong with lying to a non-Muslim. Then there are those that believe that there are different levels of sins and that lying is a small sin, not like stealing or killing. Of course we as Christians believe that all sins are equally bad. In fact many Muslims calling lying a “white sin”.
Today I went to talk with my neighbour Ibu Nina. Her mom had come to our house last night to borrow the money that I had agreed to lend them. But she heard us singing and decided not to bother us then but just wait until morning. They think that we have a little service after supper each night because we read the Story Bible, talk about it, pray, and then sing a psalm. So Ibu Nina says to me, “You have to do that right?” I said to her, ”No Ibu, we don’t have to do it, we want to do it.” This is so foreign to them. A huge difference between our faith and their faith is that we know that we don’t have to earn our way to heaven, by God’s grace and the death of His son for our sins, we know that we go as long as we believe. And when you believe, you just want to live a life that glorifies God. They feel that they must obey all the “rules” in order to enter heaven. It’s not a sure thing for them. So there is a lot of pressure on them to make sure that they pray five times a day and fast at Ramadan etc…
Remember "Masuk(enter) Angin(wind)"? The belief that wind can enter your body and make you sick. Here people wear coats or vests that look like bullet proof vests to prevent the wind from coming in. Anyways, they actually have special traditional medicine for when you are sick with masuk angin. Something else Indonesians like to do to cure it is take a coin and scratch their body until it is raw so that the bad wind can go out of the body. Huh??