Protestant Church in Halmahera (GMIH)
The Halmahera Church on the North Moluccas is faced with great difficulties. It grew out of the work of Dutch missionaries, became independent in 1949 and has always been living in the midst of a strong Muslim neighbourhood. At the end of 1999, it had 157,000 members in 157 parishes. During the nineties, its activities have mainly focused on developing the very poor rural peasant society by building schools, training health care workers, etc. In addition, it runs a theological university which places special emphasis on the teaching of a contextual, parish-based theology. Another focal point has always been communication work between Christians and Muslims, which has often been successful. Together with Muslim groups, the GMIH was able to stop the outbreak of unrest between members of both religions in the autumn of 1998. Since August 1999, however, a conflict has been escalating on Halmahera, which in the beginning was caused by the distribution of land between locals and immigrants, but which has increasingly been heated up by religious arguments and has turned into a fight for super session between Muslims and Christians. Nearly 100.000 people, Christians and Muslims alike, have fled into the woods or to neighboring islands. Only after the situation calmed down at the end of 2002 by mediation of the government, during 2003 the main part of the refugees returned to their home villages and started with economical and social reconstruction. To enable anew a sustainable coexistence among both religious groups many efforts on reconciliation still have to be made. The main task of the church today consists in sharing these efforts. Read more about the current project of the church here
