The cell group became my saving grace.
I first joined HTC in 1993 without even knowing its true name. At that time, I was a lukewarm Catholic who would even miss the Sunday mass often. Freshly graduated from high school and about to enter a university, I was invited to join a youth activity in my local parish in Surabaya, Indonesia, by the youth leader, Arthur Budiman. He called the activity cell. I only found out that cell was truly the Holy Trinity Community cell group meeting after going to a student retreat in Tumpang, the base of Congregation of the Daughters of Carmel in East Java, Indonesia.
In the retreat’s final evening session I received my first outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A Sister prayed for me by laying her hands on my head and I felt as if my whole body was electrified. I was feeling the most joyful moments in my life, fully conscious even if I was sprawling on the floor while my tongue moved by itself mumbling strange syllables. I already knew from the one of the retreat session that the experience was called resting in the spirit and I was blessed with the gift of tongue. However, the most beautiful thing that happened was the change that I felt in my soul, where I suddenly fell in love with God. I suddenly had the desire to know more about God, the urge to read the bible more. Silent prayers felt sweet and peaceful. The next day, in the follow up session, retreat participants were taught about HTC and those who were interested were formed into new cell groups or admitted into an established one. That was the moment I figured out that cell was HTC, and mine also added with new members into fifteen (maximum) people.
Unfortunately the change was not for long. In about three months, I gradually returned to my old self, as the sweetness of prayers and quiet time with God waned away. The cell group became my saving grace. The members, who each were in different state of spiritual maturity, reminded one another about the commitments of being a HTC member, which include having daily prayer time and attending daily masses at least once a week. I also learned later on that this stage of dryness was important for my spiritual growth. Being steadfast to the commitments turned obligations into needs and made me realize how relationship with God was necessary for my soul.
When I moved to Melbourne in 1999, I knew that HTC had had a branch here, which by then was not yet a District. There were only two cell groups when I arrived, but they had very committed core members. Soon after I joined them, the two groups were divided into four in expectation that we would have many new members coming in when a big retreat and a spiritual revival event led by our founding father, Fr. Yohanes Indrakusuma, CSE., were arranged in September that year. However, after the events, we actually received many more new members that we had to divide the cell groups even more into eight groups with close to maximum (fifteen) members each. We were qualified to form a District level administration then.
Through the HTC way of life, I gradually realized that I live to pursue the purpose of Christian life, which is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength. To achieve this, I have to learn to love others in any situation. I learned to love others that I didn’t know of before, in other word, strangers, through ministries together with HTC and through my local parish. Through HTC, I learned to love people from my own rings, to know their weaknesses and learn to accept them as they are, even when sometimes they felt like pricks in my life. Learning to love like this requires a lot of grace from the Lord, and only through keeping the commitments of HTC and the support of my cell group that I managed to stay strong in this matter. Having said this, I have to make the point that HTC is actually a vocation. It might not be suitable for everyone but ones who are interested in HTC spiritualities that are Catholic, charismatic and Carmelite. As for me, it’s definitely worth every time that I spent with it.