Monday, February 6, 2023
One of the spiritual formation programs for students at SD Kanisius Nglinggi is the student retreat. This year, 5th and 6th-grade students were invited to take a short break from their school routines to participate in a retreat held at KPTT (Kursus Pertanian Taman Tani) Salatiga, with the theme “Growing and Bearing Fruit in Christ”. Far from feeling dull or boring, the retreat atmosphere was unique as it was packaged in the form of a live in on Friday–Saturday, February 3–4, 2023.
Welcomed by Brother Dieng, SJ and university agriculture students who accompanied the children throughout the live-in, the retreat began with introductions to the mentors and a tour around Areas 1 and 2. To avoid overcrowding, the children were divided into 3 groups for the tour. Area 1 includes the plant nursery, mushroom storage house, fruit and vegetable cultivation plots, as well as cattle and goat livestock areas. Area 2 is a planting area for fruit trees, corn, strawberries, and a farm shop to market agricultural and livestock products. After lunch, the tour continued to Area 3, which is located separately from Areas 1 and 2. Area 3 features coffee, pepper, nutmeg, ginger, and avocado plantations, a pig farm, and an animal waste processing unit for biogas production.
Around 5:00 PM, the next session titled “Farming and Food Security” began. Br. Dieng invited the children to reflect on everything they had seen, experienced, and felt while touring Areas 1, 2, and 3. Participants were also asked to calculate how much food they had consumed from infancy until now, how much money was spent purchasing that food, and how many people die every minute around the world—a number rising yearly due to food crises and soaring food prices.
After dinner, Br. Dieng continued the session by emphasizing that in addition to farming, we must practice conservation—serving nature by keeping the soil healthy, because healthy food comes from healthy soil. In this session, students and teachers received valuable information on using organic waste and selecting proper soil media compositions to cultivate healthy soil for plant growth. To wrap up the session, Br. Dieng led the children and teachers in a reflection based on an illustration titled “Footwear and Soil,” which showed how footwear separates humans from the soil, preventing direct contact because soil is often viewed as dirty, filthy, or repulsive. Through this illustration, participants were encouraged not to fear or feel disgusted by coming into contact with soil, as it is the soil that produces leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds so vital to human life.
The second day’s activities began with morning prayer, breakfast, and field practice, where the children learned to make potting media, plant, harvest vegetables, feed livestock, milk cows, and prepare mushroom growing media. While the students engaged in field practice, the teachers attended a session and reflection with Br. Dieng titled “How trees secretly talk to each other”, which illustrated how plants actually serve and cooperate with one another for mutual survival despite numerous obstacles. Br. Dieng used this reflection to convey to the teachers that if plants serve one another, then humans too must serve each other, especially in their calling as educators. Furthermore, the reason we ought to serve one another is that God Himself, through Jesus, first served us.
To encapsulate their gratitude for the fellowship and dynamic experiences at KPTT over 2 days and 1 night, the program concluded with a Holy Mass celebrated by Romo Herman, SJ.
Thank you to KPTT Salatiga, Brother Dieng, SJ, and the entire team. May the new knowledge and experience gained inspire the SD Kanisius Nglinggi community to appreciate the presence of every living creature, serve one another willingly, strive to become smart millennial farmers, love and respect nature, and maintain soil health so that it continues to grow, bearing abundant fruit for the good of many.
Source https://misionarisclaris.org/2023/02/retret-ekologi-sd-kanisius-nglinggi/
