Who Are We?

 

When I arrived in UK, I had no idea if there was any Indonesian young adult catholic community in the UK. Especially during the pandemic when people were advised to come during lockdown, spend time at home, and not interact with other people. It is so difficult to socialise with others.​ Sadly, during that time, I experienced that we could not expect other people to reach out to us first and become friends with us. In the same time, I found that not many young adults from Indonesia had care to go to the Catholic Church and pray.

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I finally found a KUK, a small Catholic Group (all ages group), and since then, I have been motivated to gather people from all around the UK (most likely from PPI groups) to attend people of all mass on May 8th, 2022. 

 

On that date, I finally saw 5-6 people from all over the UK of similar age with me at Mass (Judith—Glasgow, Stella—Southampton, Gio—London, Stacia—London, Agnes L—London, and one other girl from Scotland)! That was the first time in my life in the UK that I was able to make friends with people of the same faith during my time and even make Catholic jokes that people used to do back in Indonesia.

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Since then, we decided to create a Catholic group, but only for young adults. I named it as "Indonesian Youth Catholic in the UK (IYC UK)" as English version of "Orang Muda Katolik UK (OMK UK)". Thanks to friends who helped share IYC UK information, this community grew from only five girls to hundreds of people all around the UK.

 

Our first regular event is following mass together (misa bareng) almost every week. It is not easy to create events in this community in the first place, especially when not many people are interested in initiating any good catholic events. That is why, in early IYC UK, I tried to look at any catholic event from any Catholic church all around the UK and gather IYC UK members to join. The first event that we followed was "Pilgrimage to Winchester - July 2022" by Assumption Sisters UK. Another event that we joined was Greenwich Picnic in the Summer 2022 from Catholic Young Adults from St George's Cathedral; that was the time when I met Fr Dermott, who used to request us to do a Choir in almost every Young Adult Mass at the Cathedral (all the memories you can find on our Instagram).​ And even asked Fr Nico (Indonesian priest in Richmond, London) so that IYC UK may serve as Mass attendant (Choir, Lectors, Prayer of People/Doa Umat, and so on), as I can see IYC UK member has many potentials to play instruments and contribute in church (e.g.: Daniel - Pianist, Odhi - Saxophone, Naya - pianist, Sesar - pianist, Jenny - flute, Celine - violin, Hayley - viola, few professional singers, etc).

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Finally, over time, we started hosting our own events, and we started to grow to host our own spiritual talks, pilgrimages, pray, socials, and more.

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It is not easy to build this kind of community; there are ups and downs; People come and go. Do I ever exhausted and desolate during these times? OF COURSE!  Each time challanges come, I always remember the main goal of how this community was built in the first place, "Make this community become a place for people to come to socialise, feel warm, and welcomed and allow friends not to get lost in understanding Catholic culture & faith among young adults that should be implemented in countries other than our home country Indonesia where we grow up". However, from what I experienced, this community could be created and still exist and even grow more; it is because of God Himself who made this keep working by touching many people's hearts to get involved and grow together, even though there were/are so many challenges happening.

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Agnes D Palit - Founder IYC UK