Doris Teh vividly remembers the unexpected turn her faith journey took during the Lunar New Year in January 2023. The 42-year-old was working at a property management company in Jakarta and was feeling stressed. She was unsure whether to quit or stay in her management position.
It was National Day, and she was visiting her friend who, like her, is a Buddhist but uses a wheelchair due to health issues. “He suggested that I try reciting the Novena three times and assured me that he had felt this special grace,” she recalls.
The friend said that since he began praying for the grace of the Virgin Mary, his condition began to improve, he no longer relied on a wheelchair to get around, and he took less medication. This surprised her, the only child of Buddhist parents, for whom going to the temple had always been a daily routine until she lost her father in 2013 and her mother in 2018.
“We were Buddhists since we were young, but I followed my friend’s advice.” She looked up the Novena online and downloaded it to her phone. “I don’t know why, but every time I prayed, I couldn’t stop crying,” she told UCA News on April 6. “But slowly, I also began to feel peace.” After reciting the Novena for nine consecutive days, Teh began to develop a curiosity about the Virgin Mary.
After a casual search online, she received a suggestion to visit a shrine to see the Virgin Mary up close. She continued browsing and found the Kanada Mary Shrine in Rangkas Bitung, Banten Province, about two hours by train west of Jakarta. She visited the site in March 2023. It is located on a small hillside with dense trees and has a beautiful church, a replica of Jesus’ tomb and a prayer garden.
She immediately felt a calmness in herself and the world around her. “The first time I went, I was addicted. Since then, I have been going once a month and spending hours praying,” said Teh. In June 2023, she decided to quit her position as a unit manager, where she had worked for six years, and began to focus on the small laundry business she started at home in 2015.
Doris continued to do the novena, and each time she went to the Kannada Maria Shrine, one of her goals was to find another job. She had been applying for positions with companies and found a new job in January 2024. “The new company offered me a position that was lower than my previous position, but I accepted it,” she said.
Since starting the novena, Teh has become a different person. “I used to be stubborn, but now I’m much calmer. I’d rather let problems solve themselves,” she added. She is now determined to become a Catholic.
She started attending Mass at St. Pascal Parish Church in Cempaka Putih, near her home in central Jakarta. In July-August, she attended the Franciscan parish’s novena of St. Anthony of Padua and started attending the catechumenate the following month. “This class taught me a lot. I learned that other people have gone through worse problems than me. I feel grateful, especially because I was healed through prayer,” she said.
Diocesan missionary Charle Manullang sensed Teh’s determination to become Catholic. “You can tell from her enthusiasm. Although she is still a catechumen, she has already participated in church activities such as memoirs and personal evangelization classes,” he said.
Besides the interactions in class, Manullang has also developed informal relationships with catechumens, occasionally having lunch with them or just chatting. “I want to know their experiences,” he said.
Teh seems to be increasingly convinced of her choice. “Because I believe that in Catholicism, we have an extraordinary God who meets our needs through miracles,” she said.
For her, miracles are “simple things that make our lives better” and she has learned to “find solutions every time there is a problem.” Teh recalled the problem she faced in paying holiday allowances to Muslim employees at her laundry during the upcoming Hari Raya festival.
“After I prayed, I started to see an increase in customers and I had extra income to pay for pocket money,” she said. Teh will be baptized on Easter Sunday, April 20, along with 20 other catechumens.
“I’m very excited,” she said. Teh chose Gabrielle as her baptismal name because “like the Archangel Gabriel, I want to be a source of joy to others.” Manurang, who has been a missionary since 1999, said they receive an average of 50 catechumens a year, who are baptized at Christmas and Easter.
“Most are Protestants, followed by Muslims and Buddhists,” he said. Indonesia is a Muslim-majority country, with nearly 87% of the 277 million people practicing Islam. Protestants make up 7.47%, Catholics 3.08%, Hindus 1.71%, Buddhists 0.74%, Confucianists 0.05% and other faiths 0.03%.
Two months ago, Teh brought her Buddhist friend to the Marian Shrine in Canada, who introduced her to the Marian Novena. “He hasn’t expressed a desire to become Catholic yet, but I’m working on getting him in. It should be soon,” she said.
Talking about his plans, Teh said: “I want to travel to as many pilgrimage sites as possible around the world and help more people improve their lives.”
