As her family fled the 1998 Indonesian riots, she clung to the promise that “not a hair on your head will perish”

Joice Yanto was a 23-year-old new graduate when the Indonesian riots of 1998 erupted in May.

Triggered by economic woes, the riots escaleted into civil unrest and violent protests in Medan, Jakarta and Surakarta, with the local Chinese community being the primary target.

Joice and her family, who lived in Chinatown in Jakarta, found themselves surrounded by mass violence.

Joice (right) with two of her three younger sisters. She also has three younger brothers. All photos courtesy of Joice Yanto.

“It was about 11 in the morning. A group of 300 to 400 people were attacking every house.

“I was lying on my bed when a bottle smashed through my window on the second floor. There was glass everywhere,” recalled Joice, now 50.

The rioters were hurling homemade bombs into Chinese homes.

“Every time they threw a Molotov cocktail, I could feel the house shaking.”

Dark smoke soon poured into Joice’s house. They would discover later that it was because the crowd had set a car outside of their house on fire.

Panic ensued in the Yanto household – Joice’s parents, Joice, her three younger sisters, three younger brothers and two employees – as the angry mob tried to break down the gate to get into their house.

The Yanto family two years before they had to flee for their lives during the Indonesian riots. Joice (left, standing) would later study in Singapore to pave the way for her siblings to move to the country.

Thirteen-year-old Joice.

Joice called the police, but help never came.

“I was so scared, I couldn’t speak properly. Words all came out as rubbish. Not only was I shivering, my tongue was shivering.

“I prayed and believed that God will take care of us. He would not let even one hair on our heads be touched (Luke 21:18). I held on to that verse,” said Joice, who became a believer in her teens after attending a Christian camp.

The kindness of a stranger

With thick smoke filling the house and violent locals outside, the family had no choice but to run to the rooftop. From there, they were able escape next door because the houses were connected. By then, their neighbour’s place had been ransacked, gutted and emptied.

The Yanto family then ran down to the first floor and out into the streets. But the moment they were in the open, the rioters spotted them.

“They shouted, ‘Chase them! Chinese! Kill them!’ About 100 people were after us. They were all men and they were wild. 

“We ran but we couldn’t run fast enough. Our legs had turned to jelly.”

In desperation, they ducked into an abandoned house to seek refuge. The men followed them.

“They cornered us. We stood in three layers. My brothers were in front, next my parents and then all the girls. Behind me was a badly burnt wall. There was nowhere to go.

“They hit and punched my brothers, and pulled off our jewellery, even the ones tied to my mum.”

Before the rioters could get to the girls, the youngest one being 17, an Indonesian man appeared and shouted: “Don’t disturb this family. They are my friends.”

He was not particularly large nor intimidating but, somehow, the rioters obeyed him. The Yanto family was able to run away, with the man leading the way.

Joice’s mother with Joice (in pink) and her three sisters in 1982 when Joice was eight.

“All along the three-kilometre journey, people were looking at us like a cat looks at meat. But none of them dared to attack us.”

As it turned out, the man’s uncle had once worked for Joice’s father, who had treated his employee well. 

The 1998 riots would claim over 1,000 lives. Most of those dead were burnt to death. Some 8,500 buildings and vehicles were destroyed by fire. Well over 100 cases of rape were reported.

Joice said: “I was so thankful that God didn’t let them touch even a strand of my hair.

“God will walk you through the darkest valley and guide you so that enemy will not be able to touch you. The Bible is true.”

Joice in 1994.

The Yantos did lose all their valuables and important documents – deeds to the house, the certificate of ownership for their car and all the children’s school certificates.

Only Joice’s certificates were spared because they were carried in a separate plastic bag that the rioters overlooked.

A way out

Months before the riots, Joice had applied to a Master’s programme at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.

She had done it on a whim because her friend wanted to apply to the school. Her heart was actually set on doing an MBA at the University of Toronto.

Joice is now married with sons aged 21 and 17.

But after the riots, her father asked her to accept the offer from NTU.

“He wanted me to go to Singapore to open the way for my siblings to go to there.”

It was a good thing that Joice’s school certificates were not destroyed by the rioters because when she wanted to enrol in NTU, the university asked for original documents.

“God thinks of all the details,” said Joice in amazement.

She was sent to Singapore with just S$1,000. The instability in her country had paralysed the economy and caused the Indonesian rupiah to plunge. Whatever savings the family had had lost its value almost overnight.  

A third of the money her father gave her went to rent. To stretch her dollar, Joice allowed herself just S$1.20 for a meal in school and ate instant noodles or simple home-cooked food for her other meals.

Then she discovered that she could save 32 cents if she walked 45 minutes to school. So that was what she did.

After a month, Joice realised that even if she continued scrimping and saving, her money would run out very soon. Her school fees, which amounted to S$7,500, were due soon.

“I couldn’t tell my father because he would have been very troubled.”

Joice graduated from NTU in 1999.

So Joice went to the NTU Admissions Office to plead for a scholarship. The odds were not high that she could secure one because scholarships are awarded before school begins and she was already one month into Term 1.

“I went there with my broken English because I could only speak Bahasa Indonesia and told the administrator, ‘My family is a victim of the riots. If I don’t get a scholarship, I cannot continue next month.’”

Somehow, the school managed to secure Joice an interview for a scholarship with Singapore Technologies. Out of the five candidates, Joice was the youngest and least experienced. Yet the organisation awarded her the scholarship.

Asked if she ever worried about her finances back then, Joice said: “I only believed. I told God, ‘If I can be in Singapore, I know You will provide for me. I know You will look out for me.

“’You are familiar with my life. I am the apple of Your eye. I will wait patiently.’ It is written in the Bible. That was my prayer every night.”

Paying it forward

Most of Joice’s scholarship money went into sponsoring her six younger siblings’ education in Singapore. So did most of her salary when she started working.

She was even able to help her family to buy a shophouse in Batam so that they could have somewhere to go whenever there was unrest in Jakarta because, back then, riots took place almost every month, Joice explained.

With money from her scholarship and eventually her job, Joice brought her siblings to study in Singapore.

After serving her bond, Joice started her own business supplying metal detectors to the Indonesian army.

Her life had taken a turn for the better. But her time as a foreign student, alone and broke, weighed heavily on her mind and in her memory.

Today, Joice runs EVO House which provides guardianship and accommodation to international students studying in Singapore. 

Joice (fourth from left) at a mini tea gathering for students of EVO House and their guardians.

“I wanted to shape the students’ futures by imparting good values and self-discipline. I wanted to take care of the apple of someone else’s eye, to take care of their emotional, physical and mental well-being.

“They come from different countries, so they can bring back the values to their own country and that can become a legacy, contributing good values to people.”

EVO House also organises activities like movie nights for their students.

At EVO House, there are also counsellors available for students – over 300 of them – to turn to for guidance, help or just a listening ear.

“I do for them what I didn’t have when I was a student in Singapore,” Joice said.

That desire to be the vessel through which God’s love and providence can flow stems from her gratitude towards Him for His hand upon her life all these years.

“God played a big part in shaping my life. I have always believed that if I wait for His help patiently, He will help. If He takes care of even the flowers of the field, He will take care of me.” (Matthew 6:25-34)

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