Since becoming a priest candidate for the Atambua Diocese, I have felt called to experience the world through art and culture, even though I don’t have to receive formal education specifically for arts and culture. The capital is the willingness to be dynamic in the socio-cultural space. The enthusiasm for learning art is continuously nurtured by autodidacts for the sake of self-development. With the hope, this initiative can be useful one day.

In 2009 I taught and trained prospective priests at the Lalian Atambua Seminary. The students are taught basic violin, guitar and keyboard with minimal self-taught knowledge. The principle is, ‘no rattan roots are needed’. I am also involved in arts and cultural activities in the area. Since the end of 2015, he has joined the Indonesian Arts Coalition Association. In 2016, he initiated Halte Kopi as the forerunner of a public hangout space in Atambua’s hometown. Pioneering SALT, an alternative learning studio for musical arts in Atambua. Establishing the Fohorai Ecocultural Community as a cultural community. Since 2018 together with Indonesiana, we have been holding the Fohorai festival, as a cultural festival in Belu in 9 traditional villages. In 2018, I encouraged and initiated the Belu Regency PPKD and was directly involved as the Belu PPKD Update Team for 2024. And there are still several other arts and cultural activities in which I am also involved. Now serving as Pastor of St. Yohanes Pemandi Bakitolas, the Indonesia – Timor Leste border.

Becoming one of the Art Coalition’s AD-ART Update Team is a valuable learning momentum to encourage yourself to love the arts and culture ecosystem more as a social space that is still considered a minority sector in public policy at the national level. And in the end, he was trusted by the Arts Coalition to become a supervisory member of the Arts Coalition starting in August 2024.