My First MABIT

MABIT or Malam Bimbingan Iman dan Takwa is a mandatory activity in some Islamic school, including in my school. I got a chance to join the MABIT as the committee. I have known about MABIT since I was in senior high school. But for the detail of the activities in that moment, I still had no idea. I was so exciting about my first MABIT in my Islamic school.

First of all, I was amazed that MABIT is not only for senior high school students, but it can be done to every level of education, start from elementary school until college. The time that I involved in MABIT as a committee, me and all of teacher and students grade v elementary school were asked to do sunnah fasting. Yap! We did MABIT on Thursday. In the afternoon, we prayed together and reciting Quran until Maghrib.

We did “bukber” as known as buka bersama in the school. The boys and the girl were in different rooms. As the committee I could not eat and enjoy my food first because I had student to control. I had to make sure each of them got their meal and ate their meal. I needed to make sure that they kept cleaning the room. And you know what? That was not an easy thing to do. They were about 40 students there. They were so active and sometime spoiled. They did not want to eat their meal if there was no soda, they would not want to eat their food if their parents did not sent them a fried chicken from fast food restaurant. What an experience!

After bukber and Magrib pray, the students were divided into two big groups. Boys were with boys, and so the girls were. The evening agenda was they got a lecture about improving iman. The speech was good for me, but not for the students. They did not enjoy it. For the speaker was not quit interesting to them, then many of them were playing with their friends, eating and buying some food, sleeping, even some of them hid in the class. Again, it was my job to make sure that they stayed in musala listening to the speaker.

After a long day, me and some teacher asked students to sleep. It was 11 o’clock. Only a few of them that did what we asked for. Many of them were still talking, playing, eating and disturbing their friends. I needed to warn and gave them a punishment if they did not obey the instruction. Long story short, we fell asleep. But some of students still did not sleep.

Around 3.30 in the morning, we woke together. We did qiyamul lail. It was my very first time doing qiyamul lail in 11 rakaat with long surahs. Actually I was still sleepy, I could not show that for the reason it would influence my students. During qiyamul lail, there were so many students that fell asleep because they lacked of sleep. It was an amazing and challenging moment for me to wake them up. Even though I was tired, but for me I am thankful for having this moment in my life.

Penulis : Diko Arianto