SORTING out wrinkled notes of money is routine for Ning Utami. She does not work for a foreign exchange dealer. Rather, Ning is the secretary of the Church of the Holy Cross on Jalan Tugu Raya in the Koja area of North Jakarta. Counting up the collection money after mass is one of her tasks.

Around 1988, when she first began to work at the church, Ning found that often—in fact most of—the money donated to the church was old and worn-out. It