Page 10 - Malayan Story
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MALAYAN STORY

we had been preparing for this all through the past two and a half years. It was clear to us both that
Percy must go. But it was equally clear that I must stay, with both our elder boys facing important
school exams at the end of the year. By the end of 1952 we hoped that there would be a Hostel for
teenage children of missionaries and I could settle the children there before I too set out for Malaya.

So it was decided, and the time passed quickly as the date for his departure was set – 12 February
1952. His berth was booked and paid for, and we then had to look for the kind of outfit he would
need in a tropical country like Malaya. It is strange now to think how little we knew about a country
which, in the next seven years, we learned to love almost as much as we loved China, and whose
roads and villages soon became as familiar to us as the very different ones of South Shaanxi where
we had worked in China.

***
Percy arrived in Singapore in 8 March 1952. Headquarters staff were still in Hong Kong with
Roland Butler at the helm. A number of CIM missionaries who had not returned to their home
countries after coming out of China had come instead to Singapore. Some, like Ewen and Priscilla
Lumsden had found work with the Inter Varsity Fellowship, and later Paul and Maida Contento were
also able to find openings among students, working with Andrew Gee, but to most of the 16 or so
who had arrived before Percy, the New Villages of Malaya were the attraction and the challenge.
Under the guidance and advice of a temporary committee which had been appointed for the CIM
work in Malaya, and which was operating out of Singapore before Percy arrived, most of these had
already gone into Malaya and were getting the feel of the work in the villages. It was all very
different from China.

In January 1952 a letter was sent to all missionaries of the CIM who were already in Malaya or
Singapore, to tell them that Percy Moore had been officially appointed the Superintendent of the
China Inland Mission work in Malaya. The appointment, made by the Directorate was initially for a
period of two years, after which the missionaries would have the opportunity of nominating the
Superintendent of their own choice. This was to be the procedure for each new field of work into
which the CIM entered after leaving China. In his letter, Mr Butler said, β€œIt has not been easy for Mr
Sanders to make other arrangements for the important work Mr Moore was doing in Sydney, but he
has released him because he realizes the importance of the work to which he is going.” Mr Sanders
was Home Director for Australia at that time.

Percy had been hoping to move up to Kuala Lumpur fairly quickly in order to look for a suitable
building from which to direct the work in Malaya, but this did not actually happen until six months
later. The Directorate in Hong Kong were also keen to be settled, and realizing more and more that
Hong Kong was no longer suitable as a world headquarters, they turned their eyes to Singapore. It is
central to most of South East Asia, and easy of access to most western countries. They asked Percy
to spend some time looking round the island for a place which the CIM could buy and which would
be big enough and central enough to suit their needs. It was far from easy and Percy spent much
time and covered many miles looking at places recommended to him. It began to seem an
impossible task, and yet surely somewhere in all that crowded island the Lord had the right place for
us.

Percy himself at that time was living in a house belonging to the Brethren who had been willing to
loan a few rooms of one of their buildings to members of the CIM while they stayed in Singapore. It
was the same house which had belonged to the London Missionary Society and where Hudson
Taylor had stayed when passing through Singapore, and had prayed for the many Chinese living in
and around Singapore. Now, nearly 100 years later, the Mission he founded was preparing to work

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