Page 24 - Malayan Story
P. 24
MALAYAN STORY
and before too late we said goodnight to the Bentley-Taylors and walked along the beach to where
we had already taken our luggage and were soon asleep.
Next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we walked back to “Magnolia Bay” and spent the day
again with David and Jessie. It was a lovely peaceful interlude before reaching Kuala Lumpur and
busy days ahead.
After breakfast the following morning, we made an early start and had only one stop before reaching
the capital. That was at Sungei Shua, a village attached to Kajang Town where Norah and Stanley
Rowe and Cecil Gracey were living and working. The Rowes were old friends. Percy and Stanley
had been room mates at the Language School in China, and later when Raymond was a baby and we
were refugees in Hankow during a communist invasion of South Shaanxi, Percy was best man at
Stanley and Norah’s wedding.
Sungei Chua was a village which had originally been worked by the Methodists about thirty years
before. But two or three years prior to this, mainly due to intimidation, all activities had ceased. The
Church leaders had little spiritual life, but were willing to start services again if Stanley would do the
preaching. So he and Norah had settled in to a house that belonged to the Church and commenced
work in the village as well as holding meeting in Kajang itself and teaching English to school
children. This resulted in many children accepting the Lord as Saviour and beginning to attend the
Sunday School as well as the regular Bible Class. Stanley had a real gift of evangelism which God
was using in the villages of Malaya.
Kuala Lumpur at last! We drove along Circular Road until we reached Princes Road where we
turned into the gateway of the corner house, No. 120. I gasped as I caught my first glimpse of the
mansion which was to be my home. Actually I could not see the house itself very well, except that it
was a two-storey building set back from the road, but it was the grounds and garden which first
caught my eye. They were beautifully kept with rows of brightly flowering cannas making a show of
colour, and hibiscus plants trimmed to look like standard roses, so that I had to look twice to make
out what they were. When I did turn my attention to the house, it was the huge tree covered in
yellow and orange blossoms which grew beside it that attracted me. As I remember it now, it was
higher than the house, shading part of it, and in the bright sunshine of a Malayan day, it literally
glowed. I couldn’t take my eyes off it and my first thought was that I would never dare send home a
picture of this place, or people would wonder whatever had happened to our simple CIM lifestyle!
I didn’t have time to think about this for very long, for as soon as we got nearer to the house, people
came running from all directions to welcome us, and I was quickly taken inside to see the house, our
room downstairs, and the other rooms upstairs, as well as the kitchen and dining room which were to
be my special domain. I was introduced to some of the people who up to that time had only been
names to me. Some of course were old friends from China days.
Funnily enough, I was never asked either by my husband, nor by Headquarters staff whether I was
willing or not to take over the housekeeping! It was just taken for granted that, because I was
Percy’s wife, I would do it, and while it crossed my mind sometimes that “at least they might have
asked me”, I could see so clearly that everybody, including the two interim housekeepers, had been
counting the days till I arrived, so I meekly gave myself a few days to unpack and get the feel of
things, and then took over.
24
and before too late we said goodnight to the Bentley-Taylors and walked along the beach to where
we had already taken our luggage and were soon asleep.
Next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we walked back to “Magnolia Bay” and spent the day
again with David and Jessie. It was a lovely peaceful interlude before reaching Kuala Lumpur and
busy days ahead.
After breakfast the following morning, we made an early start and had only one stop before reaching
the capital. That was at Sungei Shua, a village attached to Kajang Town where Norah and Stanley
Rowe and Cecil Gracey were living and working. The Rowes were old friends. Percy and Stanley
had been room mates at the Language School in China, and later when Raymond was a baby and we
were refugees in Hankow during a communist invasion of South Shaanxi, Percy was best man at
Stanley and Norah’s wedding.
Sungei Chua was a village which had originally been worked by the Methodists about thirty years
before. But two or three years prior to this, mainly due to intimidation, all activities had ceased. The
Church leaders had little spiritual life, but were willing to start services again if Stanley would do the
preaching. So he and Norah had settled in to a house that belonged to the Church and commenced
work in the village as well as holding meeting in Kajang itself and teaching English to school
children. This resulted in many children accepting the Lord as Saviour and beginning to attend the
Sunday School as well as the regular Bible Class. Stanley had a real gift of evangelism which God
was using in the villages of Malaya.
Kuala Lumpur at last! We drove along Circular Road until we reached Princes Road where we
turned into the gateway of the corner house, No. 120. I gasped as I caught my first glimpse of the
mansion which was to be my home. Actually I could not see the house itself very well, except that it
was a two-storey building set back from the road, but it was the grounds and garden which first
caught my eye. They were beautifully kept with rows of brightly flowering cannas making a show of
colour, and hibiscus plants trimmed to look like standard roses, so that I had to look twice to make
out what they were. When I did turn my attention to the house, it was the huge tree covered in
yellow and orange blossoms which grew beside it that attracted me. As I remember it now, it was
higher than the house, shading part of it, and in the bright sunshine of a Malayan day, it literally
glowed. I couldn’t take my eyes off it and my first thought was that I would never dare send home a
picture of this place, or people would wonder whatever had happened to our simple CIM lifestyle!
I didn’t have time to think about this for very long, for as soon as we got nearer to the house, people
came running from all directions to welcome us, and I was quickly taken inside to see the house, our
room downstairs, and the other rooms upstairs, as well as the kitchen and dining room which were to
be my special domain. I was introduced to some of the people who up to that time had only been
names to me. Some of course were old friends from China days.
Funnily enough, I was never asked either by my husband, nor by Headquarters staff whether I was
willing or not to take over the housekeeping! It was just taken for granted that, because I was
Percy’s wife, I would do it, and while it crossed my mind sometimes that “at least they might have
asked me”, I could see so clearly that everybody, including the two interim housekeepers, had been
counting the days till I arrived, so I meekly gave myself a few days to unpack and get the feel of
things, and then took over.
24
