Page 42 - Malayan Story
P. 42
MALAYAN STORY
CHAPTER 12 EXPANSION OF THE WORK
As the years passed and more workers were coming out to Malaya, Percy was able to open up more
villages to the message of the Gospel. It meant visiting suitable villages and searching for a house
where the missionaries could live. It needed to be in an area where they would be hearing, on a daily
basis, the main dialect of that village. This was not always as easy as one might imagine.
With the growth of churches in the villages, our emphasis as missionaries changed from
evangelism to Bible teaching. Most believers, even the leaders, knew little or nothing of the Bible
and its teaching on how a Christian must be separate from the world while still living in the world.
By 1956 we had occupied 21 villages and we were already able to take our missionaries out of the
Cha’ah church and leave it to run independently. The village church at Sungei Chua was handed
over to the care of the close by Methodist Church in Kemansur. We had confidence in the newly
appointed and very keen young Chinese pastor.
In the South Malayan field we had 47 dialect speakers and 6 Mandarin Chinese speakers. Some
could use both dialect and Mandarin, but usually concentrated on one or the other. In Kuala Lumpur
there were 3 students and in Singapore another three while there were fourteen workers on Home
Assignment, making a total of 73 workers.
From the beginning of the work until the end of 1956 there had been 119 baptisms, and in 1957
another nine were baptized. Besides those already baptized, there were also 76 other Christians
meeting in fellowship with us who had not yet been baptized.
While we were still doing some evangelism, mostly in the form of open air meetings, much of our
work was now Bible teaching for Christians. The Chinese Christians were meeting regularly for
Bible study and there were women’s Bible classes or united Bible classes and prayer meetings.
Every church had its Sunday School and included special training for Sunday School teachers.
Because there was so much illiteracy, mostly among women, reading classes were held for them.
Every church had a regular communion service as well as a mid week prayer meeting.
At the end of 1956 there were 16 leaders in village churches who had been appointed out of the
church membership, but we were very conscious that, in spite of this, in 11 churches where
communion services were held, there were only 8 natural leaders.
During this time Percy gave much thought to providing a place of training for young village
Christians. He was not thinking of a theological seminary so much as a Bible College where young
Christians could spend half their time in studying the Word of God and the other half in physical
work such as growing vegetables in order to support themselves. He wrote to Headquarters in
Singapore in August 1953, “Myself and the Field Council have envisaged a Bible School entirely
run by the OMF. Apart from some minor considerations the success of this would largely depend on
who would be the Principal. This person should be someone acceptable to all the various Christian
42
CHAPTER 12 EXPANSION OF THE WORK
As the years passed and more workers were coming out to Malaya, Percy was able to open up more
villages to the message of the Gospel. It meant visiting suitable villages and searching for a house
where the missionaries could live. It needed to be in an area where they would be hearing, on a daily
basis, the main dialect of that village. This was not always as easy as one might imagine.
With the growth of churches in the villages, our emphasis as missionaries changed from
evangelism to Bible teaching. Most believers, even the leaders, knew little or nothing of the Bible
and its teaching on how a Christian must be separate from the world while still living in the world.
By 1956 we had occupied 21 villages and we were already able to take our missionaries out of the
Cha’ah church and leave it to run independently. The village church at Sungei Chua was handed
over to the care of the close by Methodist Church in Kemansur. We had confidence in the newly
appointed and very keen young Chinese pastor.
In the South Malayan field we had 47 dialect speakers and 6 Mandarin Chinese speakers. Some
could use both dialect and Mandarin, but usually concentrated on one or the other. In Kuala Lumpur
there were 3 students and in Singapore another three while there were fourteen workers on Home
Assignment, making a total of 73 workers.
From the beginning of the work until the end of 1956 there had been 119 baptisms, and in 1957
another nine were baptized. Besides those already baptized, there were also 76 other Christians
meeting in fellowship with us who had not yet been baptized.
While we were still doing some evangelism, mostly in the form of open air meetings, much of our
work was now Bible teaching for Christians. The Chinese Christians were meeting regularly for
Bible study and there were women’s Bible classes or united Bible classes and prayer meetings.
Every church had its Sunday School and included special training for Sunday School teachers.
Because there was so much illiteracy, mostly among women, reading classes were held for them.
Every church had a regular communion service as well as a mid week prayer meeting.
At the end of 1956 there were 16 leaders in village churches who had been appointed out of the
church membership, but we were very conscious that, in spite of this, in 11 churches where
communion services were held, there were only 8 natural leaders.
During this time Percy gave much thought to providing a place of training for young village
Christians. He was not thinking of a theological seminary so much as a Bible College where young
Christians could spend half their time in studying the Word of God and the other half in physical
work such as growing vegetables in order to support themselves. He wrote to Headquarters in
Singapore in August 1953, “Myself and the Field Council have envisaged a Bible School entirely
run by the OMF. Apart from some minor considerations the success of this would largely depend on
who would be the Principal. This person should be someone acceptable to all the various Christian
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