Developing Spiritual Interests in Malaysia
MALAYSIA is a land of hot, tropical jungles, luxuriant fields of rice paddies and extensive rubber and oil-palm plantations. There are also many tin mines in this country and, off its shore, crude oil has been discovered recently. Malaysia is said to be one of the fastest developing countries in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Especially encouraging for Jehovah’s Witnesses, however, is the expansion of spiritual interests in that land from very small beginnings.
The work of Jehovah’s Christian witnesses began here in the 1930’s. Among the first Witnesses to settle in Malaya (now Malaysia) was a Dutch-Ceylonese couple, Harris and Freda Frank. While touring in 1931, a representative of the Watch Tower Society made contact with this couple. Later, a retired army man, Jimmy James, and his family came from India to Singapore and began to witness zealously. He also contacted the Frank family in Kuala Lumpur. During the next few years a number of pioneer Witnesses from Australia and elsewhere, including an intrepid group using the Society’s mission yacht the “Lightbearer” as their base, spread the Bible’s message. They visited rubber estates and tin mines, towns and villages, elegant residential areas and the homes of the poor, talking about God’s Word and offering Bible literature in a score of languages.
With so much activity developing, the Watch Tower Society’s Australian branch office established a literature depot in Singapore for the convenience of the Kingdom proclaimers and, in 1937, sent up Alfred Wicke to care for this. After his marriage in 1939, he and his wife Thelma spent the next two years, until the war intervened, thoroughly covering the west coast of Malaya. To this day some persons still remember their visits. One of their early contacts was a young Sikh, named Puran Singh, then about sixteen years of age. After reading the booklet Where Are the Dead? and learning that the Wickes were in the vicinity, he cycled about fifty miles (80 kilometers) to meet them. The next day he accompanied them in rural territory to learn how to witness. Some time later the spiritual uplift he had received spurred him to ride another 120 miles (about 190 kilometers) to an assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Kuala Lumpur. Here he disassociated himself from the Sikh religion by having his hair cut and shaving off his beard. After his baptism he decided to be known as George Puran Singh. Full of zeal, he now wanted to witness full time. Circumstances indicated that he could do this best in India. There he has continued to serve faithfully for many years.
DEVELOPMENTS IN POSTWAR YEARS
The Japanese invasion and occupation of Malaya brought witnessing activity to a halt, with most of those sharing in it evacuating to India or other places and the ones remaining being interned. In the late 1940’s, however, Gilead-trained missionaries arrived and the work began to be redeveloped in Malaya. Communist guerrillas were then fighting the colonial authorities from the jungle, raiding and bombing towns, killing European rubber planters and tin-mine managers. Traveling was very dangerous for the circuit overseer who had begun making regular visits to various towns on the west coast.
“When traveling by train,” he reminisces, “you spent most of your time lying on the floor of the carriage, as the guerrillas would shoot indiscriminately from the jungle along the track.” At the town of Kampar he called on a daughter of Jimmy James, married to a tin miner in charge of several dredges. All residential quarters were in a compound enclosed by barbed wire. On entering his room, the circuit overseer turned on the light, or so he thought. To his dismay, he had switched on the compound lights and a siren. This caused all the residents to come to arms immediately, believing it to be a guerrilla attack. What an embarrassing situation for one who wanted to develop peaceful spiritual interests!
In the course of his visits to Malaya the circuit overseer met a Chinese man in the tin-mining center of Ipoh. While learning acupuncture in Hong Kong he had also studied the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses and was ready to share in proclaiming the “good news.” From this small beginning, in time the Ipoh Congregation developed.
The Society asked the circuit overseer, on another visit, to contact two girls, Ng Yoon Chin and Lee Siew Chan, pupils of the Methodist Girls School in Georgetown, on Penang Island. Three years previously, during a month that four missionaries of Jehovah’s Witnesses were in Penang, these girls had come into possession of a copy of the book “The Truth Shall Make You Free” and became deeply interested. After the circuit overseer’s visit with them, they began witnessing. To further spiritual interests in Penang, the Society’s branch transferred Alfred and Thelma Wicke there in 1955. Before long a congregation was organized. The two original girls became pioneers and later received missionary training, graduating from Gilead School in 1958.
In Johor, the southernmost of the nine sultanates of Malaya, prewar Witnesses from Singapore occasionally left some literature with K. J. John, an official of the taxation department. However, he did not take the Witnesses seriously, because, as he said, “I had already concluded that all religions were man-made ruses to keep control of human society under some self-imposed authority. Yet, I had faith in a Creator. The adverse experiences of World War II and all the troubles that followed caused me to draw closer to him, Still, I did not know how to worship him and resolved to live according to the way my conscience dictated.” Later, however, the booklet Peace—Can It Last? aroused John’s cautious interest. Eventually, in 1960, a congregation was established in the town of Johor Baru. Over the years, from this congregation, with K. J. John as presiding overseer, nine persons took up the witnessing work full time.
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE “BROWN SPOTS”
Discussing the territory situation at an assembly years ago, a speaker displayed a large map of Malaya on which the west coast was mostly shaded green and the east coast appeared as a large brown area. Ever since then, among the Witnesses, areas where there is a great need to develop spiritual interests were humorously referred to as “brown spots.” Would they ever turn “green”?
Six years ago a young Witness attending a teacher’s training college in Penang was dismayed when he learned, at the end of his course, that he was being assigned to the town of Kuala Trengganu, one of these “brown spots.” He asked an elder for advice, stating that he would have no friends and no one with whom to study the Bible. The advice: “The first day in your new assignment go from house to house and witness and you will soon have friends.” He did just that, with real zeal and dependence on Jehovah’s spirit. Very soon the “brown spot” began to develop a “green” shade, manifesting spiritual growth that has resulted in a fine congregation of active Witnesses.
TESTS ON YOUNG WITNESSES
The majority of Kingdom proclaimers in Malaysia are young people. Coming from traditional Chinese Buddhist families, they often are subjected to severe family opposition. Typical is the experience of a Chinese girl. She relates:
“I had just finished my Higher School Certificate examination and had been attending meetings, even studying with others who showed interest in the Bible. My mother was horrified and felt it was very demeaning for me to go from house to house. The upshot was that she followed me to where a weekly Bible study group met. She tried to disrupt the meeting by playing Tamil music on a transistor radio she had brought along, at the same time repeatedly urging me to leave. Others patiently tried to explain the matter, gradually pacifying, though not satisfying, her. I was instructed by my parents not to attend any more meetings, but I continued to obey Jehovah.
“When I attended a slide talk by a missionary from Laos, both my parents came to the Kingdom Hall for me. I was driven to my granny’s home, where family cases are usually settled. I was cross-examined and rebuked before a panel of relatives. My father knocked my head against a wall by way of warning that he would resort to violence if I continued my Christian activities.
“Now I am residing at the university hostel and am able to witness and attend all meetings, as I am independent.”
MALAYSIA BRANCH ESTABLISHED
Early in 1972 circumstances made it advisable for the Watch Tower Society to establish a branch office in Malaysia. The congregation on the beautiful island of Penang had built a fine Kingdom Hall, with a missionary home and a literature depot. This now became the branch office to supervise the Kingdom work in both Peninsular and East Malaysia, as well as in the independent state of Brunei. At that time there was a peak of 207 Kingdom proclaimers in Malaysia, and during the year there was an increase of over 20 percent in their ranks. Succeeding years brought the number of active Witnesses to 455. At a recent series of circuit assemblies there were over six hundred attenders in all, but at the 1977 celebration of the Lord’s Evening Meal 962 were present throughout the country.
Truly, the work of witnessing and teaching has made fine progress. But much remains to be done in developing spiritual interests in Malaysia.