Evangelical Church of Borneo (SIB) - Lest we forget

During the 1920s a group of Australian seminary students saw that the various church mission boards weren't winning many genuine converts among the Dayak tribes. Most fell away from God after a few years. In 1928 Hudson Southwell, Carey Tolley and Frank Davidson formed the Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM). Governor Charles Brooke assigned the BEM a territory on the Limbang River near villages inhabited by the Bisaya, the Kelabit and the Iban, all Dayak subgroups. They won only a few converts between 1928 and 1936. Some of those converts took the gospel to the Lun Bawang, outside the territory assigned to the BEM. These local missionaries won few converts, but did create curiosity among the Lun Bawang people, thus planting the seeds for a future harvest.

The Lun Bawang were a Dayak people group who lived on both sides of the Sarawak/Kalimantan border. It was common for this people group to be drunk before dawn 100 days out of the year. Disease, crop failure and drunkenness were gradually reducing the Lun Bawang population, which is what Governor Charles Brooke desired. He wanted this people group to die off so their land could be given to other tribes.

But God had other plans. In 1936 Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) missionaries won converts among the Lun Bawangs in Kalimantan. The Lun Bawang people in Sarawak heard stories of changed lives among their countrymen across the border and remembered that the BEM preached a similar message in the nearby Limbang Valley. They invited BEM missionaries to preach among them.

Governor Brooke, blinded by his hatred of the Lun Bawangs, refused to extend the territory assigned to the BEM. For four years the BEM could do nothing except pray for that people group. During those years, local missionaries from across the border reached out to the Lun Bawang in Sarawak. In 1940 Brooke changed his mind and a team of BEM missionaries began working among this people group. By 1941 the Lun Bawang were completely evangelized.

Japan invaded Borneo in December of 1941, disrupting that work. Japan coveted the newly discovered oil fields in Dutch-controlled Kalimantan. All Christian missionaries were herded into prison camps. Between 1941-45 Dayak guerillas tied down thousands of Japanese troops with guerilla attacks. British agents encouraged the Dayaks to eat the Japanese soldiers they killed. The imprisoned missionaries could do nothing to stop this. By 1900 an earlier generation of missionaries had almost ended cannibalism on Borneo. In four years British spies undid that work. After the war missionaries began the process of ending cannibalism once again.

After Japan surrendered in 1945, missionaries continued their work in British controlled North Borneo and in Kalimantan, which became part of the new country of Indonesia. In the north, the Chinese and Dayak churches merged to form the Evangelical Church of Borneo (SIB) in 1959. More and more the SIB has taken over the job of taking the gospel to unreached people groups, but missionaries still serve among them, mainly in leadership development roles.

source: global-prayer-digest