SURVIVING

BORNEO

One Family’s Story of Life in the Jungles of Borneo

"I will go in the strength of the Lord

and make mention of His righteousness only."

Ken & Colleen Ward

Surviving Borneo

© 2009 Ken & Colleen Ward

All rights reserved under International Copyright Law.

This edition updated and published as an e-book in 2013.

This e-book can be downloaded at: www.unveiling.org/survivingborneo.html

Contents

To the Reader

Map of Borneo

The Call

The Early Days (Daze?)

Into the Hulu (Interior)

Family Life in the Kampung (Village)

Using the Main Highways

Pilots, Planes and Airstrips

A Man Eating Snake!

Trials and Tribulations

Setting Out in Faith

A New Area

Living with the Rivers

Trips to the Coast

Every Day Life

Distractions and Side-tracks

Favourite Stories

Practicalities

Handing Over

Return Visit

TO THE READER

We hope you will be inspired, challenged and blessed as you read this book. Now that we are older and look back, we can see how faithful, gracious, merciful and loving our Heavenly Father has been to us – and still is – throughout every event and turn in our lives.

There have been ups and downs, but God has always been there. He knows our needs before we do and knows our innermost thoughts and desires and gives accordingly.

May you too reach out to Him and receive the blessings that He has in store for you. He knows you – He created you – He loves you and is waiting for you to choose to put your hand in His to guide you through this life on earth.

We want God to get the glory for anything we have been able to do for the Kingdom. We are sharing our story so that you may know how to pray for missionaries or to prepare yourself for the mission field. Thanks to WEC International and our supporters; we are grateful for the prayers of those who stood with us during our time in Indonesia. Thanks also to our daughter and her family for their time spent in editing and publishing this book for us.

God bless you.

Ken & Colleen Ward

34 Matija Place

Red Beach

Auckland 0932

New Zealand

Email: wardez18@gmail.com

Map of Borneo

THE CALL

“Yes, we're back alright!” said two Australian missionaries who were standing with us in the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) hangar at the Pontianak airport in Kalimantan Barat. We were watching an old Russian army helicopter land in front of the small airport building. As the helicopter slowly descended, there was a loud 'rat-a-tat-tat' as the helicopter blades chomped their way down a steel light pole nearby. Screaming people fell over one another in an effort to escape the shattering glass from the light at the top of the pole.

But it seemed that the two returning missionaries were not surprised and had seen this kind of thing before in Kalimantan! Our family, including my wife Colleen and our two children Evan and Lynette, had just arrived from New Zealand on a Fokker Friendship plane. This was our introduction to life on the island of Borneo. What would happen next?

Kalimantan is the Indonesian portion of the island commonly known as Borneo. In the shape of a rough triangle, the island is almost 1000 kilometres across and covered by dense jungle interlaced with dark winding rivers and streams. The northern third of the island is separated by a mountain range. This is the Malaysian territory called Sarawak.

Kalimantan is sparsely populated and produces little more than rubber and timber for the outside world. The heavy rainfall continually leaches the soil. Vast areas of low lying, mosquito-infested land make it inhospitable for humans. Therefore, it is almost a forgotten area and outsiders only come to complete their business and get out quick!

The main inhabitants of the inland area are the Dayak tribal people; this covers a dozen or so tribes. These primitive folk eke out a meagre existence by slash and burn rice farming along with hunting and fishing in the green wilderness. The Chinese and Malay inhabitants are the businessmen and they stick to the towns on the coast or trading posts at the river mouths. When the Dayaks come to trade rubber, rice or timber, they exchange them for supplies that they can't obtain from the land.

There were no roads in the interior when we arrived in 1973. The rivers were the main means of transport. Anything that could float and move was overloaded by numerous people trying to avoid the only other alternative – walking on the muddy tracks through the jungle.

Lying across the equator and having a very high rainfall, this island is a paradise for insects and reptiles. The insects constantly make their presence felt; even indoors! It is also an ideal breeding ground for tropical diseases, which thrive in the squalid conditions of the Dayak villages, causing misery and death for even the healthiest natives.

Also thriving in the inland jungles is the witchcraft that pervades every part of the lives of the local people. From the day they are born until the day they die, they are bound by their fear of satanic powers. This was the main reason we braved the rigours of life in the Borneo jungles – to free them from such bondage. The Bible says “they spend all their lifetime in bondage to fear” and we saw the truth of that in Borneo.

There was no Dayak brave enough to live without some kind of protection from evil spirits. If one was to take away their fetish they would feel extremely vulnerable and fear trouble at any minute. When a Dayak trusts in God's Love and Protection they are brave enough to burn the fetishes before all the people; showing that they are now trusting Jesus to look after them and take control of their life.

BACKGROUND

It was in 1966, through a revival in our home church of Melville Baptist in Hamilton, New Zealand, that my wife Colleen and I began to feel God's leading to be more involved in world evangelism. Looking back, I think that God would have called us several years earlier if we had been close enough to hear His voice.

After having a missionary stay with us in our home, I began gradually to feel sure that God was calling us into missionary work. However, I needed to know for sure whether He wanted us to “launch out into the deep”.

One morning, before going to my work as a mechanic, I asked God in my prayer time, “Do You want me to go?” Then when I opened my Bible the words leaped out at me from Joshua 1:9 “Have not I commanded you? Be strong and courageous... for I will be with you wherever you go.” Of course! God had already told me to go in Matthew 28:19,20. Here He was reminding me again of the command to go. To someone else that verse may have meant nothing, but to me it was God's personal authority for me to step out and I held tightly to that verse through the years.

When I shared all of this with Colleen at breakfast, I found that God had been saying the same thing to her in her quiet times with God. That clinched the matter and I told the church deacons of God's direction.

Colleen’s Perspective

“How did you get a call to become missionaries?” We have been asked this so many times throughout the years.

During the charismatic renewal in the mid sixties, our small Baptist church in Hamilton was having weekly revival meetings. There was a group of folk in the church who shone out the 'love of Christ'. There was something different about them!

They had meetings in their homes and invited Ken and I along to hear some excellent speakers on audio tapes, such as Derek Prince. They also had “praise” times and “speaking in tongues” that were foreign to us. We were given a book to read by David Wilkerson called “The Cross and the Switchblade”. This book really challenged me. I realized that I didn't know Jesus as Lord of my life, only as Saviour.

I was born again at a youth Easter camp when I was 13 years old. Now I was 25 and felt very fortunate as God had given me my heart’s desire: a good husband, a baby boy first and then a girl, and a brand new home. Even so, I felt unfulfilled – like there was something missing.

Avis Read, a member of our church, had been prepared by the Lord years previously. God had told her that she was to teach on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and that now was the time to teach the ladies. I was invited along to her home and received by faith the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The next morning I was a different person. The Bible became a 'living book' to me. I read it every chance I got. Ken also came into the experience. At nights we would turn off the television and read the Bible instead.

A neighbour who was “well known” in the street used to call in and never knew when to go home. One day she was sick and I went to tell her about the love of Jesus. The Lord gave me a love for her and I testified of God's love. I believe she eventually became a Christian.

I found that I had more patience with our two children, Evan was six and Lynette was three years old. One day when I was in the bedroom, I heard a crash in the kitchen. I rushed to the kitchen and discovered my son Evan up on the bench at an open cupboard and there were sultanas scattered all over the floor. Instead of growling at him, which would have been my usual reaction, I laughed! I led him to the Lord a few weeks later when he said he wanted to ask Jesus into his heart. My daughter Lynette, listening on, also wanted to ask Jesus into her heart. I remember on that day when Ken came home from work, Lynette met him in the doorway jumping up and down and saying excitedly, “Jesus is in my heart!”

Another incident that proved I was a changed woman was when my engagement ring went missing. I kept it in a jewellery box on the dressing table and only put it on when going out. Lynette often used to look in my box. On this particular day I went to put the ring on, but it wasn't there. I immediately asked Lynette if she had seen my ring. She answered that she had shown the ring to Karen, the little girl next door. “Where is it now?” I asked her. “I dropped it…” she replied.

I asked her to show me where she had dropped it. She led me outside and along the small gravel driveway that came up from the road alongside the house. However, Lynette couldn't remember where she had dropped it. She took me to several places, but there was no ring, and by now I was running late for the meeting I was to attend.

I said to Jesus, “You know exactly where that ring is. Please show me where it is if You want me to have it back.” Very distinctly the Lord said, “Get the rake.” I took the rake from the shed and thought to myself, “This driveway is so long… it could be anywhere!” I walked until I felt to stop and gently raked the gravel and there was the ring! How I praised the Lord for His goodness. He did want me to have it back!

In 1967 we had a missionary staying in our home, Lindsay Christie, who worked in Colombia. He was the speaker at a missionary meeting at our church. He was a lovely gracious man and it was like having Jesus Himself literally staying in our house. We were also receiving the World Outreach magazine at that time and we devoured the teaching articles and news from missionaries overseas.

I can remember saying to the Lord one day, “Are we in the centre of Your will? Or should we be somewhere else, like on a mission field overseas? I am willing...” He quickened a verse to me in Genesis 12:1, “Get thee out of thy country.” Then I received a vision of a river flowing alongside a lot of palm trees and the word 'Islands'. I told the Lord that He would have to show Ken if this was indeed His will for us. Then I never thought any more about it until one morning about six weeks later when Ken came to breakfast from having a time with the Lord before going off to work. He stated that he thought the Lord wanted us to become missionaries.

I hadn't shared my thoughts or vision with him or with anyone. His declaration was like an explosion in my mind. After he went to work I sat down at the table and thought of the cost of leaving family and friends and the new home that had been the fulfilment of my heart’s desire. The Lord led me to the verse, “If you vow a vow to the Lord He will require it of you...” (Deut. 23:21).

Yes, I had said that I was willing! I now know that it is a good thing to weigh up the cost before vowing anything to the Lord! I felt that the Lord was saying, “If you don't go ahead and do My will, you will not know a close relationship with Me.” I didn't want that so I relented and the peace of God came back.

We spoke with the deacons of our church (Ken was a deacon himself at the time) and they felt it was right for us to follow this leading. At that time there were fourteen people, out of our small church of seventy, who were either in training or already on mission fields.

We were advised to go to Auckland to see Mr Ivor Davies, the leader of the Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade mission (now called Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ). Their mission, which had workers in several countries of the world, was inter-denominational and a faith mission, meaning that it was all funded by faith in God rather than by asking people for support.

We met with Ivor Davies and learned that there was a WEC Missionary Training College in Tasmania, Australia. He told us about several other Bible colleges and then suggested we pray about which college we should attend. We weren't getting any younger. At that time the age limit for attending Bible College was 30. Ken was 31!

Amazingly, some opposition to our intentions came from other Christians. One member of our immediate family told us, “I’ve had it from five ministers that it is the wrong thing for you to do!” Those ministers didn't even know us! After praying, we applied to attend the WEC Missionary Training College in Tasmania.

We felt it was right to sell our home and the Lord gave Ken the amount that we would get for it. The Real Estate agent laughed when we said how much we wanted. He said that we would never get that amount. However, we did! We felt that we had robbed our Heavenly Father of a tithe for many years and so we gave a big portion of the money from the sale of the house to missions. All of our household furniture was advertised for sale and it all sold on one weekend. The amazing thing was that we were given the money for it all and still had the use of everything until the end of the month when we had to move out of the house.

MISSIONARY TRAINING COLLEGE

Since we were both from farming backgrounds, it was obvious that we would need missionary training for this work. So we began to check out Bible Schools. Ivor Davies (the WEC mission leader) told us of several colleges and their differences then told us to go home and ask God where He wanted us. After much prayer, we felt sure that we were to go to the WEC Missionary Training College (MTC) in Tasmania to complete their two year course. So in February of 1969 we moved to Launceston Tasmania to attend college. We are glad that we spent that time training specifically for cross-cultural communication. It was like the Dayaks spending time sharpening their axe before starting to fell trees in the jungle. It was time well-spent and saved us much heartache in later years.

Since we had no call to a specific mission at this point, we felt MTC was the best place for us as we were free to join any mission after the training. At that time we were interested in the World Outreach Mission, and we wanted to be free to go with them if God led us to do so.

After graduating, we spent one term assisting the college staff. Then I enrolled in an Outboard Motors course and both of us completed a Tropical Medicines course in Sydney before our return to New Zealand.

Colleen’s Perspective

The College course was two years in length. Our two children were the only children at the college for the first six months, so they had lots of “Aunties” and “Uncles”. The staff had to tell the students not to take so much notice of the children for fear of spoiling them! A primary school was located just up the road for Evan, and Lynette went to a pre-school about one kilometre away. One day Evan came home from school, just before midday, in tears. He had lost the library book that he had taken with him that morning. I prayed with him that we would find it and then I walked back to school with him. The book was found in some long grass on the way! This was a lesson to Evan that our Heavenly Father is interested in the small things of life that happen to us.

I was expected to attend all the lectures, but I found it difficult when the children were home. A student on practical assignment was asked to baby-sit them. One day Evan said to me, “Mummy, we never see you!” After the staff heard about this, they allowed me to spend more time with them. I happily dropped the Church History lectures as I have never been a fan of history!

MTC students, Colleen, Ken and Lynette are on the far right.

There were approximately 100 students and staff living on the property. It was situated on the outskirts of Launceston on a property that included a farm that supplied milk, eggs, chickens, vegetables, etc. It was at college that we learned how to pluck a chicken in preparation for cooking. We had practical sessions with teams doing jobs around the college. I trimmed a hedge once. I also picked mulberries off a tree; the mulberries made great pies. There was a blackberry plot not far from the college. Several of us would take ice cream containers and fill them in no time at all. I had never seen such huge blackberries before and I have never seen such large ones again. I was once assigned to mend an outside door mat with some string. I could hardly believe it! What a dirty job, I thought. But after remembering that Jesus washed the disciples’ dirty feet, I finished the task with joy instead of complaining.

Just before our first Easter at the college, the place was buzzing in preparation for an influx of visitors to a conference. One of the staff members came to get some chairs from our two bedroomed flat. Meals were eaten in the communal dining room so the flat was used only for sleeping in and we didn't have any chairs or table. In fact, the one living room was bare, with only an old threadbare carpet square on the floor. We would sit on the floor and our books were piled up at the side of the wall! When we had first arrived and found only the barest essentials, Ken had said, “Well, I guess we will have to get used to it. We don't know what it will be like on the mission field.” The staff member who came to get some chairs told us that there had been a mistake; we should have had a table and chairs.

In Tasmania they have some BIG black hairy spiders about 10 centimetres across. One lived behind the mirror in the dining room and would show itself from time to time. One night after being in the study hall of the college and returning to our apartment, I checked on the children sleeping in their room and about one metre up the wall above Lynette's head was one of those spiders! I gasped and went and fetched Ken to deal with it without waking the children. He coaxed it along the wall with a broom until it fell to the floor with me nowhere in sight!

Another time, in the study hall where everyone had a desk and there was to be no noise whatsoever, there was a disturbance near the back of the room. Some women were getting up on their chairs and the men were trying to trap a mouse that by now was behind the piano. The mouse escaped. Squeals could be heard from all the women who were now up on chairs. The men were laughing as they were chasing the petrified mouse. There was such a commotion that a staff member came to see what all the fuss was about!

Sometimes a need would arise and the whole college would have a day of prayer and fasting. We learned how to 'pray through' an issue until you felt that God had the answer on the way. WEC as a mission, never make their needs known to man, only to our Heavenly Father who supplies all our needs when we are in right standing with Him. Many times we saw His faithfulness when students needed to pay their term fees or supplies were needed for building projects. Lynette was given some very pretty dresses made by one of the students named Lyn Morgan. This was a blessing to us and demonstrated God's provision.

Holiday times were special for us as a family. One time we had the use of a caravan at the beach.

We had great fun. There were lots of children in the camp so we held children’s meetings. Another time we had a loan of an old 3 roomed beach house. The bathroom and toilet were in a separate shed from the house. There was no running hot water, so for a bath we used an open fire to heat up the water in a big cauldron hanging from a wire. We soon found that there was a problem though. The only plug in the bath was not working and was leaking out all the precious hot water!

I remember a missionary speaker during our time at college saying, “The Lord will take you to the mission field to conform you to His image, which He could not do if you stayed at home”. Another missionary who was an encouragement to me (especially later when learning the Indonesian language) was a missionary working in Taiwan.  His name was Maurice Charman. He told us that his parents were deaf and dumb and Maurice didn't speak a word until he attended school. He never passed any exams at school or Bible College. His vocation was as a glass blower. The Lord called him and took him to a Chinese speaking country. Chinese is known to be the hardest language in the world to learn, yet he was teaching the Chinese people from the prophetic books in the Old Testament. Amazing!

When we were nearing the end of our training, we discovered that we had been a test case for student families applying to the college. There had been other families previously who had not completed their time there. When it came to our second year it was expected that the students would seek the Lord for the next step in God's will.

During our time at college we attended the Elphin Road Baptist church on Sundays. There we heard a lot about Bruce and Annette Rattray who were serving God in Indonesian Borneo – Kalimantan. Bruce's parents held monthly prayer meetings that we were encouraged to attend. Both Ken and I had an interest in Brazil as well as Borneo, so we came to a decision that because we had independently received a call to missionary work, we would ask the Lord to show each of us which country He wanted us to work for Him in. When we were sure, then we would share it with each other. It would have to be the same country!

After a lot of praying and wrestling with the fact that there are lots of snakes and creepy-crawlies in the jungles of Kalimantan, I gave in. The verse that the Lord used to break me and make me willing was in Psalm 71:14, “I will go in the strength of the Lord God and make mention of His righteousness only.” I felt the Peace of God flood my soul as I put my trust in Him and told Him that I would go in His strength alone. As confirmation of this, on the next Sunday, a woman from the church came to us after the service holding an envelope out. She said, “Here is a monetary gift towards your fare to Kalimantan.” Ken and I were stunned! We hadn’t as yet shared the Lord’s leading with anyone.

In the last term of our training we knew that we needed to be clear on the next step after college. We continually kept this before the Lord. I was always afraid that I might get a liking for a certain country and be misled to the wrong field by my own desire, so I wouldn't even look at National Geographic magazines in case I was misled.

We had a burden for both Borneo and Brazil and I kept praying, “Is it Brazil to the East or Borneo to the north?” Then one morning in my daily readings God spoke clearly to me through Ezekiel 44:1-5 “This gate (to the east) shall be shut and not opened” and if that was not enough, verse 4 really emphasised the guidance: “Then He brought me to the north gate – and the glory of the Lord filled the house.” This was my authority from the Lord to head to Borneo, as it was called in those days. Colleen and I had agreed that we would not tell the other of our guidance until we both had a clear word from God as to where we must go. It wasn't long before she too had her guidance, from Psalm 71. And of course it was to go to Borneo, with the WEC mission.

We know of some who have gone out to a mission field to see if they would fit in, but how much better to have a word from God to pinpoint the country, then everything would fall into place. What a tragedy it would be to find yourself on the wrong mission field; especially if it was in the dreaded jungles of Borneo! It is extremely important that we get guidance from our Heavenly Father and not from someone else. Then when things get difficult, (not if) we can come back to God's guidance and reaffirm, “Yes, God sent me here. It was not my idea or my Pastor’s, but God’s idea.” God doesn't call us to do something impossible. His call is His enabling. We never doubted that God had sent us and that He would supply all that it would take and He did!

Colleen’s Perspective

After the two years of training at MTC, we stayed on the staff for three months until we could take a Tropical Medicines course at the University of Sydney. This was before returning to New Zealand in March of 1971. Upon our return, we spent time with our families for a couple of weeks, and then entered the Candidates Course at WEC headquarters in Mt Eden, Auckland. We always included our children when making decisions so that they knew what was happening.

A Medical Doctor had told us that we shouldn't be taking Lynette to the Indonesian climate. She used to get asthma attacks and also suffered from eczema and many allergies. While at MTC she had a very bad attack of asthma. But God had called us and He would have to take care of her. We went to Indonesia regardless and she never had another attack. Instead her health improved!

The Lord provided wonderfully for us during the whole time we were with WEC, which totalled 18 years. Once Lynette needed new shoes; we prayed as a family and saw God supply them. While we were living in Mt Eden the children attended Maungawhau School, a good half kilometre walk away. One day it was pouring down with rain. It was winter and Lynette was crying and not wanting to walk in the rain as it aggravated her eczema. We didn't have a car and I prayed, “Lord, please don't let them suffer because of our decision to follow You...” Then the Lord supplied. A fellow missionary had just arrived at headquarters and seeing the children were about to leave, took them to school for us. Our Heavenly Father has heard our cry and met our needs so many times. “My God shall supply ALL your needs according to His riches in glory” (Phil. 4:19). He truly has been faithful.

After learning all about WEC as a mission agency and applying to join, we were accepted into the mission. On the night we were accepted, a member of the board asked us, “If we do not accept you, what will you do?” Ken and I looked at each other and said, “We will still go, the Lord has called us.”

We waited 18 months for visas before we could go to Indonesia. Some of this waiting time was used in “deputation” – travelling in both the North and South Islands of New Zealand sharing about our call to Borneo. During this time we met some wonderful folk who wanted to stand behind us in prayer and financial giving. I had the verse in Isaiah 52:12 given to me, “You shall not go out in haste nor go by flight...” and this was our experience. We didn't go by “flight” but by ship. As it turned out, a family in Brisbane was due back in Kalimantan (this was Bruce and Annette Rattray whom we knew of through MTC). They suggested that we meet up with them and fly together from Brisbane to Java then over to Kalimantan. So in June 1973, we sailed on the ship “The Ocean Monarch”. It was a three day journey from Auckland to Sydney. The whole of our time was spent vomiting. We stayed in our cabin. All of us, except for Evan that is, who had a great time exploring the different levels of the ship and who kept coming back to tell us what he had seen. It was ironic to think that Ken and I had been called to Kalimantan, a land of rivers and where all our travel was going to be by boat, and here we were sea-sick!

Evan’s Perspective

What excitement we felt at going on a big ocean liner! The farewells were drawn out; we had streamers thrown across to family and friends who had come to see us off. As the last streamers broke, we waved our final goodbyes and made our way to our cabin. The four berth cabin and ensuite were close to the front of the ship. All went well until we were out of the Waitemata Harbour and into the ocean where the swell of the waves made the boat heave; along with Dad, Mum and Lynette!

While the rest of my family were confined to their bunks for the three day journey, I found that if I went to the centre of the ship, the movement didn’t bother me much and the nausea went away. The best place was the movie theatre, where I could watch movies for free. The only one I remember was, ironically, about a plane crash. I was a little shy so I kept to myself, but I also had a good look everywhere. The effect of the movement stayed with us for a few days after arriving in Sydney. From there we boarded a Qantas flight to Brisbane. We met up with the Rattray family there and they accompanied us on our flight to Jakarta. The next day we flew to Pontianak. I remember the wave of heat and humidity that hit us as we exited the plane in Kalimantan. It was like a sauna.

Our prayer card in 1973.

THE EARLY DAYS (DAZE?)

“Charlie Brown landing at Serukam,” the pilot stated over his radio to base,  “Landing!” But there was no clear ground in sight! We had been flying for half an hour since leaving Pontianak where we had witnessed the unorthodox landing of the government helicopter.

We were now flying only about 150 metres above the tree canopy between jungle-covered hills. It seemed like the wing tips would touch the trees at any moment. Then the pilot throttled off totally! There was still no airstrip in sight, but as we went around a hill in the valley I was relieved to see a tiny green strip carved out of the lush foliage. There was a cutting into the hill at the end where the Cessna could turn around.

This was the Serukam airstrip where an American mission hospital was based. It was also the location of the Bamboo River Academy. This was where our two children, Evan almost 11 years old and Lynette 8½, would go to boarding school for four years. In no time at all, a muddy jeep appeared out of the surrounding foliage with folk aboard from the Serukam mission.

Our first day in Kalimantan Barat; Evan & Lynette waiting under the wing of Mike Charlie Brown to fly to Serukam.

Colleen and I spent a few days at the boarding school to see our children settle in with the other fifteen children, all children of missionaries. They were all Americans with the exception of one Australian (Paul Rattray who had flown from Brisbane with us) and two English children. Our children were the only ones from New Zealand. The dorm parents were Fred and Gertrude Woodward from the USA. They had their own four children at the school and were “WECers” too, so we were confident in leaving our two precious children in their capable hands. The school had electricity, water in the taps, flushing toilets, and even a road leading to Pontianak, the big coastal city to the south. We would often refer to Serukam as ‘mini America’!

Annette Rattray taking a photo outside the front of the school, looking towards the pavilion and dorm at Serukam.

Colleen’s Perspective

On our arrival in Kalimantan we were taken directly to the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) airport hangar. We boarded a small Cessna to fly to the boarding school where Evan and Lynette were to live and receive their education. The children were in good hands at the American Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society (CBFMS) International School located near the West coast, at Serukam.

It was a terrible wrench for me to leave them there after helping them settle in for only four days. The Dorm Parent said to me, “All they need at this age is love and food!” which didn't console me very much. They asked us not to contact the children for six weeks to give them time to settle in. That was hard to hear, and even harder to carry out!

Ken and I had been asked to pray about becoming dorm parents of this school two years previously, but felt it right to decline. It was a comfort to me that the dorm parents, Gertrude and Fred Woodward from the USA, were from our mission and had four children of their own with them. They had lived in Kalimantan for quite a few years by this stage.

It was also comforting to know that, if the children were to become sick at any time, the mission hospital was on the same compound. The day we left Evan had an earache from swimming in the pool. I will never forget the forlorn look he gave me as I was leaving. It tore me up. Ear infections were always a common occurrence amongst the missionaries and were treated with methylated spirits.

Evan’s Perspective

Living at Serukam, and later in the villages, was a big adventure to us as kids. There were many incidents with snakes and dangerous insects but God’s grace abounded. After a while we developed a sixth sense about whether an area could be harbouring such creatures. Scorpions liked damp, dark places like shoes and laundry. Snakes liked long grass and cool, damp spots.

One day I was racing down the hill that formed part of the airstrip at Serukam. It was a Sunday afternoon, so the MAF planes were not flying. We were playing a game of volleyball on the airstrip. As I was racing down the hill going as fast as I could, I noticed a black object in the ankle-high grass ahead of me and without a second thought I leapt over it. Then I went back and realized how lucky I was: there was a snake curled up, sunning itself.

I called some Indonesians over and it wasn’t long before they had killed the 150 centimetre long snake. Another time, I saw a large python that had been caught just after it had raided a chicken coop and swallowed one of the hens. I saw the locals open up the snake and out popped the chicken; still alive and seemingly not too bothered by the experience!

We lived with Black Widow spiders, snakes, centipedes, millipedes and scorpions, but most of the time we didn’t cross paths with them. We would often play outside in the bush at night without giving it a second thought. As children we were unaware of the protection we had from God. I am now thankful for His watchful care over us during those years and I will always remember the good times growing up there. My parents taught me faith in action through their daily life. My life is blessed due to their commitment and endurance in delivering the Gospel to those who had never heard it before.

Lynette’s Perspective

For me the most poignant memory of arriving in Kalimantan on that first day was the meal that was served to us in the MAF hangar. There were bright red things  that I had never seen before beside the rice. I squeezed one open to see what it was. It turned out that squeezing it was the wrong thing to do; it was a hot chilli pepper and my fingers felt the burning effect of the acid for hours afterwards!

Going to boarding school was really hard for me. I was quite a sensitive child and I missed Mum and Dad terribly. For the first year especially, I was known as a cry-baby and teased for it too! Even though it was traumatic, Mum and Dad made sure that both Evan and I knew that it was difficult for them as well, but that they felt this was what God wanted them to do. I have often thought how hard it must have been for Mum and Dad when we returned to them for vacation after our first term at the school. We would have seemed like different children; speaking with American accents and talking about friends and things that they were not a part of and didn’t know about.

Although I missed my parents, we had an awful lot of fun together at the school. It was very small, just 12-20 students with four teachers. We were like one big family. The friends I grew up with are still like brothers and sisters today. If we had been with Mum and Dad and had not gone to boarding school, we would have missed out on so much: wonderful friends, midnight feasts, field trips to the beach, lots of fun, indoctrination into American culture (!) and important lessons – not only in education, but also in life.

Vacations home with Mum and Dad were always wonderful, but for me they were always tainted with the dread of having to say goodbye to them yet again and return to school for months at a time. School was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it immensely, but I also missed my parents terribly.

Finally, after almost four years, I couldn’t take any more of it. By this stage Evan was no longer at Serukam as the school only went to the eighth grade and he had graduated. At the end of one of the vacations, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving my family and going back to school again, so Mum and Dad withdrew me from the school before the end of the school year. It certainly didn’t seem to harm me academically! Soon after this we returned to New Zealand on furlough. I wanted to be with Mum and Dad all the time. I would almost have a panic attack at the thought of being separated from them for too long. We moved around a lot during that one year break, which didn’t help my feelings of insecurity.

Just as my parents experienced God’s amazing supply, I did too. I can remember that I only had a King James Version of the Bible and I wanted a Children’s Living Bible like some of the other kids at school. It wasn’t long before one arrived – it was exactly what I had wanted! This seemed to happen quite regularly with things I wanted as a child; I got not just what was needed, but what I really wanted.

ON THE COAST

Colleen and I spent the first year in the coastal city of Pontianak learning the Indonesian language. The city of Pontianak, built on the delta of the mighty Kapuas River, was only a few feet above sea level and almost dead on the equator. In those days, Pontianak was a city of tumbledown shanties and muddy ditches with a few two-storied buildings in the main centre. Alongside each road there was a deep canal, the mud from which made the narrow road higher than the frequent flood waters.

These canals were tidal and were used as a kitchen sink, a toilet, a bathroom, a laundry, and for rubbish removal. It was common to see an animal carcass floating down the canal and then floating back in again with the next tide. So it was little wonder that we all had bouts of minor diseases while we were there. Not that we used the canals! The house that we rented, along with two other prospective missionaries, had rain-water tanks for our water supply and we had a bathroom with a toilet.

There was electric power several nights of the week and a small number of businesses had a telephone that worked sometimes! Most of the traffic on the roads were full of old army vehicles, jeeps converted into taxis, small motorbikes, rickshaws and bicycles; often overloaded with goods and people. It was common to see a whole family aboard one motorbike. For all of these vehicles there was only one petrol station with a hand pump. Madurese men trundled the streets with their three wheeled rickshaws until all hours. The city never seemed to go to sleep.

The Kapuas River originates some 500 kilometres inland as the crow flies, and is 1100 kilometres long as the river meanders its way to Pontianak on the coast. This river is akin to being a main highway for transporting all manner of cargo between the coast and the interior of Borneo. Tributaries wander off the river into the mountains. These mountains are covered with luxuriant virgin rain forest.

The WEC mission headquarters, which was based five days upriver, or an hour and a half flight in a small Cessna, would often radio down to us to order something or repair something sent down by the MAF plane. This meant that we had to learn the language quickly in order to carry out these transactions in Indonesian. Very few people in the city of Pontianak could speak even a few words of English.

ROAD TO SERUKAM

We didn't have the need to use the Kalimantan buses often. However, I was once a passenger on a bus going to the Baptist boarding school in Serukam north of Pontianak. The vehicle was very overloaded. All sorts of things were piled on the roof and inside passengers were holding hens or small pigs on their laps. Hanging onto the back bumper were several teenage boys who jumped off at the next town. The roads were very narrow and had many bridges. One bridge was not safe and the driver would not drive over it until all of the passengers had alighted. He drove over cautiously and we all got back in on the other side!

I was constantly amazed at the loads these vehicles took. Some roads that headed inland were only usable in dry weather. They were made mainly of clay and had huge holes across the width of the road where vehicles had been stuck many times!

MOSLEM PERSECUTION

Most of the Moslems in Kalimantan Barat live on the coast or on river junctions where goods are traded. There was a lot of animosity towards Christians. We were often ridiculed as missionaries and they actively tried to hinder our work or even endanger our lives.

Once I was walking past a three storey building under construction by a Moslem firm in Pontianak. Sometimes things drop from construction sites so I was giving it a wide berth. I suddenly heard a heavy thump on the road just behind me. I turned to see a large piece of concrete where I had just been! Looking up there was no one in sight, but it was not possible for it to have fallen accidentally that distance from the building. I concluded that it was meant to harm me.

Many Moslems are nice people and I found some who were earnestly searching for God. Unfortunately they were often misled by leading Moslems. One of our first converts was a young Moslem and he was thrown out of his family due to his new found faith. Christians building new churches on the coast were targets for Moslem radicals. The church sign that was put up upon completion of the building was often damaged or pulled down during the night, and sometimes attempts were made to set fire to the building. One Pastor complained officially to the Governor General of Kalimantan who agreed that it was not right, but did nothing about it.

One Pastor we knew lived in the back of a partly completed church with his wife and baby. The reason was primarily to guard the building. I preached there shortly before our return to New Zealand and they only had enough funds to concrete half the floor, and the walls were incomplete.

One large church in Pontianak needed to raise money to build a new building behind their existing church. This was to be used as a Sunday school and primary school during the week. We preached there often when we were down at the coast. We also were keen to see the building completed. The Pastor asked me to try to get some funds from New Zealand while we were on furlough. We told him that we were not able to ask for money because of our mission’s policy, but we would share the need with New Zealand Pentecostal Churches and leave it up to them to send funds.

Indonesians think that Western countries have unlimited funds to give away. As it happened, there simply wasn't anyone interested in the church building project so we were not able to help them except to give them some money from our own personal funds. The manager of our bank in Pontianak was the head elder of the Pontianak Church. He knew how much money was coming into our bank account and regrettably, he told the Pastor how much money we had. The funds we did have were designated for projects inland so we were not able to use them for anything else. Regardless, the church felt that we had not passed on their funds and were cool towards us after that. We had not done anything wrong, but it reminded us that Jesus was also misunderstood and regarded as a sinner. We now knew how He must have felt.

LIFE IN PONTIANAK

We found a Pentecostal church to attend in Pontianak and the Pastor, Pak Luwuk, was saved through the ministry of a missionary from New Zealand. Pastor Luwuk gave us the opportunity to give our testimonies and teach and he would interpret into Indonesian. One time I was preaching from the book of Numbers (Ulangan) and the Pastor gave the congregation the same verses in Deuteronomy (Bilangan). No wonder the folk looked so puzzled! I was never very happy speaking to them through an interpreter – something is always lost in the translation. Bruce Rattray told us about one missionary who began his sermon with a very deep but difficult sentence to translate and the Indonesian interpreter translated it as, “Our brother says he is glad to be here today.”

Colleen’s Perspective

During our time in Pontianak we had a visit from a New Zealand friend, Mike Porteous. He was keen to learn a few sentences in the Indonesian language. Ken taught him to say, “Saya tinggal di Selandia Baru.” (meaning, “I live in New Zealand”). He wondered why people were laughing when he said this. It was because he was actually saying, “I am tall in New Zealand.” He had used the word “tinggi” instead of “tinggal” and “tinggi” is the word for high or tall. He was indeed tall when compared to the Indonesian people who are usually no taller than 1½ metres (5 feet).

When it came time for Mike to leave, we dropped him off at the airport. Two and a half hours later Mike turned up on our doorstep. The plane had proceeded down the runway, but the takeoff was aborted due to a flat tyre. Another tyre was being flown across from Java in the morning, so he got to stay an extra night.

Someone else who was still learning the language was in a church service once and meant to say, “Let us pray” (“berdoa” is the word for pray) but instead of saying “berdoa” he said “berdosa” which means, “Let us sin!” There were many Indonesian words that sounded similar, but had an entirely different meaning. For example, “kota” (city) and “kotak” (box); “kelapa” (coconut) and “kepala” (head). I think someone did inadvertently ask a person to open their head instead of their coconut once!

In Pontianak Ken and I lived in a house owned by the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF). We employed a local Christian school teacher, Mr. Simpson, to teach us the Indonesian language. Ken and I had already learned a lot of nouns and numbers from a Javanese/Dutch lady while we were in Auckland, New Zealand.

Outside our house in Pontianak, 1973.

I realized after about six months, that living in the hot and smelly town was becoming like home. I felt it was a good place to live, even though next door to us was a mesjid (a Moslem Mosque) and three times a day the loud speaker screamed out a call to prayer. What a way to wake up at six o’clock every morning! We shared the house with two other prospective missionaries, Margaret Price and Barbara Mapplebeck. Barbara had twice been the Silver Medal winner in the British National Road Race Cycling Championships. We had first met Margaret at MTC in Tasmania, Australia.

Each week we would share the cooking and shopping at the pasar (market) buying fruit, vegetables, meat etc. I will never forget the day that I thought I was buying liver for a casserole. When I cooked it, I found that it fell to pieces. We sat down and began to eat. Part way through the meal, we discovered from one of the Indonesians that it was actually congealed pig’s blood that I had bought and we were now eating it!

The shops in Pontianak.

On arriving home from the market, all fruit and vegetables had to be soaked in a big tub of water with Condy’s crystals (Potassium permanganate) to kill any bacteria.

Due to the intense heat, many businesses ground to a halt at midday. The pasar and shops would close for several hours until they opened again in the late afternoon. The heat was overwhelming and quickly drained our energy. We soon adopted the local practice of stopping and having a siesta at midday when the heat was at its peak.

Every week we attended a home fellowship for missionaries. There were quite a few missionaries in Pontianak from a range of different missions. I remember one night when Colleen Grubb (a fellow WEC missionary from New Zealand) and I left the meeting late and missed the opolet (Taxi van). As a result, we had to walk about a kilometre to get home. In the cooler evening air folk sit on their verandahs well into the evening. There are people in the streets until very late.

As we were nearing home we noticed that a group of young men were watching us approach. The men started moving toward us as we neared them.

“Don't look at them” said Colleen. I was repeating the name of Jesus over and over and claiming God's protection over us while walking quickly past them. My legs were still shaking when we reached home! I'm sure Colleen's were too. Praise God for His protection. We always made sure we left in plenty of time after that ordeal.

THE CLIMATE

Kalimantan has only two seasons, the 'wet season' and the 'wetter season'. The former is called the 'dry' season. In the upriver area where we lived later on, I remember a record period of ten consecutive days of dry weather in a row! The driest time of year is July and August when the Dayaks must burn off the jungle they have cut down where their new crop of hill rice will be planted. If they don’t burn it off during that period, the incessant rain will prevent them from burning and then planting and consequently affect the rice harvest. The burn-off is essential for fertilising the soil as there is very little topsoil. The soil is mostly just clay.

During the dry season there was always a shortage of water in Pontianak. We caught as much as we could from our roof in three big wooden tongs (tanks). Surrounding neighbours came each night to ask for water and we were able to help them until there was only enough water to cover the bottom of the last tank. When I saw the queue of locals waiting with various containers, I asked the Lord, “What should I do? If I give them the rest of the water, tomorrow we will be in great difficulties ourselves.”

I felt that God was saying that we should give the water to them and trust Him to supply our need. So I filled their containers. That night the heavens opened and a heavy downpour filled all our tongs to overflowing very quickly. It was a lesson in faith for us.

It took some time before we became accustomed to the Indonesian food. In the early days we would spend a lot of time trying to remove the bugs from the rice, the weevils from the flour or get the ants out of our sugar or bread. “You'll soon get used to the taste of insects!” laughed a missionary visiting us, “It is said that in the first year newcomers take the ants out of the bread, then in the second year they eat the ants with the bread, and then in the third year they throw the bread out and eat the ants!” We graduated to this second year level, but never quite made it to the third! After a few months we were beginning to like the local food, but Colleen said at one stage that I was showing distinct Vegemite withdrawal symptoms!

At the river mouth in Pontianak there was always a flotilla of houseboats that had come down from the interior to sell rubber and to take back supplies. These boats, including our mission boat, would tie up one alongside the other for several days at a time. On one occasion I counted eleven boats deep, all tied to each other, protruding out into the river where the river’s current tugged them downstream. All these boats put tremendous strain on the mooring ropes of the inner boats. Now and then, a rope would break sending boats without helmsmen crashing into one another. This caused much confusion as panicking traders tried to secure their property.

In the midst of all the turmoil, thieves would enter the boats and steal valuables. The locals said that the robbers sometimes cut the ropes at night with this in mind. One trader found that his brass propeller had been stolen from under his vessel during his stay in town. We discovered once that the folk who we thought were just fishing from the side of our mission boat, were actually fishing inside our boat through the small windows, in spite of the steel bars on them!

Petty crime was very common in Kalimantan. Whereas in the West we are fairly trustworthy, we discovered that it was the opposite in Indonesia. Bribery and corruption were rife, even among the police, army and government officials – it seemed to be part of the Indonesian culture. Coming from a Western society, we found that we were too trusting and perhaps expected too much.People didn’t trust each other, and with good reason! It was difficult to trust anyone or to take anybody at their word. Lying, stealing and cheating were prevalent in Pontianak and in the interior of Borneo.

INTO THE HULU (INTERIOR)

“Where on earth are all the people?” I thought to myself as we chugged slowly upriver through the green wilderness. We had been travelling for an hour, but we had not seen a soul. Now and then we would see someone in a dugout canoe up ahead, but by the time we reached them they had disappeared under the overhanging branches.

Bruce Rattray and I, along with a national worker called Alfons, had been travelling up the Ketungau River for two days. We were in a two ton diesel launch on a survey trip to find a suitable place for Colleen and I to be based. After a year of studying the Indonesian language in the hot, crowded and smelly city of Pontianak, we had moved inland to our mission headquarters at Nanga Lebang. Now we were going further inland and spying out the land for a suitable village to be based in.

The winding river twisted in all directions and when I looked at the compass I saw that at one stage we had spent half an hour going in the opposite direction from our destination due to the course of the river! On the third day of travelling, the launch’s rudder frequently came loose from the bottom and floated behind the boat on the actuating chain. This meant tying up to a tree alongside the river and going underwater to fix it. That day Bruce was not his usual cheery self and complained of a bad headache and fever, and he had to finally retire to the bunk bed.

I took over and continued to steer until we came to a small village called Melingkat. Alfons and I held a gospel meeting while Bruce was trying to sleep in the boat. He had a roaring fever, but by about noon the following day he began to improve. Eventually we rounded a bend in the river and saw a lanting (an anchored raft made of logs) with some Dayaks washing themselves on it. We tied up and asked them about the condition of the river upstream.

“Is the water low?” we asked.

“Definitely,” they replied.

“Are there any fallen trees across it?”

“No, but it would be best to leave the launch here and use your long-boat…” Pointing with their chin to the boat that was being towed at the back of the launch (it is considered very rude to point with your finger, they point by thrusting their chin in a general direction instead). So, after asking the villagers to look after the launch for us, we took off in the long-boat to go as far as we could.

The river became increasingly shallow and narrow. It was full of logs and sandbars which made progress slow. Finally, we had to leave the long-boat at a small village called Sungai Hantu (Ghost River) and trek the last four hours of the journey through the jungle.

But before we could do this, we had to report our presence to the Army post in the central village about 45 minutes upriver from where we were, and then return. The Government required us to report at multiple checkpoints when we were in the area, and then report again on leaving. This practice was initiated after a communist infiltration across the Malaysian border just a few hours walk away.

When we were returning to Sungai Hantu in the long-boat, a heavy downpour struck and we tried to keep some of the rain off us with sheets of plastic. Sitting under the sheet, I began to feel some of the same symptoms that Bruce had experienced the day before, and just when we were about to start on the most strenuous part of the trip trekking through the jungle! I immediately realised that this was satan trying to prevent us from moving into his long-held territory. So in prayer I rejected the sickness from satan in the name of Jesus so it could not touch us during the trip. At this point we had to get out of the boat and drag it over a sandbar. After I got back into the boat I realised that I no longer had a headache or fever. I had to ask myself, “Why didn't I bind the powers of darkness yesterday when my co-worker was so ill?” Neither of us had any more sickness on that trip.

Our trek-packs were light when we started out on the trek, but after a few hours in the heat and mud, they seemed very heavy. Typically it would take a couple of hour’s walk to get to the next village. Some of the trail was hilly and other parts were large swamps. We visited six villages on that trip, holding a meeting each night.

We later decided that the best place to locate a base was in Riam Sejawak, an Iban village of 200 inhabitants not far from the mountain range that divided Kalimantan from Sarawak. The Dayak evangelist travelling with us said it was a 'sarang iblis' (a nest of satan). Later we were to find out how true those words were!

OUR VILLAGE BASE

Several months passed before Colleen and I returned to settle in Riam Sejawak in September of 1974. Bruce took us upriver in the smaller mission boat with our five drums of belongings. Since the river level was beginning to fall, Bruce had to leave the same day. If he delayed his departure, he might not have had enough water to get back downstream.

We stayed in a wood and bark hut along with a family of four young children until we could build a house. One of the first things we did was to locate a good place to build a modest house. When we found a good spot, we marked out the four corners with sticks and tied a red cloth on each stick so we could easily see them. Soon after this we were told by a village friend that another Dayak had put similar sticks around the new house that he was building. When they asked why he had the red flags, he said “I don't know, but the new missionary did it, so I'm doing it too!” We found out later that the Dayaks thought that the rags were to frighten away evil spirits and protect the new home. How careful we needed to be in the future!

Colleen began a Sunday School in the small mud-floor school building. There were about 25 children attending, soaking up the teaching about Jesus and the way of salvation. We found that the best way to teach the adults was to teach the children first. They would then teach the adults, especially with learning new songs. Many of the adults could not read or write so they had to learn by listening.

We were invited all over the area to teach the Dayaks about the way of salvation. I remember that during one busy week we held 18 meetings; Colleen took six in the Riam area and I held twelve in outlying villages. We realised that this kind of programme was not advisable if we wanted to remain healthy for long! The meetings were all in Bahasa Indonesia (the Indonesian language) as we didn't know their dialect at that stage.

Colleen’s Perspective

Our first visit to a Dayak longhouse was a memorable one. We were taken to a village near Nanga Lebang which consisted of one, long, house. Upon entering the longhouse we saw pictures of Westerners that the people had pasted up on the walls. One of the missionaries had wrapped medicine in paper from a WEC Mission magazine. The people had kept these pages and put them up on their walls. As we looked at the wall, we saw a photo of Ken and I that had been in a WEC magazine! It was a surprise and further confirmation to me that we were in the right place.

A typical longhouse such as this one would have fifty or more families living in the one house.

Our new home was in a village called Riam Sejawak in the Upper Ketungau area, three days travel by long-boat from our headquarters at Nanga Lebang. Nanga Lebang is situated on the broad Kapuas River about 300 kilometres inland from the coast, so we were living over a week’s journey from Pontianak. The village was on the southern side of the mountainous range that forms the border between West Kalimantan (Indonesia) and Sarawak (Malaysia). A large portion of the tribal people in that area are from the Iban tribe, including our new village of approximately 200 people. There were no English-speakers in the whole area apart from us. We lived at Riam for three years.

Ken had visited with another missionary a few months ahead of our moving inland. It was a needy area and they felt, after praying for direction, that Riam Sejawak was the right place for us to be based. With villages to evangelise in a radius of about 30 kilometres in three directions, we had the blessing of the field fellowship.

Bruce Rattray moved us to Riam Sejawak with our five drums of belongings in a two bunk-bed small diesel launch called the Utusan Injil, meaning Gospel Messenger. Upon our arrival, there was much excitement as the villagers realized that we were coming to live amongst them. We recall Bruce saying “Glad it’s you and not me!” as he headed off downstream after helping to unload our belongings and supplies.

The Iban people had everything to gain with Westerners living in their village – all white people had medicine, and they knew everything (or so the villagers thought)! Annette Rattray, who was a nurse, taught us a lot about the medical side of things, and fortunately Ken and I had completed the Tropical Medicines course at the Sydney University after attending Missionary Training College.

The most common sicknesses among the tribal people were malaria, dysentery, tuberculosis and malnutrition. Some diseases were undiagnosable. We exchanged medicines for local fruit and vegetables in addition to rice. Meat was scarce because hunting and trapping animals was not very successful most of the time. They usually had meat only at special events like weddings.

Our first “home” in Riam Sejawak was living with an Iban widower and his four girls aged between 1 and 10 years old. They all slept in one bed while Ken and I slept on the floor in the same room on our mattress! The house consisted of only two rooms, one larger room and a lean-to kitchen that was very sooty and dirty. The walls were made of hand sawn timber and bark with no windows, and the floor was made of hand sawn timber planks. It was up on poles about six feet from the ground (to keep away from snakes, floods etc). The one door was accessed by going up a log pole with notches cut into it where you could place your feet. We soon became adept at climbing these “stairs”!

Every evening there was a steady stream of visitors to see and hear the new white people speak the Indonesian language. Only the elderly didn't know Indonesian. There were many dialects spoken within the area. We were asked many times about our own country and the world in general. It was astonishing to us that they hadn't even heard that man had visited the moon several years earlier.

There were many humorous moments while living with our 'new' family. One day there was a squabble amongst the children when one of them had roasted a grasshopper on the open fire. They all wanted to eat it! The one who caught it won.

Our nearest English speaking neighbours were Australians, Bruce and Annette Rattray. They lived a full day’s journey downstream from us (in good river conditions). We were admonished more than once by Bruce to visit them more frequently and not to leave it for three months, especially as we were still newcomers to the field and were the most remote missionaries at that time. It was difficult to keep in touch because we could only send letters downstream via friends and even then there was no guarantee that the letters would reach their destination. We only received mail when we went downstream, which was about once every three or four months. Mail from overseas was always a major event and we were hungry for news from home.

We didn't have a two-way radio in those early days, although one was on its way from Australia with the Smith family for us. Peter and Rae Smith had gone through MTC in Tasmania with us and were also called to Kalimantan. The radio had been in the Smith family’s luggage, but unfortunately the ship carrying it sank near Singapore. It was an awful blow not to have received the radio. It was another six years before we got a two-way radio. Even worse was the fact that the Smith family with their baby twins had lost all their belongings when the ship went down.

Our five drums of belongings were stored on the ground under the floor of the hut until we could build a house. We were living in one of the nicer houses in the village. There wasn't any electricity in the village. Kerosene lanterns were hung from the rafters for light. The village was also one of the more progressive villages in the area; Riam Sejawak had individual family houses. Many villages still had only one longhouse, with family rooms opening off one side of a long verandah onto the communal area.

An elderly lady in a longhouse communal area, taking seeds out of kapok.

Our two children were due to come home for their school holidays within three months of our moving to Riam and we hoped to build a house before they arrived. The Iban people are industrious and were hand sawing planks in the village. We purchased the boards from them and Ken had help from the villagers to build the house. They decided that we could build under an existing roof made of timber slats. This used to be their village hall before a new one was erected closer to the village centre.

So we built our house under the existing roof. We put in windows, without glass, but with shutters that could be closed at night or if it rained. As time progressed we disposed of the fabric material that we initially used for internal walls, and bought sheets of 3-ply from Pontianak.

Our house at Riam Sejawak.

We even had a bathroom with a cement floor where we could dip water over ourselves instead of going to the river to bathe. We also had a flush toilet (flush with the floor, that is!). Toilets in the mission houses were typically a squat down affair with a chute going to a septic tank in the ground.

Our five drums came in handy for our water supply. Ken made a stand for the drums and used large, split bamboo for the gutters and spouting around the roof. This caught the rainwater and channelled it into the drums for storage. Due to the high rainfall, we never ran out of water.

FAMILY LIFE IN THE KAMPUNG (VILLAGE)

Colleen’s Perspective

Once when the children were home from school, Lynette and I prepared some bread dough. We left it to rise on a stool outside in the warmth of the tropical sun while we went and visited a sick lady. On our way back home we saw a dog run past us with some white stuff hanging out of its mouth. We wondered what it could be, and then, “Oh no, it’s not, is it?” It was… our bread had risen and the smell of it had enticed a dog to run off with it!

For cooking we had a small, two burner kerosene stove. A tin oven could be put over the top of the flame for baking. These stoves and ovens were sold in Pontianak. I made bread three times a week, although our diet consisted primarily of rice, vegetables and fruit.

I never realized that there were so many varieties of bananas until we moved to Kalimantan. There were small ones and very large ones; ripe green ones and yellow ones; sweet ones and tangy ones; some with big seeds like small rocks in them and some with no seeds. The most common fruits apart from bananas were papayas, pineapples and mangoes.

We inherited a small kerosene powered refrigerator from another missionary. It was very helpful for preserving food in the heat. On the first of April one year, I was preparing breakfast and opened the fridge door. I promptly shut it again with a squeal because I had spied a small snake hanging over the edge of the shelf near a birthday cake that I had made for Ken. This was not what I expected to see in my refrigerator!

I immediately thought that Ken Jordin (an Australian missionary who was staying with us at the time while making an airstrip) had put it in there as an April Fool’s joke. He was always playing pranks on people, but he still declares that he never put it there! We think it must have got in through a small hole in the back of the refrigerator.

Before leaving New Zealand we had bought an old wringer washing machine to which Ken attached a Briggs and Stratton lawn-mower motor. This was a great asset and a time-saver. There was much talk in the area about it being able to wash dishes as well as clothes! I quite often had an audience when I used it. The Dayaks would wash their clothes in the river by slapping and beating them on a log or on the lanting.

Lynette and Ken bathing in our “second bathroom” on the lanting (log raft) where our boat was moored on the Ketungau River at Riam Sejawak.

Another modern convenience was a Singer Blue Magic sewing machine that I had bought before we went to MTC in Tasmania, and was reluctant to sell. Ken discovered that he could convert it from an electric sewing machine to a treadle powered machine. So he put it onto a treadle cabinet and it went with us in our luggage. It was well used by both Lynette and I.

The Lord had some special surprises in store for me as a mother. I remember thinking, two years before arriving on the field, that if we went to the jungles of Borneo there was no way that Lynette could ever learn to play the piano. This had been my secret desire for her.

Six months into their second year at boarding school, we received letters and a cassette tape from the children. On the tape Evan told us about his encounter with a snake on the airstrip, while Lynette proudly announced that she was learning to play the piano! An American family had given a piano to the school before leaving on furlough. The cassette tape had a recording of her playing some basic tunes on the piano. My heart sang with joy and thanksgiving to the Lord. He loves to give us the desires of our hearts! Ken was naturally musical and Lynette was too. In her teenage years she taught herself how to play a piano accordion that we had inherited from Colleen Grubb when she returned to New Zealand. Ken had been playing it at meetings, so it was a welcome relief for him when she took it over.

Whenever it was time for school holidays, Evan and Lynette would fly in a Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) 6 seater plane from the boarding school to our headquarters at Nanga Lebang or to Merakai where Bruce and Annette Rattray had an airstrip. The day of their arrival had to be prearranged with us as we had no contact via radio or telephone in those days. I remember on one occasion that the children had a two week holiday and we spent one week of that in travelling to and from home!

Once when it was almost the end of the school holidays, I felt that we should go down to Merakai earlier than had been previously arranged. Ken felt the same way, even though it was a sacrifice at that stage to take several days out of ministry. We left the next morning in spite of the low water. On arriving at Merakai it was dark and we thought the Rattrays would be very surprised to see us there a week early. Annette met us with, “Did you have a good trip?”

We were puzzled. It was as though she was expecting us! We didn’t know that they had sent us a letter stating that we would have to bring the children down earlier than planned. Instead of using the MAF plane from Merakai as usual, they were going down to headquarters by boat and from there they planned to go to Pontianak on our mission boat. Our two children, along with Paul Rattray, were to fly to school from Pontianak and they needed to leave the very next day! We never received that “bushman’s post” letter. We realized again how important it is to keep close to the Lord and to hear His voice.

On another occasion when we went downstream to pick up the children for the school holidays, our trip back home was memorable. By now we had acquired a bobtail cat named Trixie that we took with us in a basket with a lid on. Animals were not petted and loved by the tribal people; in fact they had sadistic tendencies and would pull the whiskers out of cats and the wings off insects. A well fed cat also made a good meal! Whenever we were going to be away for a while, our cat came with us in a covered basket.

On this occasion when we met them, Evan had been given a baby Musang (the nearest equivalent is a civet cat). It sat in his top shirt pocket! It only ate fruit. If someone came to our door selling fruit, Mut-Mut as we called him, would appear from nowhere! He made various sounds. He could purr like a cat, grunt like a pig or tweet like a bird. His feet had long pads underneath and he walked pigeon-toed like a bear. We tried to put him back in the jungle before we went home on furlough, but in the middle of the night his tweeting woke us all up as he had found a way back into the house.

Lynette had brought two gold fish with her in a plastic bag. Everything was fine going home with all these creatures in our boat until we got closer to home. The water in the river was getting lower and lower. We went as far as we could and then had to leave the boat at a village and walk the remaining four hours home. It was late in the afternoon. Three hours of daylight remained before darkness fell. We were always keen to arrive before sunset as darkness falls very quickly in the tropics. Even the seasoned Dayaks were not brave enough to travel on the jungle trails at night.

The walk was mostly through thick jungle. Imagine the scene – Ken led the way walking along the single file dirt track with his backpack of valuables that we didn't want to leave with the boat. Evan followed with a bag and his musang tucked in his pocket, then Lynette, carrying a bag and her goldfish. I brought up the rear with a bag and the basket with the cat in it.

Evan, Lynette and Trixie outside our house at Riam Sejawak.

About three hours into our trek, Trixie had had enough and so had Lynette. “Are we nearly there?” became her constant question. We stopped for a rest and let the cat out for a break. The cat immediately pounced off into the bushes in a playful mood. By that time, darkness was approaching and we didn't want to take time looking for the cat in the dense jungle. We managed to coax her back eventually.

It was the first time that the children had experienced such a gruelling trek. Poor Lynette was in tears! It could have been worse. Fortunately the track was dry and had not turned into a mud bath. We had borrowed a torch from the Village Chief of one of the villages we passed through. However, the batteries were almost flat by the time we reached the point for crossing the main river. An old Dayak man paddled us across the water in a dugout canoe in the darkness. Another kilometre of walking and we were finally home safely. It was 9 o’clock when we staggered inside.

In hindsight, trekking in the jungle after dark was a very dangerous thing to do, but we didn't want to expose the children to a stay over in a Dayak village. Ken knew the track very well because once a week we held Religious Instruction in the government school in that area and if we couldn't go by river, we walked. Imagine our frustration if on arrival at the school there were no children or teachers in sight! Sometimes the children were there, but no teachers. We could then teach them for as long as we wanted and send them home when we wanted to.

Lynette had written and told her grandmother in New Zealand that she had two goldfish. Imagine our surprise when we opened a package in the post to find a glass goldfish bowl that was still in one piece! There were also two whelk shells. Unfortunately, the goldfish had a sad ending. One disappeared (we suspect our cat got it) and a short time later the other one also disappeared. On inspection we discovered that the poor fish had entered the shell and was not able to back out!

Lynette’s Perspective

My memories of Mut-Mut the musang are not entirely pleasant… While it was cute as a baby, it grew into quite a wild and aggressive creature. It didn’t like me for some reason. Maybe my brother trained him that way (just kidding)! He had fangs with which he bit me, once on my hand and once on my ankle when I was running away from him. I still have the scars to this day. He also killed one of my pet monkeys, so Mut-Mut was not my favourite pet on the mission field!

Colleen’s Perspective

On another occasion, when going downstream, the children asked whether we could stay the night on a sandbar at the side of the river. The upper Ketungau River had beautiful white sand banks when the water level was low.

This time the water was so low that we were forced to stay overnight somewhere. So, before leaving home, we took supplies to make a meal over an open fire and a big plastic sheet for a shelter. It was the dry season. There was no chance of rain and the moon was full. Ken and I slept on either side of the children on the sandbar. It took me ages to fall asleep! In the morning Evan found animal footprints in the white sand that were too close for comfort…

A few months later as Ken and I were approaching that sand bank again, we saw a six foot long crocodile sunning itself on a log beside the river. It was the only crocodile that I ever saw in Borneo! They usually prefer the still back-waters to flowing rivers.

The Lord had given me many promises in regard to His protection, including Psalm 91. “When passing through the rivers they will not overwhelm us...” (Isaiah 43:2). “The Lord encamps around those who fear Him.” (Psalm 34:7). “He will harden me to difficulties,” (Isaiah 41:10) which He did! Someone has said that there are 365 verses in the Bible that say, “Fear not”. One for every day of the year!

Evan’s Perspective

Camping out on the “beach” was interesting! It was on a white sand bank at the side of the Ketungau River. We cooked our meal and made our own shelter. During the night I woke up as a result of the bright moonlight (you could read by the light of the moon in Kalimantan). I noticed that we had visitors. A couple of biawak (large monitor lizards) were checking out the camp area, but they didn’t come close to us. They tend not to go near people and, unless cornered, they are not dangerous to humans.

The next day we had to, once again, battle our way downriver due to the low river level. Using our 2 horsepower outboard motor was easier as it wasn’t as deep in the water as the 20 horsepower outboard. The trip took even longer than expected. We ended up once again with nightfall descending before we reached our destination, using a torch with only limited visibility.

As we rounded a corner of the river we heard a strange rushing sound. This came on top of the noise of the motor that was idling due to the poor visibility. We saw that we had come up against a large row of rocks across the river. The only place that I could make out where we could go was directly ahead, but we were heading towards the rocks to the left of the gap. Then it was as if the hand of the Lord pushed the boat’s bow just that little bit further so that we slid past the rock face without even touching it.

Two hours later we arrived at the Rattray’s home. We found that the plane was due to arrive the next morning, and not the day after as we had thought. We had made it just in time! This was one of the times when we seemed to be led to go downstream early and found that the reason was due to a change in timing at the other end. It felt great to be at the ‘cutting face’ of the work and to feel the grace of God at those times.

Colleen’s Perspective

Both our children look upon their time at Bamboo River International School as a very special time of their lives, and they have never regretted our decision to place them there.

The boarding school only went up to Grade Eight. So Evan graduated from the school on 27th May 1976, and then completed his high school education with the New Zealand Correspondence School. He later completed a mechanics correspondence course. Lynette also completed high school with the New Zealand Correspondence School. In April 1981 she received news of passing School Certificate in several subjects. Evan and Lynette would study for a couple of hours in the mornings and then have the afternoons free to do as they pleased. They were such a big help to us. Both of the children did a brief course in the Indonesian language while at school, but they picked up most of the language by playing with the local children. Evan and Lynette spent a lot of time playing with the children at Riam Sejawak, usually on the sandbanks and in the river.

In the early days of our first term, (which was four years followed by a one year furlough) I remember them teaching the village children English words. They would pick up something like a cup, show it to them and say the word in English. All the children would repeat it after them. It was a game they often played from the inside of the dining room window with the village children sitting outside on the ground. Evan was given a bike by another missionary. This was well used by our two children. One of the village children asked us if it was a car! It was the only wheeled vehicle in the whole area at that time.

USING THE MAIN HIGHWAYS

Traders, who were mostly Chinese, spent most of their lives in their large 20 ton boats trading goods up and down the inland rivers. The 20 ton boat owned by the WEC mission was named the Pelayan Injil (Gospel Servant). It had foldaway bunks for about 12 people. It also had space for approximately 75 drums of fuel under the removable floor boards. The trip inland to Nanga Lebang from Pontianak took five days on the river travelling from dawn till dusk, and sometimes well into the night.

The 20 ton mission boat, the Pelayan Injil, at Merakai.

One night at about 2 am we came to a sudden stop in the middle of the broad Kapuas River and Colleen woke thinking, “Boy! This boat has got good brakes!” We ran out to find that the boat was firmly stuck on a large sandbar. We seemed to be about a kilometre from each shore, so we had to get into the water with shovels and lever bars to try and free the vessel. With at least 20 tons to shift it took some time!

Traversing the rivers, there were many times when we found ourselves grounded on logs or rocks. The rocks were not as great a problem; they usually remained in one place. You remembered where they were, to avoid them next time. However, the logs and shingle bars changed position due to the strong currents during the frequent floods. It was important to get free as soon as possible, because the river level could be on its way down. Several times we saw large boats stranded high and dry on large rocks for months at a time during the dry season because they had not been able to get off quickly enough. We had maps of obstacles in the Kapuas River that we continually updated.

Colleen’s Perspective

Our life in Kalimantan was ruled by the level of the rivers. They were our main roads and instead of traffic jams, we had log jams to contend with! If the water was too low, it would be dangerous to travel. Our long canoe-boat with a 20 horsepower outboard motor on the back would find it difficult to traverse rivers full of rocks, submerged logs and tree stumps, and moving sandbars. If the river was too high, the water was very swift and was dangerous to venture out in. The strong current could force the boat into overhead branches that sometimes met in the middle of the canopy above the winding river. The high water would also carry away many logs, and even whole trees, causing massive log-jams right across small rivers.

Long-boats and outboard motors were used in the small rivers. A great deal of time was lost changing broken shear pins on propeller shafts because of the many obstacles hidden under the dark coffee-coloured waters. An essential tool for the dry season was a long pole for sounding out the depth of the water. After a few years we became more skilled at reading the water surface and dodging the problem areas.

The harsh tropical sun and frequent heavy rain that beat down mercilessly on us, added to the problems. Thankfully, the interlocking canopy of trees overhead was a welcome relief. We did fit a roof to our long-boat for a while, but with the overhanging branches and no brakes, it was more of a liability than an asset.

In some areas the rivers have many rapids. High water results in a raging current and is very difficult to fight against. The high water often runs between the trees across the point of the winding river, meeting the main flow again downriver. Therefore a boat must fight against the side current that pulls it sideways into danger. Often whole trees would be carried cartwheeling down the river. Sometimes one would jam right across the river, from bank to bank. This would soon cause a huge log-jam hindering our progress.

Many of the logs would float and these floating logs were often used to form a lanting. Every village had at least one lanting (pronounced lun-ting). The lanting consisted of several large floating logs, tied together with rattan. The log raft was then tied securely to a tree on the riverbank. It was accessed from the riverbank by crossing a narrow plank of wood, usually about 15 centimetres (6 inches) wide. The lanting was used for washing clothes on, drawing water from the river, and tying boats up to. Sometimes a lanting would have a small one metre square hut built onto it for a toilet (i.e. a hole into the river) if you were lucky! On the Kapuas River, the lantings would often have a house built on them. The Chinese traders bought and sold goods from these floating houses.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the work was trying to arrange ministry around changing river levels. We found it impossible to promise to be in one place at a specific date or time. I almost killed myself trying to keep dates I had made earlier. I was on the river when no other thinking person would be there.

I would be crossing flooded streams, swimming behind a hastily made raft with my backpack on, and then wading for hours in floodwater just to arrive on time. I soon found that I would have to resign myself to living a day at a time, and resting in my inability to utilize the time as I would have liked. Time means nothing to the Dayaks and they seem to have the motto: “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.”

However, in spite of their living by “jam karet” (rubber time), this ‘rule’ did not seem to apply to us! I became very careful at saying very clearly that I would TRY to be somewhere by a certain date, but I couldn’t promise due to water conditions, etc. In spite of spelling it out so clearly, inevitably the Dayaks would say that I had promised to be there on that day and would feel that I had broken my word if I was not there. This was another frustration of the work; it was as though saying, “I will try to be there” was interpreted to mean “I promise to be there no matter what!”

Colleen’s Perspective

Both Ken and I had the experience of sinking – although we were in different areas at the time. Ken had been asked to help build a house for a new missionary family in the Upper Silat area. He was away for six weeks. Meanwhile, a Dutch missionary named Janny Riemersma, who had just completed language study in Pontianak and moved inland, came and stayed with me to get some experience of village life. She got more experience than she had bargained for!

I decided that we would go and stay overnight at a nearby village to take an evening meeting. We took hymn books and bibles in a water tight plastic bag along with an overnight pack for each of us. Janny was new to using her 6 horsepower outboard motor. All went fine for the first three kilometres. Then, as we neared a bend in the river, she found that she couldn't straighten up the boat. The water came in over the side of the boat slowly until we sank. It happened in slow motion!

We were about 15 metres from the shore. Janny grabbed her bag and the petrol tank that was floating nearby, and swam to the river bank. All I could do was swim. My bag, with our camera and house key in it, went to the bottom of the river. We had been collecting some good pictures to take home on furlough, but they were gone too! The literature and our shoes went floating off down the river.

We made it to the side of the river and started laughing. It seemed so ridiculous! I said to Janny, “I'm sure the village is just around the corner, let’s go on foot.” We soon discovered that there was no way we could though. The jungle was dense and there were lots of thorns. We had lost our footwear. As it turned out, it was just as well we didn't try. The village was further away than I had thought. We would have surely got lost, adding to our dilemma. We decided to wait for someone passing by to come and help us. We didn’t have to wait long before we heard the sound of someone paddling a canoe. I yelled out, “Minta tolong Pak!” (Please help Sir!). An elderly man with a sombre face came over to the side of the river where we were waiting. Not saying a word, he allowed us to get into his canoe and he took us to the nearby village. We found our literature and footwear had been retrieved by women who had been washing their clothes on the village lanting. They had heard a boat coming and then heard its motor cut out. Then they saw things floating by and guessed what had happened.

They must have thought us very strange as we couldn't stop laughing! To them this was an unusual reaction to our dilemma. It is common for canoes to sink and lives to be lost among the tribes people, so to them it was no laughing matter.

The boat and engine were found the next day, in 3 metre deep water. A Chinese man hauled it out and dried the engine in the sun on the lanting. He then navigated it home to us. A man named Ayung told us that he thought that the propeller may have been caught in a vine under the water.

Meanwhile, Ken was having his own sinking experience in the distant Silat area. His experience was much more traumatic.

THAT SINKING FEELING

“Don't do it Tuan,” the local teacher advised, “Better to go downriver tomorrow.”

The three of us had been waiting for five days for a rise in the river level. We planned to go down to the Silat River mouth and bring a load of timber back up the next day. With me were John Callaghan and Ken Jordin (known as KJ). Both were from Australia and had been through MTC in Tasmania with us. I had taken two weeks off work in my area (three days travel away) so that I could help build the Callaghan’s house as a base for the Silat area. We were all keen to get more work done on the house, so we thought we would risk going downstream in the high water. This was in case the water level dropped, leaving us stranded with our load of timber somewhere downstream.

We untied the boat (the Penabur Injil, meaning “Gospel Sower”) and pushed the bow away from the mud bank. After about ten minutes in the raging flood waters we began to realise the wisdom of the school teacher’s advice! The swift current often drew us sideways into the jungle where the water was flowing beyond the riverbanks, unbeknown to us.

Inevitably, we soon came to a bend in the river, where the diesel engine was no match for the strong current. The five ton boat was swept sideways under the overhanging trees. There it was held fast by the strong current. The walls were creaking as they bent sideways and water was entering fast on the upstream side of the boat. John jumped into his long-boat that we were towing.

His plan was to pull the diesel boat from under the trees using the outboard motor. However, John's outboard motor refused to start despite his desperate efforts. As he pulled the starter rope of the 20 horsepower outboard motor, KJ cut the tow rope free, but John’s outboard motor refused to start despite his desperate efforts, so he was swept downstream.

Meanwhile, KJ grabbed my axe and chopped at the wall posts hoping the structure would fold, allowing the hull to level itself. But the wall posts were made of hard ironwood and were impossible to chop through. Finally we had to climb into the nearest tree as the boat sank beneath us. Fortunately, the roof remained just above the water. So KJ jumped down onto the roof as it floated off downstream. It seemed an eternity before I heard the drone of John's Johnson outboard battling up the river and I heard KJ yell to him while pointing at the roof he was on, “It’s alright! I've got the boat here. I'll tie it up as soon as I can.”

John was almost back to my tree refuge when there was the ominous sound we all knew so well. The propeller pin had sheared. Because he had no tools and no mooring rope he ran to the bow and grabbed onto a branch. Then he called out to me, “Can you swim down here?” With an affirmative shout, I jumped into the swirling water and was quickly swept down to him. We managed somehow to break off a floor nail to serve as a shear pin, and were soon bumping our way through the floating wood keeping an eye out for KJ and the boat he was sitting on.

Meanwhile, KJ had decided to jump down onto the bow of the boat to get hold of the mooring rope and tie it up to a passing branch. It was then that he discovered that there was no bow to stand on… The hull with all our gear in had dropped off somewhere upstream and what he had was only the roof! He was eventually able to tie the roof up to a tree. We picked him up later and travelled the four hours downriver to our mission headquarters on the mighty Kapuas River. We arrived exhausted. We had nothing except what we stood up in! Two weeks later, local divers found the hull full of sand. It was finally recovered, but the Penabur was never the same again and was abandoned soon afterwards. So we learned to take the advice of the local Dayaks, and to “Let patience have her perfect work.”

FIRE ONBOARD

Lynette and Colleen went with me upriver from Riam Sejawak one time and because the water was low, we had to use the 2 horsepower outboard. It only had a small tank above the motor and had to be refuelled every hour. It was a nuisance, but sometimes we were able to get out on a sandbank and stretch our legs while refuelling.

This time I thought I would refill the tank while the motor was idling. This is not advisable at any time as I soon found out! The boat rocked a little while I was pouring the petrol in and fuel spilled onto the spark plug which quickly ignited it. Some of the spill had also landed in the boat and quickly spread on top of the water at our feet so we had flames everywhere!

We couldn't jump out of the boat because we were in deep water (Colleen was holding a tree branch as an anchor) so I grabbed the bailing tin and threw water over the engine extinguishing the fire, and my splashing around in the bilge water soon put the rest of the flames out. That gave me a big wake-up call. I was much more careful refuelling after that!

The 2 horsepower Yamaha was very handy in low water, but I had fitted a motorcycle throttle to the tiller handle to make it more user friendly on the rivers. I also modified the 20 horsepower Johnson outboard by adding an ignition key and a locking petrol cap. These things helped a great deal during our river travel. They say “necessity is the mother of invention”. How true. We always carried a watertight, floating tool box with lots of homemade shear pins, and spare spark plugs. I was very fortunate to have a mechanical background and often praised God for His “training for the job”.

“ASK WHAT YOU WILL”

Whenever we had our three monthly supply of shopping to take home, it was too much to carry in our long-boat. The supply included drums of fuel, large tins of sugar, sacks of flour and rice, along with canned goods. Our nearest missionary, Bruce Rattray, would take us up the river in the mission houseboat called the “Utusan Injil”. Our long-boat was tied on the back as seen in the picture below, taken from in our long-boat.

The Utusan is on the left and the remains of the Penabur Injil (which sank in the Silat River) is on the right. The Utusan Injil only travelled at 8 kph so it was very slow. In good conditions we would get home in two days. When darkness fell we had to tie up to a tree on the riverbank to stay overnight. At first light each morning the engine was started. We would travel again until dark, cooking rice and vegetables on a small kerosene stove while travelling. There were 4 bunks that folded down from the side walls, but usually there were too many people for the number of beds, and some had to sleep on the hardwood floor. I usually lay behind the motor with my feet on the gearbox. If anybody wanted to use the toilet during the night, (the “toilet” was a hole in the floor at the stern of the boat) it meant they had to fight their way through my mosquito net strings!

One morning on such a trip upriver, I was sitting on the end of a bunk having my “quiet time” while my colleague steered. We had travelled all the previous day up the winding Ketungau River and noted that the further we went, the lower the water level got. It seemed obvious that we were not going to be able to get right back home. The burden of my heart was to reach home with all of the supplies. If we had to leave them in a Dayak village, it was likely that most of our supplies would be missing when we returned later. Many Dayak people could not resist such temptation.

As I finished my Bible reading and began to pray, God said to me very clearly, “What do you want Me to do?” Wow! This was the first time God had given me an open cheque in this way! Because of the burden to get our supplies upstream, my answer came quickly: “I want to get this load right up to our house today.” I knew it was an impossibility apart from God.

We knew from experience the signs of lowering water. I did wonder how it could ever happen, but as we wound our way upstream, the brown water began to rise little by little until it was no trouble to get right up to Riam Sejawak before dark. Evidently there had been rain way upriver causing a temporary rise in the water level. While I was thankful to God for this amazing answer to prayer, I later thought that I should have given it a bit more thought and asked for something less temporal... like asking for the Holy Spirit’s conversion of a key man in the area. The Holy Spirit then reminded me of a hymn that I had written inside my Bible cover:

“Thou art coming to a King,

Large petitions with thee bring.

For His love and power are such,

Thou can'st never ask too much.”

Sometimes we ask for such small things when God wants to do so much more.

PILOTS, PLANES AND AIRSTRIPS

“Break! Break!” the pilot's voice loudly interrupted the middle of our scheduled daily radio time. This must be very urgent, we thought. The voice from the crackling two-way radio stopped. We waited to hear what could be so important.

“Charlie Brown to EZ1, we have an emergency!”

“Copy that, Charlie Brown. What’s the trouble? Over.”

“My engine is losing power and engine oil is leaking onto the windscreen. How do you copy? Over.”

“Copy that, Charlie Brown. Whereabouts are you? Over.”

“About 10 minutes west of the Kelansam airstrip. Just passing over the Kapuas River. Over.”

“Can you get back to Kelansam? Over.”

“Negative. The engine has seized! I don't have enough height now. Have to find somewhere to go down. Standby!” There was a long silence, then, “EZ1 we may have to go down in the Kapuas. Can't see anything but jungle for miles. Standby.”

It seemed like an eternity before we heard anything more, but it was probably only about five minutes – the longest five minutes ever for all of us missionaries at our various stations listening in and praying. We were so relieved when the pilot's voice came through again.

“Ah… EZ1, this is Charlie Brown on the ground. We are okay, repeat, both okay. The plane is upside down in a disused rice field about three kilometres north of a small village on the Kapuas. My radio will cut out soon. Will stay with the plane until someone arrives, over.”

A great deal of prayer had gone up for the pilot and his missionary passenger and we were thankful to God that they were safe for now. We just prayed that they would not have to spend the night there. They had to guard the aircraft so that nothing went missing.

However, it was the next day before the MAF pilots located them and took them to the MAF base for a medical check. Charlie Brown, the name of the Cessna plane, was dismantled and carried out in pieces to the Kapuas River. Our WEC mission boat, the Pelayan Injil, was waiting there to transport the disabled plane to the MAF main base for repairs. You can imagine the stares of the villagers as the 20 ton boat sailed by with wings and fuselage of a plane tied onto the outside of the boat!

That was one of several MAF plane crashes in Kalimantan in the years we were there. This was not because of pilot error, but because of extreme conditions. Some mishaps were minor, but others more serious.

On the very last flight we had over the jungles of Borneo, the pilot detoured to find a helicopter that had crashed into the heavy jungle only the day before. We circled tightly for a long time, but because of the height of the jungle canopy we were unable to locate it. They told us later that the pilot was okay.

The pilots were very good at their job and were able to rebuild planes and repair them. When one plane over-shot a muddy runway at a mission station, the wing was damaged and weakened. That was not a problem for the seasoned pilot. He bought some wooden planks from the local people and with nylon rope he bound a splint onto the damaged wing to strengthen it. Then he got back into the cockpit and flew the plane back to base!

There was always a big demand for space on the planes. An airstrip is a great asset for the remote missionary. Just half an hour in an MAF plane can save two days of hard labour on a river. But it was an expensive means of travel and some missionaries could not afford to use MAF.

In our village of Riam Sejawak on the foothills of the mountain range dividing Kalimantan from Sarawak, we were fortunate to have a reasonably level area of jungle near the village. We were thankful to have Ken Jordin from Australia transform it into an airstrip. It took twelve months of hard work to complete. Not only did the airstrip need to be clear and smooth, but there needed to be a long fly-out area cleared of tall trees and reaching well out into the vast jungle.

Ken Jordin, (known as KJ) spent a lot of time felling monstrous trees with his chainsaw and filling in swampy holes. Some trees had several great webs starting from the trunk about six metres from the ground and a big V had to be cut out of each web before he could even start cutting the trunk. The local Iban helped a lot and we always emphasised that it was their airstrip and that they would have to maintain it.

KJ had imported an old Ferguson tractor converted to run on kerosene, along with other basic implements to do the job. The equipment all had to be brought upriver by boat. One time the tractor had to be dismantled to get it into a long-boat, taken through the rapids, and then reassembled on land before it could be driven away!

When the airstrip at Riam was finished, we had a “Grand Opening”. All the Government leaders in the area came and gave speeches in the nearby school. When the first plane arrived there was great excitement. People were both running to the strip, and running away in fear! The pilot took the Village Chief and some officials up for a flight and they talked about it for years.

Mike Charlie Lima, the first plane to land at the Riam Sejawak airstrip. The school building is in the background.

Colleen’s Perspective

We had a missionary come out from Australia for the sole purpose of building airstrips. The perfect spot was found not far from the Government school at Riam Sejawak. The Ferguson tractor was transported in pieces in the small launch. It was then reassembled and work began with clearing the forest. The airstrip was opened on 3rd January 1977. It ended up being one of the best in Kalimantan according to one MAF pilot. It was a great day when it was finished.

A ceremony involving 20 police and army representatives officially opened the airstrip. We had no idea when the plane would arrive and make its grand landing, as we still didn't have a two-way radio. The Lord had it under control though. Five minutes after the speeches finished the sound of a plane could be heard!

Having an airstrip meant that our children could now come home directly from the boarding school in about half an hour, instead of spending several days travelling on the rivers. It was such a blessing.

Evan’s Perspective

Once on our way back to school in one of the Cessna 180 planes, the pilot George Boggs warned us that we would soon be going over the equator. We didn’t think much of it until a few minutes later when the plane suddenly lurched up and then dived sharply down again. “That was it!” George said. He had pulled the stick back at the appropriate moment, giving the sensation of going over an obstacle! We enjoyed our trips to and from school on the planes.

During our last year at Riam we had the loan of a two-way radio from one of the missionaries who was on furlough. We were then able to have our children flown in for their school holidays by pre-arranging flights. We had to trust that the weather would allow the plane to fly in.

On one flight we were returning to headquarters from the Baptist mission hospital at Serukam. It was raining again and the cloud layer was very low. The pilot set his compass and flew above the clouds for a specific time. By his calculations we should have been in about the right place when he broke through the cloud ceiling on his descent.

While we were flying above the clouds the plane was slightly banked and I thought we must be flying in a large circle. It felt as though we were turning slightly and I thought for sure we would end up at Serukam again. Then I looked over the pilot's shoulder and saw the compass was kept dead on the same reading throughout the flight. We finally came down quite close to the Kingmi airstrip that we were aiming for. This taught me a lesson about not living by feelings, and keeping my eyes on the facts!

When it was time for our first furlough, we arranged with MAF for the plane to fly to Riam Sejawak on a pre-determined date. The MAF office on the coast had also arranged our international flights back to New Zealand for us. We had our bags packed ready on that day and waited for the sound of the plane. When we heard the plane coming, we quickly grabbed our bags and headed to the airstrip.

Unknown to us, one of the local traders had also sent a message to MAF via an army radio to send a plane. The message had been sent a few days earlier, but hadn't been received by MAF. So when the plane arrived, the traders thought it was for them. When we started to put our luggage on board there was quite an argument because they thought we were taking their flight! However, we had a flight out of Indonesia to catch so we couldn't delay our departure from Riam.

I had to do a lot of talking for them to understand what was happening. We arranged a flight for them through the pilot while he was there. Even so, after we took off they still thought they had been mistreated. They held a grudge over the incident for years afterwards.

After we took off, the pilot circled our village several times, gaining height each time, until we could see over the mountain range. We were very surprised to see lots of clear patches of ground and asphalt roads in Sarawak – only a few hours walk away from our village.

The weather was beginning to close in as we headed towards the WEC headquarters at Nanga Lebang. The pilot, George Boggs (George Boggs’ book “Gateway to the Jungle” is available at www.mafgiftshop.org) came down below the ceiling of cloud about 300 metres above the thick jungle. At times we couldn't see anything below at all. George was not sure where we were when we descended over the Kapuas River.

Down below I could make out the Ketungau River mouth and expected George to follow the Kapuas River downstream to our headquarters alongside the Kapuas River, but instead he turned left and headed up the Kapuas River. I tapped him on the shoulder and said that that we had just passed the Ketungau River mouth. However, he must have had other passengers previously who had misled him, so he continued on inland. I checked the fuel gauge and saw that we had plenty of fuel so I sat back and enjoyed seeing some new areas of the interior that I had never seen before!

After we passed the village of Semitau, Woody (Fred Woodward, based in Nanga Lebang) came on the plane radio saying, “Are you looking for us George? We heard your plane come near, but now you are getting a long way away!”

“Where am I from you at present then?” asked George.

“To the east. If you come due west you'll be in our area,” replied Woody.

Planes can be heard a long way off in the interior because there are no other noisy distractions. George immediately banked the Cessna and we headed back down the river. Soon we were in familiar territory and the Nanga Lebang airstrip loomed ahead of us.

Landing at the Nanga Lebang airstrip alongside the Kapuas River.

We stayed overnight at Nanga Lebang that night. The next day we had to get our papers checked out at Sintang, a big town a couple of hour’s journey downstream, before we could leave the area. George was then coming back to pick us up to fly to Pontianak.

The next day George arrived early in the morning. He had been asked to stop at the MAF base of Kelansam on the way out because there was a medical emergency. Someone needed to get to the hospital in Pontianak, so we touched down at Kelansam.

We were wondering how we were going to get everyone onto the plane. The four of us and our suitcases seemed to be a full load! The Indonesian man was not very heavy and he had very little luggage, but even so George had to weigh everything so as not to leave overloaded. Finally he decided to take us all, but said he would have to shed some fuel in order to take off safely. We waited and watched as he siphoned a can of fuel out of each wing. We were now light enough to take off on the one and a half hour leg to the coast. We were in and out of rain most of the way, but when we got over the Pontianak airfield there was a heavy storm. George said we would have to circle and kill time until the weather had cleared enough to land.

The weather really closed in and the rain continued to pour down with no signs of letting up. I began to worry because I was up the front and could see the fuel gauge was already on “Empty”. With a heavy load, an empty tank, and not being able to see the ground, it was a recipe for disaster! Mercifully, the torrential rain eased off and we got glimpses of good old mother earth again. We finally landed safely, but I sometimes wonder what would have happened if that rain had not stopped!

There was a lot of stress on the pilots. George jokingly said one day, pointing to the propeller, “Do you know why the plane has that big fan on the front? It’s to keep the pilot cool, because you should see him sweat when it drops off!”

MAF also made emergency air drops of medicines to remote stations where there was no airstrip. They made a drop of spare parts for the tractor for us once. We had to make a large cross from planks painted white and placed them in the centre of the school’s playing field. The parts landed on target and saved us weeks of waiting. From the air many of the villages and even rivers (if you can see them) look very much alike. It is easy to understand how a pilot could become lost above the green wilderness.

I have a very great respect for the MAF pilots. Much of their time is spent flying in very border-line conditions, and the airstrips are not always satisfactory. Some have bends or mounds in them. Many are nowhere near level. And sometimes the grass would be quite long. Some airstrips are merely shelves cut in the side of mountains.

In our early days there, the grass airstrip at our mission headquarters at Nanga Lebang was a favourite spot for a trader’s cattle. Cattle were uncommon in the interior and were allowed to roam freely. They took a liking to the grass on the Lebang airstrip. Whenever a plane was due to arrive, the missionaries had to go out and chase the cattle off the strip. They were also a nuisance around the mission buildings. They would go under the houses (which were elevated on wooden poles) and bump their heads up against the wood floors – usually in the middle of the night!

A MAN EATING SNAKE!

It is hard to believe that I have seen a man eating snake! But then I also ate some of it myself. Seriously, we had many encounters with snakes.

I was in a hurry to leave in our boat once, and had already fitted the outboard motor onto the boat and rushed back to get my straw hat hanging on a nail on the wall of the small jetty shed. In one hand I held the petrol tank, and with the other I grabbed my hat. I went to put it on, but for some reason the hat felt heavy. Thinking I had put something inside it so I wouldn't forget it, I looked inside and saw a metre-long snake neatly curled up asleep.

I dropped the hat forthwith and went looking for a stick to deal with the reptile. I was fortunate that I didn't put the hat straight onto my head!

On another occasion, I was sitting at our table writing letters home one night. Suddenly our small generator stopped. It did this now and then, because it had been converted from petrol to run on kerosene. It was really made to run only on petrol.

So, in the darkness I took my torch and headed in bare feet across the lawn to the small generator shed. Unfortunately, my torch had bad contacts inside and went out while I was walking. I was shaking it to get some life out of it again when I felt something squirming under my foot! Then I felt that 'something' winding itself around my ankle. It was a snake! I immediately did a record-breaking high-jump and my feet must have been running when they hit the ground! Fortunately, I had not been bitten, as we had no snake-bite kit. Before I did anything else, I fixed that torch properly!

The incident reminded me of the verse in Luke 10:19, “I give you power to tread on serpents and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” Thank God for His protection. His promise is true.

CONSTRICTOR SNAKE

Lingu was a lively teenager and a keen worker, but he’d had very little schooling. He finished school after only three years. Like many in the interior, he could barely read or write. Lingu was planting rice in his friend's wet rice field one day, with several others from his family. The field was little more than a swamp in a valley. The dense jungle grew right up to the edge of the rice field. Lingu was planting the rice near the undergrowth. He didn't realise that just alongside him in the swamp, was a large python that had been disturbed. As soon as Lingu approached, the snake attacked and immediately began to wind itself around his legs. These snakes have lovely colouring, but they are constrictors and kill by squeezing the life out of their prey. They are very strong and grow as long as five metres.

Lingu was caught off guard, but quickly drew out his sharp parang (knife). Although the snake was quickly winding itself around his body, his hands were still free to slash the killer snake while he shouted for help. He was only able to slash at the serpent where it wound itself around his muddy legs. As the snake wound itself tighter, Lingu lost his balance, but he continued to slash away at the reptile. He eventually got in a good blow that broke the snake's back and it released its life-threatening grip. He was saved from being crushed to death, but in his frantic slashing he had sliced his leg open, leaving a large gash in the outside muscle.

Someone tied a kain (cloth) around his bleeding leg to stem the flow of blood. Then they had to carry Lingu for over an hour back to their village. Other members of his family quickly gathered up the snake meat and carried it home for the evening meal. They were all worried about the bleeding, but fortunately they resisted the temptation to unwind the makeshift bandage. It was too late in the day to get downriver for medical help so he spent the night with his foot propped up on a pile of firewood in the hut.

Unfortunately, heavy rain prevented him from being taken downstream for three days. When the rain eased, he went to the local health worker who gave him penicillin and iron pills.

It was several months before he could walk far and it was at that stage that I met him at our four day teaching course. I asked him about the large scar on his leg and he gave me all the gruesome details. He felt that God had saved his life for a purpose. Soon afterwards, he gave his life to the Lord. Later, he became a key man in his village. The last time I saw him he still had a limp, but he was leading the small group of believers in his village.

Colleen’s Perspective

We had a number of encounters with snakes. Knowing that there were many snakes in Borneo was the one thing that kept me from being willing to surrender to the Lord for a long time while still in Bible College.

It was six months after arriving in Kalimantan that I saw my first snake. Other missionaries had brought snake-bite kits with them, but we New Zealanders don't have snakes in our country, let alone snake-bite kits. God had a job for us to do and He was going to have to look after us and protect us. Despite several close encounters with snakes, He did protect us.

One of our encounters with a snake was on New Year’s Eve. We had travelled down to Merakai to have fellowship with Annette and Bruce and to pick up our three monthly food and fuel supply, and to collect our mail. Everything was loaded into the small houseboat ready to leave the following day. Just after midnight we descended down the dirt path to the houseboat where we were sleeping. It was tied up to the lanting alongside the river.

We got ready for bed. I climbed into the top bunk and was about to blow out the kerosene lamp when I saw something ominous. A snake was coming in through a gap at the top of the wall, near the top of Ken's mosquito net.

I made a hasty retreat to the end of the boat with Ken in hot pursuit. He grabbed a broom nearby, but the snake kept rearing up toward him. There was a real danger of losing the snake amongst all the goods under the floorboards, so we had to deal with it there and then!

Ken wasn't having much success with killing the snake so I yelled out to Bruce. He would have been in bed by then in the mission house. Being an Australian, he was more experienced at dealing with snakes than either of us. He appeared minutes later in long gumboots with a paddle and killed the snake – wrecking the paddle in the process. “That’s taken care of that” he said, throwing the snake into our long-boat, and he went off home to bed. Needless to say it took us a long time to get to sleep because of the adrenalin rush!

In the morning Ken was telling two local men about it and said, “Look, here’s the snake in our long-boat!” The boat was tied alongside the launch and he spied the end of the snake’s tail jutting out from under the cover of the bow. As Ken bent to pick it up, the snake reared its head ready to attack! The two guys looking over his shoulder almost overbalanced as Ken jumped back. All three of them just about ended up in the water! The snake must have only been stunned. However, the Lord kept it from re-entering our boat.

I think there must have been countless times like this when our Father was protecting us from danger.

HIDDEN PASSENGER

We had been building another room onto the house at Riam and needed to go downriver to get some ironwood piles for the building. Colleen went with me in the long-boat.

The trip was uneventful until it came to unloading the logs. We were struggling up the bank, going carefully up the notched log that formed the ‘stairs’ to get to the top of the riverbank. Colleen was in front of me carrying one end of a log, and I was carrying the other end. When we were part way up the bank, a snake suddenly dropped out of the log behind Colleen's hand and slithered past my feet. I didn't say a word because I knew that if I had, she would have dropped the log and we may have both been hurt and ended up in the river! Again God had His hand on us.

I was reminded of God's protection again, some time later. I was out trekking to a village in the Silat area, located over the mountains. We had a four hour stint ahead of us and I was sharing my testimony with a national worker accompanying me.

Suddenly I saw a black snake with its head raised ready to strike, heading straight for me. I jumped back instinctively, but as I did so I saw something amazing – the snake actually disappeared from its head to its tail as it advanced; as though it disappeared under something invisible. We couldn’t believe it and both looked around for the snake, but it had disappeared and there was nowhere it could possibly have hidden. It could only have been God protecting us.

We went on our way rejoicing at His loving favour. The verse in Job Chapter One came to mind, where it says that God made a hedge of protection around Job on all sides. On our return journey a few days later, we checked out the spot again and there was no place the snake could have hidden as it had happened in a small clearing – it could only have been God’s power protecting us.

One morning, in the semi-darkness of our house, I was opening the shutters that closed the windows. The shutters were lifted up to close them, and had to be lifted up a little then dropped to the floor level to open them. This time though, I couldn't lift the shutter free. I tried a couple of times, and then gave it a big heave and it came down. With it came an angry snake that dropped onto my arm and slithered across my foot to escape out the front door! The Dayaks living in our spare room quickly caught it and made a meal out of it.

STING IN THE TAIL

Apart from these instances, and lots of other snake deliverances, we also had brushes with poisonous scorpions. Even though our house was built on piles about two metres above the ground, we still had lots of unwanted guests from the reptile and insect world. They kept us on our toes!

One time, after a gruelling journey travelling all day on the river, we got back to our house in the dark. The usual nightly rainfall had just begun. While Colleen lit a kerosene lamp, I went into the dark bathroom to put the plug in the tank that collected rain water from the spouting.

I knew the plug was in the bottom of the tank so I felt around in the dark for it. We always emptied it if we were going to be away for a while so that it would not overflow while we were away. Despite feeling around the bottom of the tank, I couldn’t find the plug, so I went back out for a torch.

When I returned, and could see clearly into the tank, I was shocked to see a large black scorpion in the bottom of the tank, with its tail raised ready to sting! I wondered how close my hand must have been to the beast. A scorpion sting can be deadly. Again, I could only thank God for His protection. The black scorpions in Borneo are large; 10 cms (4 inches) in length, while the brown ones are much smaller. One time we had the Phillips family staying with us, and when Judy Phillips picked up a damp face cloth she found a small scorpion inside it. She was thankful that she saw it before wiping her face.

These stories recount only a few of the times we saw God protecting us. We often wonder how many times in our daily lives He protected us from danger without our even realising it.

THE ANTS GO MARCHING ON

Ants were another annoying creature that we lived with. There were at least six different varieties of ants that we knew of. Some were up to 30 millimetres (just over an inch) long. Their tireless activity in the heat of the tropics always amazed me. In the kitchen we had to keep sugar, jams and anything remotely sweet in airtight containers or in the refrigerator to keep them away from the ants.

In our second term at Nanga Entibab we had myriads of soldier ants swarm through our house almost every day, following the same trail. They entered on one side of the house, and exited at the same location on the other side, going along the electric wire from our house to the small generator shed. We tried all sorts of tactics to stem this unwanted flow of insects and killed literally shovelfuls of them at a time. Finally we decided to admit defeat and just live with them. After a year or so they left a dirty trail across the wooden walls on their never ending journey. One old Dayak man told me that they follow a large circle, and that was the reason we saw so many millions of them.

There are red, almost transparent, ants about 20 millimetres long that are a delicious treat for the local Dayaks. In the jungle, the Dayaks would scrape them off stems and put them straight into their mouths alive, while searching for more! They said the ants tasted like lemon juice. It was a treat I never tried.

At night, the fire ants would be moving about in their hoards. You find out why they are so aptly named when one bites you. Fire is the right word! Once when we left a Dayak hut to attend a church meeting, a church leader had someone holding the church pressure lamp up high so that the group of us could all see the clay track. Soon there were shouts from the front of the line from people crossing over a trail of fire ants. Everyone ran across the patch of angry ants, yelping as they felt the stings. My scanty footwear was no protection, but we were all quite used to putting up with the bites. They feel very much like a bee sting. Other biting ants were small and lived in the trees. Their bite was not as bad as their fiery relatives.

In our last term on the field we had to deal with white ants – termites. They would come up the poles of the house and eat paper and timber during the night. We used to paint the poles of the house with insecticide mixed with grease, however the ants built a tunnel over the grease. At night we could hear them gnawing away and we would wonder what was being eaten. We lost a lot of good books. The books were consumed from the inside out. They left a shell because they hated the light (“because their deeds were evil”)! We stood the legs of our furniture in engine oil in small tins to discourage the ants. If anything was stored for a while, they seemed to know about it and had a field day eating it.

Bugs also lived in the bark that was on the walls of the houses. If you were leaning on the bark for a few minutes, the insects would bite through your shirt. We soon replaced the internal bark walls in our house with 3-ply. This worked much better for internal walls. In the Dayak houses I learnt early on that when choosing a place to sit on the floor, that it was best to lean against an upright pole instead of leaning on the bark between the poles.

We had our fair share of ticks, lice, fleas, leaches and other parasites over the years. You had to keep an eye out for these little creatures that I grouped with what the Bible calls, “noisesome pestilences”. We heard that one missionary friend found that she could keep free of the fleas that crawled up her legs, by wearing a cat's flea collar around each ankle.

Of course the mosquitoes found us to be fair pickings, especially Colleen. We were plagued by an endless supply of them after sunset. Sometimes we were forced to retreat inside our mosquito nets in order to read at night. While we were trying to sleep in the heat of the night we would hear swarms of mosquitoes trying desperately to get into our net. We learned not to squash the mosquitoes onto the netting because large cockroaches would then eat the portion of blood soaked cloth, leaving a hole for the mosquitoes to enter.

Our Dayak neighbours would burn a stomach-churning, smelly bark under their bamboo floors to thin out the mosquitoes. I noticed that it also thinned out the humans and I'm sure that it was not good for one’s breathing apparatus! Mosquitoes carry malaria and other blood diseases that are left in your blood stream after they have bitten you. We all had bouts of malaria to contend with, even though we each took a weekly malaria prophylactic drug to keep the disease at bay.

In the jungle, night time is party time for the insects. As the sun quickly sets, a noisy chorus begins and continues all night long. We found that if we wanted to make a tape recording we had to forget about doing it at night because of the background screeching sound effects. During the day there were what we called “sawmill beetles”. They sounded just like a large circular sawmill and could be heard a kilometre away. There were also large toads that made a racket similar to someone hitting the bottom of a large saucepan. We never got to see those though.

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

My loneliest time was when I was away trekking amongst the villages, a long way from our home at Riam Sejawak, soon after we had set up base. I had given away my last tablet to the needy folk in the villages when I fell ill myself with a bad dose of malaria. I had to borrow back some Chloroquine to break the fever as I was shivering and then sweating, with aches all over my body.

The Dayaks had gone out to their rice-fields and only an old couple was left in the hut to look after me. I tried at one stage to go outside to urinate, but when I tried to stand up, I was so dizzy that I knew I would never make it down the notched pole to the ground. So I had to do what the Dayaks do sometimes – use the gaps in the bamboo floor I was lying on. I had to spend two days writhing on the Dayak's floor before I was fit enough to even consider walking about.

Colleen had no idea where I was, and there was no way of letting her know that I'd be back later than intended. Malaria is one of those sicknesses where at first you are afraid that you're going to die, then later when it gets really bad, you're afraid you're not going to die!

On the third afternoon I was well enough to walk back to the nearest village, but I soon encountered floodwaters. The water became deeper and deeper the further I progressed. Finally I was waist deep most of the time and had to balance my backpack on my head. At that point I was considering returning to the village of Muakan, but realised that I wouldn't make it before dark. I knew the next village was on higher ground, if only I could get there. Just then I heard the sound of someone wading through the water behind me. Soon a Dayak came into view carrying a heavy Dayak pack on his head. He said, “Don't turn back now, Tuan. We are not far from my village.”

We struggled on for a while and found an old abandoned hut used by rice planters. Its floor was just above the floodwaters so my friend said, “Wait in here with my pack. I will swim to the village and come back for you with my canoe.” By this time it was dark. I was shivering with the after-effects of the malaria combined with onset of exposure from the immersion in cold water. I was sitting alone in that little hut fighting off a myriad of insects that were escaping the rising water. It seemed like hours before I heard the clunk, clunk of a Dayak paddle hitting a sampan (dugout canoe). When I saw the kerosene lamp coming through the jungle it was a really welcome sight!

Fifteen minutes later we were sitting in the Village Chief's hut. He had called the Dayaks to gather for a time of teaching in the central meeting house. Although I felt half dead, I taught a message from the Bible and then had a welcome meal with the Chief. I certainly had a good night's sleep that night, even though I slept on the hard wooden floor.

The next day I trekked for two hours after the morning meeting, in order to reach my boat at the main Ketungau River. But when I arrived, I found that my boat was no longer there. Somebody was using it. I had to wait for it to return and I was hoping it would be back well before dark. When it did arrive, it must have been about 4.30 pm, and I estimated that I could make it back home before darkness fell at 6 pm.

I only had my 2 horsepower outboard because the water had been very low when I left home. I didn't realise that the water was now rising in that area and that meant that it was going to be slow going with lots of logs floating towards me. I soon came to a large floating tree that was jammed totally across the river. I wondered which end of it I should aim at passing. I chose the leafy end and somehow managed to keep the boat upright while squeezing my way through the foliage.

It was well into the night when I pulled up to the lanting at Riam Sejawak and breathed a sigh of relief. There is nothing darker than a Kalimantan river on an overcast night!

Colleen’s Perspective

On one occasion I went with Ken to Muakan, a very spiritually dark village inland from the village of Senaning. It was at least a four hour trek in the 100% humidity and around 30 degrees Celsius. Whenever we came to a small log crossing a stream or swamp, I could not cope with carrying a bag as well as performing a balancing act walking across the 15cm (6 inch) wide log. Ken would graciously take my overnight bag along with his backpack and go on ahead.

The narrow tracks meant we had to walk in single file. It was very muddy, with long grass higher than us on either side of the track. At times we passed through dense jungle. It was a bleak day with periodic showers. I can remember complaining inwardly as I clambered over yet another log to cross a stream. I was imagining the Lord's hand outstretched to help me across. “What on earth am I doing here?” I questioned. I had had enough. The answer came back from the Lord, “I brought you here to tell these people that I love them.” Immediately I felt rebuked and the journey was forgotten as we shared the Gospel story that evening. Almost everybody in a village would attend the meetings. After all, we were the only white people in the area and we had to be checked out! It became a privilege to be the Lord's ambassador to the Dayak tribal people.

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

In our early days, the Indonesian Government was especially concerned about Communist infiltration from Sarawak and there were army posts right throughout our area. All the soldiers were armed, but they seemed rather disorganised and spent most of the day playing cards or hunting with their high-powered rifles.

The Government and Army posts were dotted along the rivers and we had to report on where we had been, where we were going to, and why. Nobody was allowed past these posts without the correct documents that had to be signed by the officials. We had to carry a letter called a Surat Jalan (Travel Document) from our Village Chief allowing us to travel. This letter had to be signed at every Army post we were travelling past. My document for just a one way trip would have ten stamps and signatures on it! This slowed down travel somewhat.

One boat from Riam Sejawak sailed straight past one of the Army posts and within a few seconds shots were being fired across their bow! Sometimes when I called at a government post I would find the man on duty had gone fishing and had to be located in order to sign my documents. On top of all of this, there were often people at the Army posts wanting to catch a ride. We usually had very little freeboard on the boat, making travel slow and more dangerous.

The Indonesian Government does not recognise the rampant animism of Borneo as a religion. They decreed that all Indonesians must choose one of six religions. So the Dayaks in the jungles of Borneo had to choose a religion, often with no knowledge whatsoever of what the religion was about. Due to this, whole villages are listed as Catholic, Muslim or Protestant. As missionaries, we were only allowed to evangelise individuals who had already listed themselves as Protestants or hadn’t yet made a decision.

In our later years, the Government gave monetary aid to villages that built their own churches or mosques. The Dayaks were keen to get their hands on these funds and began building church buildings. One such village with only a handful of believers began to build, but soon lost interest in gathering the jungle materials because they were not being paid up front. The Village Chief (not a believer) visited the Government Leader downriver and told him that they had now built their church and asked for the money to pay for the materials.

In actual fact, the building was barely half finished. The Government Official was quite cunning and said, “Oh! That's great. I'll come up next week and officially open the new church. Then I will be able to pay you the subsidy.” The Village Chief made a record breaking trip back upstream and told everyone to drop everything and get that church building finished right away, if not sooner! The building was finished in a couple of weeks. However, the official never turned up. Several months later he sent a deputy to open the building because the elections were coming around.

When it is time for “Elections” in Kalimantan Barat the Government plies the area’s leaders with battery operated TV sets, or diesel generators. These turn up just before the elections on the condition that the whole village votes for the ruling Government party. The Village Chiefs only agree to their people voting for the government if they receive these things in their hands before the election date.

Unfortunately, the TV's and generators are soon rendered inoperable by gross misuse and lack of maintenance, so they are of no long term benefit to the Dayaks.

DISAPPEARING FUEL

Sometimes our boat was so loaded down in the water that we would use up more fuel than expected and we would end up having to paddle the last few hours in the dark. Petrol was hard to get in the interior and it often contained kerosene or water.

On one trip up to Riam we could get no further than the village of Bekuan with a 50 gallon drum of fuel. So, we left the drum in the care of the Village Chief, telling him under no conditions to let anybody use it. I told the Chief that I would be back when the water rose to take it up to our village. However, when we returned for it three weeks later, there was nothing left in it except rusty water in the bottom of the drum!

In those days in Indonesia, the price of kerosene was much cheaper than petrol. Many of the petrol engines in the interior had been modified to use kerosene to take advantage of the lower cost over petrol. It was also safer to handle kerosene than benzene. However, kerosene gives less power and the motors have to be pre-heated on petrol until they are hot, otherwise the kerosene will not vaporise and the engine will not run.

Some of the locals wanted to buy petrol from our supply and we were in danger of not having enough to return downstream. So we negotiated to buy a drum for them so that we would always have enough for ministry among the many villages around us.

When the petrol and kerosene drums were being filled on our mission launch in Pontianak we had to be careful that the person filling the drums put the right fuel into the right drum. Red drum tops were for petrol, blue were for kerosene and yellow were for diesel.

On one occasion after returning home with our allotted drums, Colleen took some kerosene out of the drum to fill our small wick lamp. On lighting it, the flame flared up unusually high. She immediately reacted and blew it out She knew that something wasn't right. When I heard about it, I inspected the drum, and discovered that it was full of petrol and not kerosene. The petrol had been put into the wrong drum. There could have been dire consequences that don't bear thinking about! One New Tribes missionary filled their kerosene fridge with petrol by mistake, and on lighting it, the fridge exploded and was thrown across the room almost setting fire to the house.

AN AMERICAN GUEST

In 1977 Elwin Palmer, the USA WEC mission Leader at the time, came to Kalimantan to get an overview of the work and to be the guest speaker at our annual conference.

During the conference, Elwin had said that he would like to visit a small village. Since we had a new airstrip and his time was limited, it was arranged that he would fly up to Riam with Colleen and I. After a brief stay, I would take him back downstream by boat to Merakai, our nearest missionary neighbours. On our way down to the conference we had left our outboard motor and boat at Merakai and travelled to headquarters with the Rattrays in the larger Utusan Injil. So, because we would now be flying back home to Riam instead, it meant that we had to borrow Bruce's 20 horsepower outboard motor in order to get down to Merakai with Elwin. We took the outboard motor with us on the plane. Bruce's long-boat was already at Riam and this would be used to get us back to Merakai.

While Elwin was staying with us, he came down with malaria. He lost a couple of days lying on his back with a high fever and unfortunately missed out on seeing much of the area. He had recovered by the time we had to go downstream to Merakai.

It was the dry season and despite our prayers, the water was very low and it was painfully obvious that the trip to Merakai would take two full days of hard labour. At first light we attached the outboard motor onto Bruce's boat and left the three logs that formed our floating jetty. The river water was a dark brown colour with logs and sandbars showing everywhere. We had only been travelling for ten minutes before we hit a small submerged log. This was quite normal and would not normally have been a problem, but Bruce's boat was old. We suddenly found the boat was filling up with water! I headed immediately to the nearest sandbar where we unloaded and checked the boat. We found that one board had rotted out under the paint and was now pushed in, leaving a gaping hole near the bow of the boat!

While we were surveying the scene, some villagers gathered from Pangkalan Parit, the village just opposite the sand bank. Pak Maruk, the trader there, said we could borrow his boat which was about the same size as Bruce’s. Earlier I had repaired his diesel engine and he felt he owed me one. We gratefully accepted Maruk’s offer and transferred our gear and got under way again. Maruk’s boat was built on top of a dugout canoe. It was rather unstable and with a little throttle the front would go way up and the stern deep down, so I was not able to get up much speed. The propeller was so deep in the water that we were continually breaking shear pins making it very slow going. In addition to this, Bruce's motor would not run slowly without cutting out. So I spent a lot of time re-starting the motor, in addition to changing propeller pins.

I had warned Elwin to wear a long sleeved shirt and wide hat to protect his skin from the harsh tropical sun, but I never thought about his feet! He was in and out of the boat all day helping to pull the boat over the logs and sandbars so he had discarded his sand shoes. With the sun shining on his unprotected feet, they soon turned red with sunburn.

After a long day of battling the river, we approached the village of Bekuan where we had a church of about 100 believers. I knew the next village was another hour or more away and with the sun getting low, I felt we must stay overnight at Bekuan. The Village Chief was an old friend and welcomed us. He gave orders for the big brass gong to be sounded to call the people in from the rice fields for a meeting. His wife supplied a lovely meal of chicken and rice and then folk began arriving for the meeting in the Village Chief’s house. Elwin spoke after the usual singing and prayer, and I interpreted from English to Indonesian with the odd sentence in the local dialect. It was about 11:30 pm when counselling finished and we were able to retire.

The Village Chief had purchased a sponge mattress from downriver for his own use. He offered the mattress to the visiting American. This left me to sleep on a grass floor mat on the bare floor as usual! I was fairly used to sleeping on a mat by this stage, and after a hard day on the river I had no trouble falling to sleep. Normally we would have held another meeting the following morning in their church, but as we had to be at Merakai that night for a meeting, we told the folk that we would have to leave at first light. We were still less than half way to Merakai, but the Ketungau River became wider further downstream and that should have made travelling quicker. After another hour of chomping through sand and submerged timber in the water, I was having trouble removing the propeller to change the pins. Bruce's propeller was very old and instead of cutting the pins cleanly, it tended to bend them over, making it very difficult to remove the propeller from the shaft.

This all took a lot of extra time and the problem worsened as we went on. It seemed that we spent more time drifting and fixing machinery than actually travelling! I finally resorted to using the 2 horsepower outboard motor for the last part of the trip, but that also made the journey extremely slow. Darkness fell and we were still at least an hour away from Merakai. Without daylight we had to be extra cautious if we were to get there that night. It must have been nearly 9 pm when we finally arrived and tied up at Merakai. The church meeting was well over by then. It was disappointing, but there was nothing we could do about it.

The next day Elwin had to go down to our headquarters in the mission launch. That would take most of the day. He flew out from there to Pontianak and on to Jakarta. I was told that Elwin was still not able to even wear jandals or flip-flops because of the sunburn on his feet. I was kicking myself for not looking after our guest properly.

At that time we were the most remote of the WEC Kalimantan missionaries, being three days river travel from our headquarters at Nanga Lebang. Later on a WEC couple moved further inland from the village of Semitau and located a base five days journey from headquarters. They had no airstrip, so it was difficult for them to get to and from headquarters.

There was generally no quick way of getting around in Kalimantan Barat. There were always folk waiting for a ride to another village, with the usual accompaniment of pigs, chickens or rubber. Even when we were in a hurry Dayaks would recognise the sound of our outboard from afar and would wave us over to ask if we had medicines to help them. We would give them medication and advice, and pray over the sick before moving on. Then the same procedure would often begin again not much further along. Sitting in a long-boat for hours in the harsh sun or in a tropical downpour is not much fun after a year or two.

Colleen’s Perspective

When Elwin Palmer came to Kalimantan to speak at our yearly field conference, the children had already met him. We asked them what he was like. “He has got really white feet!” they said! We were tanned all year round, so his white feet had impressed them.

He came and stayed for three days at our home in Riam Sejawak and while there, sadly, he contracted a dose of malaria. When Ken took him back to our headquarters he forgot to tell Elwin to cover his white feet. They were in and out of the boat all day, pushing the long-boat over sandbars and logs. The poor man had badly sunburned feet and couldn't wear his shoes when flying across to Java. He later wrote an article in the “Worldwide Thrust” magazine, dated October 1977. The heading of the article read, “Kalimantan: Only Soldiers Need Apply.” He was right! His article began:

“Perhaps our workers in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand shielded me, as a tender home-staffer, from the rigors of life and ministry in their settings. Maybe this is why when I got to Kalimantan I got my first real taste of culture shock. Was it due to the stark reality of deplorably unhygienic living conditions? Did the equatorial sun and high humidity, coupled with a severe dose of dysentery, compounded by a malaria attack make their contributions as well? Perhaps. Whatever those factors, I can think of nothing in the whole setting that appeals to the flesh. Anyone lacking the constraining love of Jesus Christ should not consider serving on the Kalimantan field. Paul’s admonition to young Timothy has to be the watchword of our 23 workers there: “Thou, therefore, my son… endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” How long must you endure? As long as you expect to remain in Kalimantan…”

SETTING OUT IN FAITH

We went on furlough to New Zealand in 1977 for a year. Dave and Judy Phillips (from Alaska) had replaced us at Riam Sejawak. Before we left, I was waiting with them at Merakai for a sufficient rise in the river’s water level to get their belongings to the village in the loaded “Utusan Injil” (Gospel Messenger) inboard boat.

Being a larger boat, it needed the river level to be high. Each day we would measure the water level, but despite our prayers there was no change. We continued to pray for rain further upstream from Riam. The next morning our stick in the river bank registered a half metre rise, so Dave and I began to prepare the boat. We put last minute things into the Utusan so that the next morning we could get an early morning start upstream.

Bruce heard us at work and came down to the boat and asked us what we were doing. We replied, “The water level is on the rise so we are preparing to leave in the morning.”

Bruce said, “There hasn't been enough rain for this boat to get up there yet, I'm afraid!”

But both Dave and I had faith that God had answered our prayer. We finally talked Bruce into taking off upriver in spite of the low river level, with him pessimistically saying, “This water will run out by the time we get to Nanga Beloh, I tell you!”

When we reached Nanga Beloh some two hours later, the water was still rising and was quite swift flowing. This confirmed that it was still rising. The further we went upstream, the higher the water level became. By nightfall at the village of Ensamboi it was almost in flood, as the water reached the top of the riverbank. We only had about seven more hours to go the following day.

We finally arrived at Riam Sejawak at 4 pm the next day. The water was well over the high bank. God had answered our prayer and given enough water to get the big load right to the village.

Dave and I knew in our hearts that it was right for us to leave when we did. We had prayed in faith and felt sure that the small rise in the water level at Merakai was the answer we had been waiting for. Meanwhile Colleen, who was still in Riam Sejawak, had called the church together two nights previously to pray for the necessary rain to bring up the water level so that we could go upstream. She woke in the middle of the night hearing rain beginning to fall. It got steadily heavier and continued throughout the next day. She knew that the Lord had heard their prayer. It was no surprise to her or the friends who had prayed with her, when the boat with the Phillips aboard arrived at the village.

Bruce had to leave again well before dark. The water level had already begun to fall and he wanted to get as far downstream as he could, before staying overnight en route.

Typical view of a village from the river.

WITCHDOCTORS

Colleen always kept busy with the medical clinic and ministry to the local women. As a result, I often trekked alone once I had learned the track from the local men. Dayaks were often surprised to find a lone white man in the jungle and sometimes asked “Aren't you afraid walking on your own?” I would answer, “Why should I be afraid? God is here with me.”

Even the hardened Iban were afraid to travel in the jungle alone. “Evil spirits lurk in the heavy jungle” they would say. There were lots of evil omens that they had to beware of if they wished to avoid danger. For instance, if they heard a certain bird cry, they had to abandon their plans for that day and return to their village immediately, otherwise they believed there would be serious trouble ahead for them.

One of the first believers, Markus, knew this superstition was a waste of time and he set out to prove it. While he was out hunting with two other Dayaks, they heard the bloodcurdling laugh of this bird and immediately his two friends ran back home. Markus stayed and shot the bird down. That night he cooked the meat to eat with rice and he invited the two friends to eat with him without telling them what they were eating. After the meal, they leaned back against the bark wall and talked.

They asked Markus what meat they had eaten. When he told them, they were shocked and ran off into the night to tell the village elders! The elders held an emergency meeting in the morning to discuss what should be done to appease the evil spirits that they thought would be angered by these actions.

The witchdoctor warned of doom for the whole village and predicted people dying etc. But even months later there were no signs of a great catastrophe of any kind and finally the villagers began to realise that the birds had no special powers after all. So this undermined some of their long-held beliefs, and the young people especially, no longer believed in the old ways. As the Dayaks believed in God, more and more were released from bondages like these.

When the Dayaks trust in Jesus, they usually do away with any fetishes. Sometimes these were burned in a church meeting or in their home, with friends and relatives present. It is not an easy step for someone who has trusted in these things since birth, to then begin trusting in a God they can't see.

At birth the Dayak baby is named by the witchdoctor, who then ties a fetish around the baby's wrist, ankle or neck. The parents are warned that this should never be removed; otherwise the child would have no protection and could even die. The expectant mother was also expected to wear a fetish around her stomach to protect the unborn baby.

The whole of the Dayak’s life is taken up with protecting themselves from evil powers, which are said to bring catastrophes into their lives. Thus they “live all their lifetime in bondage to fear” as the Bible puts it.

One of our Dayak friends paid several sacks of rice to the local witchdoctor for an “extra powerful” wooden icon to protect his family. But when he became a Christian he wanted to burn the icon in the fire. The witchdoctor had told him, “There is no way that it will burn.” But when it was put into the fire it burned like any other piece of wood, and the believer realised that it had no power at all. He said to me that he felt he had been swindled!

We found that the witchdoctors were afraid of us and avoided us, so we never had an open confrontation with them. But I am sure that many tried to put a curse on us, obviously without success.

Some of them certainly do have satanic powers that bring people into bondage, but a lot of them use trickery and manipulation to gain power. When the Dayaks believe in Jesus and are freed from the witchdoctor's powers, it is a great victory. However, if the new believer doesn’t receive ongoing teaching, they sometimes revert to a mixture of animism and Christianity. For instance, they may tie a Bible above their house door for protection, plant a cross in the centre of their rice field, or bury a Bible in the seeds of rice they are about to sow to ensure a good crop. We emphasised that if you are in God's family, He protects His children.

Believers in the village of Tanjung Luar proved that God could cancel out or over-ride witchcraft. The witchdoctor there was angry with one man called Iti who was refusing to pay him because Iti was now a believer. In a heated argument the witchdoctor pointed his finger at his debtor and declared, “You will die.” With that, poor Iti dropped to the ground as if dead.

Onlookers rushed to the prostrate man as the witchdoctor stormed off. Iti was gagging as though he couldn't breathe and was unable to move at all. Fortunately, the leader of the small church group came running. He laid his hand on the stricken believer and with his other hand in the air, loudly commanded the evil powers to be gone in the name of Jesus.

Almost immediately, Iti was able to move and breathe freely. He had totally recuperated by the next day when I arrived. This experience shocked the believers there, but God brought good out of it. Previously Iti was only half-hearted in his belief. He had burned his fetishes in front of the other believers, but had secretly kept one, “just in case”. After this episode, Iti stopped playing with religion and made a full commitment to Jesus.

The whole thing was a stark lesson to anyone who was trying to have one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom of God. As the locals say, “You can't stand in two sampans (canoes) at once.”

The big question from the group later that day was: “Does Iti have to pay the witchdoctor for his services?” That cornered me for a second or two! Then the Holy Spirit said, “Jesus paid taxes to non-believers.” So that was my answer. Iti had to pay his debt of one pig!

There are many cruel restrictions placed on Dayaks if they wish to appease the evil spirits. Witchcraft is also used by young people to find a partner, and sometimes this causes them to become demon possessed. They end up having to be caged like an animal and are only fed when they scream for a long time. Kalimantan witchcraft is bound up with Islam. The witchdoctor will sometimes write something in Arabic on a paper and tell the patient to boil the paper with certain leaves, and then drink the concoction for healing. The incantations are also in Arabic.

Often a longhouse would have a fetish hanging in its highest point under the wooden roof. This was supposed to protect all who lived under the roof. When a family trusted in the Lord, it was very difficult for them to continue to live under that roof daily, and they had to build their own separate hut.

Some Dayaks who came to us for healing also went to the witchdoctor without our knowledge. As a result there was no healing. At other times folk who truly trusted in Jesus were healed and that drew others to follow Him.

Colleen’s Perspective

One of our first believers amongst the children in Riam Sejawak was a girl named Rubina. She was eight years old and the only surviving child of the Village Chief.

One evening, our neighbour came to our house and invited us to come to a village meeting that night. “What is it about?” Ken asked. The weary Iban man sat down by the door and revealed what had been happening. Several years earlier a curse had been put on the Village Chief and ever since that time the Chief had lost a child each year. Six moons earlier, Rubina's only brother had drowned in a freak accident at the village’s lanting (a log raft at the side of the river). This happened not long before we arrived.

Rubina was now their only remaining child and the village folk wanted to place her into another family and change her name, to outwit the evil spirits. We explained at the meeting that Rubina now belonged to Jesus. God was now her Father and He would protect her from harm. She didn’t need to be put into another family or have her name changed. After a lot of discussing and arguing the issue at the meeting, the villagers agreed to let her stay in her family. We broke the curse in the name of Jesus and forbade the enemy from touching Rubina in any way because she now belonged to Jesus and had His protection. Some of the old folk were not in agreement with this 'new fangled Western’ procedure, but at last they said “We'll wait and see what happens”.

The Village Chief did have attacks on himself including bouts of sickness that proved to be undiagnosable and sounds of banging on his house walls at night. Rubina herself never had any problems. The last time we heard of Rubina she was 20 years old and was finishing Teacher’s Training College in Pontianak. She is a living testimony to the power of Jesus over satan.

CULTURE SHOCK

People in New Zealand often asked us if we experienced culture shock when we first went to Kalimantan. The answer is that yes, we did, but not as much culture shock as we experienced when returning to New Zealand! We were somewhat prepared for the culture shock in Borneo, we knew what to expect there. However, when we went back to New Zealand on furlough after being away for four years, we hadn’t anticipated the big changes we encountered. We noticed that everything was far more expensive, but far more shocking, was the degradation in moral standards which would have passed unnoticed when living in the society. We also had to get used to speaking only in English instead of campuring our bahasa (mixing the two languages together), which as missionaries, we did all the time. It took me a few days to remember the English word for persamaan (similarity) when I was preparing a sermon in English!

A new family photograph and prayer card were made and distributed while we were on furlough in 1977:

We all found it hard to relate to westerners and vice versa back in our home country. A few years make quite a difference and now most Mission Societies recognise the fact that it takes a missionary 3 years to get re-orientated with the way of life in a western culture on returning  home. So we weren't odd after all!

GOD’S SUPPLY

“Make your requests known to God” the Bible says, and that is what we did. We never asked anyone for funds – not for the children’s boarding school costs, MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) flights, airfares to and from the field, or for our daily living expenses in all our years with the WEC mission. Our God supplied more than enough and we always had sufficient to be able to be a channel in giving to others.

We sold our house and possessions and gave them to God and He has given it back many times over. We never completely ran out of funds. Although we couldn't see where the money would come from, it always arrived in time. The four of us lived this way for 18 years. They were exciting years. I often realise what a blessing is missed by missionaries or ministers on salaries. It is a thrill to be supplied directly from the hand of God Himself!

A NEW AREA

One day Pak Randuk was splitting firewood in the Silat area when the wood slipped and his razor sharp jungle knife cut his hand badly. He ran back to his village of Nanga Entibab holding his hand, but even in the village no-one could completely stop the bleeding. They knew that the only way to fix his hand was for Randuk to be stitched up by a doctor. The nearest town for that was Sintang on the Kapuas River, two or three day’s journey downstream. It took five hours of paddling the dugout canoe to get him out of the Silat River and into the main Kapuas River. It was still light enough for Randuk and his friend to make out the name of a passing boat on the Kapuas River. It was the WEC mission boat being taken upstream by Fred Woodward (Woody). They frantically waved their paddles in the air to catch his attention because they had heard that missionaries had medicines.

Although Woody had a trip planned that would take him further up the Kapuas River, he stopped the mission boat and tried to help the Dayaks. He realised that many stitches were needed and because he was not equipped for that, he decided to lay his own plans aside and turned the boat around and took them the day’s journey downriver to the Sintang hospital.

Randuk was very weak from the loss of blood, but they got him to the doctor in time to save his life. While travelling downriver, Randuk had prayed and promised God that if He saved his life he would become a believer and follow Him the rest of his days. He recovered and endeavoured to follow the Lord when he got back to the upper Silat area. He invited Woody to visit them in order to explain the Gospel. Trekking around to as many villages as he could, Woody knew the area needed a fulltime missionary family to be based there to plant churches and help the people to follow the Lord. Pak Randuk and his family (pictured to the right) were still following Jesus the last time I saw them. Pak Randuk still has a large scar on his hand to remind him of his decision. That whole area was really opened up by Woody being willing to change his plans and taking the two days necessary to help Randuk at that crucial time. There is an important lesson here about being available.

Pak Randuk with his wife and 2 of their grandchildren.

It was several years later that a young Australian couple were available to move into the Silat area. Their names were John and Rosemary Callaghan who, along with their young children, based themselves at Nanga Entibab. This was Randuk's own village of around 150 people.

Ken Jordin and I went to Nanga Entibab to help build the Callaghan’s house and after a few months they were able to move in. Their early days at Entibab were not without problems. When moving their belongings upstream, the mission boat sank overnight, drenching all their goods. When the water rose during the night the mooring rope had been too short resulting in the boat sinking.

I believe the family sank three times, losing some of their gear, but escaping with their lives each time. One time, John's 20 horsepower outboard sheared a pin in the Ngeri Rapids and was swept backwards into the rocks, folding the skeg under the stern at right angles. He was fortunate that the transom didn't rip out, which would have sunk the boat.

After the Callaghans had moved in and Christian meetings had begun in the area, Randuk was the first to commit his life to God. His family followed his example shortly afterwards and committed their lives to God also. Later he became the leading elder in the local church. By the time missionaries from WEC had to leave the village, the Entibab church had 24 families attending. By the 1990’s there were nine churches meeting in the Upper Silat area.

Colleen’s Perspective

After a one year break in New Zealand, we returned to Kalimantan in June 1978 for our second term. Instead of returning to Riam Sejawak, we were asked to move to Nanga Entibab in the Upper Silat area. We were to replace the Callaghan family who had been living in the village for nine months, but who had to leave the field due to illness.

The house at Nanga Entibab was large in comparison to our previous one. This was the house that Ken had helped to build when the mission boat had sunk. The house was located beside the Entibab River, which flooded and reached the house at least once a year. However, living near a river was important for a constant supply of water in the dry season.

Our house at Nanga Entibab in the dry season (above) and in the wet season (below).

The house was about two metres off the ground on wooden poles and the outside walls were made from bark – like the Dayak’s houses. It had a long private verandah along the side. In all our houses we had a room where the Dayaks could enter and look at books or pictures and call us if they needed assistance.

We now had a two-way radio with which we could call up our headquarters at an allotted time each day. This was great for keeping in touch with our fellow missionaries and for getting medical advice from the mission hospital at Serukam. Both our children, by then teenagers, were on New Zealand Correspondence School courses so they were living at home with us.

During our time at Nanga Entibab we had a vital ministry to the young people in the area. We held yearly youth camps with young folk coming from afar to attend. The 100 or more young people enjoyed the teaching and fun times together. These camps had never been tried in the WEC area before, but after that they became a yearly event in other areas as well.

The Dayak people did not normally travel far from their villages and we found that Christians were marrying non-believers, so this was a good way for Christians to meet others of the same faith.

One year, World Vision arrived in Pontianak with bales of second-hand clothing from the USA. We had one bale designated for our area. We put it into our long-boat and dragged it through the rapids upstream to give out to the believers in the Silat area. We spread the word around to “come to the church building on Saturday and choose whatever clothing you want to take”. It was usual for a Dayak person to have only one good set of clothes for Sunday church.

Evan and Lynette helped Ken and I sort through all the clothes. There were a few handbags too. We put girl’s clothes in one corner, boy’s in another, women’s and men’s in the other two corners. We found it hard to believe just how many clothes were packed into the big hard bale, similar to a wool bale.

When the time came to open the doors, Evan dressed up in a ladies skirt and blouse with a hat. It was so funny to see the Dayak’s faces when he opened the door and they saw him. They weren’t sure what to think or what to do, but when we laughed, they relaxed and laughed with us! The people had never seen so many clothes before. One man took his trousers off to try on another pair of men’s trousers, and while his back was turned, another man picked up his pair, thought they looked good, and tried to put them on. It was very funny! Our church leader liked a red ladies jacket and came to church wearing it for weeks. We didn't have the heart to tell him that it was a ladies jacket. One man brought his Bible to church each week in a bright yellow ladies handbag!

Our second term in Kalimantan was the most rewarding and fulfilling of our time in Indonesia. I held health and hygiene lessons for the women and taught them how to make toilets. To get the men motivated though, was another story! They couldn't see the point of having a toilet when there were so many bushes around, not to mention the river.

One year we gave Evan a sampan (dugout canoe) for his birthday. He was as good as any Dayak at paddling it. Evan, Lynette, and their friends spent hours in the river! Evan’s one aim was to paddle his sampan all the way to our headquarters at Nanga Lebang on the Kapuas River. When he reached the age of 17 we relented. He took off first thing in the morning when it was still cool. He had plenty of water and some food with him, and the paddling was all downstream.

The yearly conference was coming up and we were to go down ourselves the following week. The journey took longer than Evan anticipated. It was well into the night when he arrived: dehydrated, sunburnt and exhausted. It took him twenty hours. That compares to the five hours by 20 horsepower outboard in a long-boat. He was happy he had finally done it though!

Evan’s Perspective

I received a sampan (canoe) for my thirteenth birthday. Sometimes my friends and I would go for long canoe rides upstream – then when we were tired, we could just float back home. I learned to “jump” logs in the canoe. I became adept at paddling a canoe the Dayak way – feathering the paddle so that I didn’t need to move the paddle from side to side. I enjoyed travelling on the rivers so when I was 17, I paddled my canoe down the Silat River to the WEC mission headquarters on the Kapuas River.

I set off early in the morning and reached the Kapuas River by 4 pm. The shade of the trees along the narrower Silat River’s banks were now gone and the sun’s heat was fierce. I took a break for a while and lay on my back with a towel over my head for shade. Not long after this I heard a boat about 50 metres away and thought I had better check that it wasn’t going to hit me. The boat was headed straight for me and I think their intention was to retrieve what they thought was an abandoned canoe as they couldn’t see anyone in it. Imagine their faces when a white person popped up his head!

I decided to paddle again after a short break. The trip took longer than I had expected and I arrived at the headquarters at around 3 am. I knew how to get into the mission boat and found myself a bed which was very much appreciated! I didn’t suffer much as I recall, just a few blisters on my hands and a rather tender behind from sitting in the canoe for so long. It was a great experience, one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ things.

As children we enjoyed playing in the rivers and we adjusted our play to suit our surroundings. We would sometimes turn the canoe upside down in the water, creating an air bubble underneath it. We would then go under the water and surface inside the air bubble and talk to each other. Those passing by would wonder about the “talking” canoe!

It is surprising that we didn’t get bitten by a small puffer fish called “buntal”. They had a parrot-like beak and were known to take chunks of flesh out of humans. We would keep moving in the water as they were less likely to bite a moving target.

There was less silt in the river water when the water level was low, which meant we could see further under water. In high water you could not see your hand in front of your face. There were also plenty of logs, debris and unmentionables floating down the river to avoid. When we returned to New Zealand, I saw how clean the rivers were, yet some were accompanied by a sign saying the water was too polluted to swim in. That seemed crazy to me!

On the Kapuas River when the water level would go down, mud banks of silt were left behind. We would have great mud fights in the knee deep mud! The ‘fight’ would usually end with one of us getting mud splattered into the face or ears while bending down to get more ammunition.

Simon Rattray covered in mud!

Later in the dry season, the silt would dry to become very hard, 10 metre (30-40 foot) high mud banks. These were excellent for sliding down. We would carry a bucket of water to the top of the slide each time we went down, to keep it slippery. It was pretty hard on our clothes but we loved it! We would make jumps and curves in the slides to make them more fun.

Evan on the mud slide.

Everybody had to learn how to swim. Children learned to swim at a young age so that they would be confident swimmers when needed. We were fortunate not to have any disasters while playing in the rivers. The closest we had to a disaster was when a group of us were sitting on the front of the large mission boat at Nanga Lebang. One of the young children, two year old Christopher Grey, fell off the ledge we were sitting on and tumbled into the river, hitting his head on the wooden catwalk that went around the boat. Fortunately I was fast enough to do a life saving dive into the river and find him under the water. I dragged him to the boat and lifted him up for the others to take him from me, as we were being swept downriver.

Lynette’s Perspective

During our second term in Kalimantan, both Evan and I were enrolled in the New Zealand Correspondence School. We enjoyed it for the most part, mainly because it didn’t take long! We would work for an hour or two each day and have the rest of the day free to do what we really wanted to do. Both of us really missed being with the friends we had grown up with at Serukam. We always wanted to go down to the mission headquarters at Nanga Lebang where the Woodward family lived. We would only get to see them every few months. When we were together, we spent most of the day doing something in or near the river, and in the evenings we played board games, or hide-and-seek games. We looked forward to the annual conferences each year. For us, this meant a week of sleepovers, games, swimming, mud sliding and whatever else we could think of!

The WEC kids at the annual conference in Nanga Lebang in 1975.

Once a year we attended a “Teen Retreat” held at Pasir Panjang (Long Sand) a beautiful beach on the coast between Pontianak and Serukam. This annual event was organized by the New Tribes Mission for teenagers from all the different missions in Kalimantan Barat. There was a large mission guest house right on the beach at Pasir Panjang. It was an amazing beach and the ocean was wonderfully warm! This was a highlight of the year for us as we got to make new friends and have a great time together.

Colleen’s Perspective

The annual conferences at Nanga Lebang were always good times, allowing us to catch up with other missionaries. At one stage there were 26 adults and 11 children. This later dwindled to only a handful as the government stopped issuing visas. There would always be lots to talk and laugh about. The conferences were held when the children were on holiday from school. They enjoyed being together and played for hours in the river; swimming, canoeing and making mud slides. The ages of the children ranged from babies through to 19 year olds. They especially looked forward to our annual conferences when they could be with their friends. They all took care of themselves while the adults attended to business at the conferences.

We always set aside one night of the conference for what came to be known as “Fun Night”. On this night the adults and children would all join together and perform skits and sing songs, accompanied by a lot of laughter! The kids would spend time working out what they were going to do for Fun Night. One year we wrote a Kalimantan version of an old song called “Life Gets Tedious Don’t It?” Lynette and Joan Campbell (a missionary from Australia) performed it, as seen in the photo below.

Once when we were visiting Nanga Lebang and sleeping in the back room of the mission houseboat, I awoke from a sound during the night. I also felt the boat lilting slightly to the side as if someone was walking along the catwalk at the side of it. I got up and peered out through the bars on the window and saw a missionary’s inboard boat passing quietly along the side of the houseboat. I realized something was amiss. There was no sound from the engine and it was moving upstream. I quickly woke Ken and together we hurried as quietly as possible to the front of the mission boat.

"Oi! Mau kemana?" (Hey! Where are you going?) Ken shouted out in the stillness of the night. The two robbers were startled and hurriedly jumped into their canoe and frantically paddled away into the darkness. Fortunately we were able to grasp hold of the boat that was being stolen while it was still nearby. The rope had been cut but we were able to secure it to the lanting again. The boat was new and it would have been a tremendous loss to the ministry.

LIVING WITH THE RIVERS

Bruce met the MAF plane at the airstrip that had been hacked out of thick jungle. It was about half an hour downstream from his house at Merakai. Kel, one of the leading WEC workers from Australia, had just flown in to have a look at the missionary work in the interior of Borneo.

At the end of the airstrip there was a murky backwater that was once a loop in the Ketungau River, and this was where Bruce had moored his long-boat. After the Cessna had taken off over the tree tops, Bruce heaved Kel's luggage into his beat-up old boat. He told Kel to sit right up at the bow to keep the boat more level, and to look out for hidden logs in the water.

On the stern, Bruce had his trusty old 18 horsepower Johnson outboard. With a well-practiced heave, he pulled on the starting cord. The machine leapt into life, but unfortunately, Bruce had forgotten to put the gear lever into neutral before his big pull. With a sudden roar the boat shot out from under him, throwing him, still holding onto the starter cord, over the transom and into the water!

Up at the bow, Kel had no idea what had just happened behind him. He was sitting up the front enjoying the lush jungle scenery as he sped across the water… with his host being dragged along behind the boat still holding the starter cord!

Whenever Bruce tried to call out, his mouth filled with water. He was unable to warn Kel of the problems in the steering department! With no steering, the boat headed straight into the dense jungle, knocking Kel back onto the boat floor. When he pulled the foliage aside to see what his navigator was up to, he was surprised to see Bruce in the water trying hard to regain his breath enough to give an explanation!

Kel didn't know whether these antics were normal or not in Kalimantan river travel, but he helped his water-logged friend back into the long-boat. They both laughed as they realised what had happened and how funny it must have looked!

I sometimes used this story as an illustration of what can happen when we start the day without the “Captain” on board. I find I need to get right through to Jesus each morning before getting wrapped up in the day's activities and making sure that my aims for the day are in line with what He would want me to do.

The incident with Kel reminds me of another time when a missionary was in a commuter airline plane awaiting take-off from the tarmac. The engines were running, the doors had been locked and all the passengers had fastened their seatbelts.

Suddenly there was the sound of hammering on the locked door. As the hammering became louder and more urgent, the hostess looked quickly at her watch. It was well past time to taxi down the runway. As the hammering continued, she decided to quickly open the door. Standing outside the door with a red face was... the Pilot!

MY TRUSTY SHAVER

Usually, when we arrived in a village, we immediately took off our trek-packs while we talked with the leading men. It was common practice for the villagers to go through our packs, remarking on our belongings and looking for something new.

I had a battery operated shaver that was shaped somewhat like a small torch. In one village the Chief's daughter found it and thought she would turn it on. There were frightened squeals and a minor stampede when an unexpected buzz vibrated through her hands. It gave them all a horrid shock and they kept well clear of our gear after that! Later, I explained to them what it was for. They called it an “Alat makan rambut” (device that eats hair)! In each village the locals wanted to try it and the batteries were used up in no time. Batteries were hard to obtain in the interior, so I converted the electric razor to make it rechargeable.

I would usually take my shaver to the river early in the morning wrapped in my towel. I would shave while no spectators were around and would also bathe in the murky river water.

Once Colleen came down to the river and she saw that I had put my clean towel down on the dirty ground so she grabbed it and went to shake the dirt off into the river. I yelled out, “Don't...” but it was already too late... my shaver went hurtling out into the river with an ominous “plop”!

After a little amateur diving, it was recovered and the mud washed out of it. It seemed that it was doomed to be lost in a river, however, because later on it was in my trek-pack that was swept away in another river mishap.

DANGEROUS NGERI RAPIDS

The rivers could rise six metres (20 foot) overnight and sometimes the water in the small tributaries would run backwards from the larger main river when there was localised rain upstream. The river level could also fall by three metres overnight.

One time we had organized an evangelism trip to ten villages and sent word ahead by 'bush mail' with the dates we hoped to be there. However, because of the high water, we had to wait two days in the upriver area in order to get down through the dangerous rapids. Our long-boat, like the usual Kalimantan variety, was about a metre wide by seven metres long and 50 centimetres deep. It was not really made for rapids.

When we saw the river level had begun to drop, we ventured out, but only after sorting out our plan to get through the rapids. When we arrived at the rapids an hour later however, we were shocked to see giant waves thrashing to and fro. But by then, we were committed! Within a couple of minutes our long-boat was half full of water. Despite furious bailing, the level continued to rise. The boat was made of ironwood and would not float so I could see that we were in a potentially perilous situation. We headed the bow into the clay bank in an effort to stop. However, in the turbulence and panic, the bow hit a tree trunk instead of the bank and the bow split from top to bottom. This left us with no mooring rope. Two of us grabbed trees and held on with every ounce of strength we had while another passenger frantically secured another rope to the trees.

Our three Dayak passengers quickly climbed onto the tree’s branches to lighten the boat while the rest of us bailed out the water with anything we could find! One was using a tin enamel plate, another a plastic bucket and I used an old 5 kilogram margarine tin.

Soon we were able to sit down and weigh up our situation. If we could stop the bow leaking, and wait awhile, we knew the water would subside a little and we could still make it out of the rapids by staying close to the river bank.

One of the passengers, Pak Rasau, pushed a stick into the bank to monitor the river level. We watched it to see if the level was falling. Meanwhile we dug some pliable clay from the river bank with a paddle and after kneading it, we forced it into the split bow to stop the leak. We also located a plastic bag and a sack that we tied across the bow to stop the water eating away our “caulking”.

It seemed an eternity before we could be sure that the water was subsiding, but it was really only about two hours. Our repairs worked amazingly well. Just as darkness fell, we finally made it into the village. The villagers were eagerly waiting for us.

We were all thankful to God for His protection that day. We learned a lesson in patience. When we spoke at the meeting and looked at the 200 expectant faces, we knew it had all been worthwhile. Two months later we were able to baptise 14 people in that village.

The next time I came downriver through those rapids, I made sure we were not heavily laden and I only had two Dayak men with us. One was on the bow to steer us into the right position with his paddle, and one was in the centre to bail out the water. We had pre-arranged signs to communicate over the noise of the rapids. Earlier in the week somebody had stolen my spark plugs from the outboard motor while the boat was moored at the river's edge. As a result I was using old, worn out spark plugs, because they were almost impossible to obtain in the interior. The old spark plugs caused the outboard to stop when idling at low speed. Therefore, I was apprehensive about using the outboard in the rapids.

Mercifully, the water was somewhat lower and not as swift as previously. At the top of the rapids there were two shelves about 70 centimetres high crossing the river about 75 metres apart, but there was a three metre gap on the left in the first shelf and a similar gap in the second, but on the opposite side. This meant a quick manoeuvre was necessary to cross from one side of the rapids to the other without being swept sideways over the ledge by the swift current.

We had done this before, but this time we had just passed through the first gap and were beginning to cross over to the other side of the river when the outboard motor suddenly stopped! This immediately put us in danger of going sideways over the lower waterfall.

I yanked frantically on the starter cord. The motor wouldn't start! The swift water was dragging us nearer to the small waterfall each second. Our only hope was to quickly get the long-boat in line with the current. Then we would at least go over the waterfall head-on in the hope of coming out without sinking.

My helper on the bow was already battling to get the boat parallel with the current. He managed to achieve this just before we hurtled over the small waterfall. The bow was right out of the water when we went over. Then to my horror it came down and went right under the water. I thought, “This is it!” Just down the river were enormous waves thundering over large rocks. If we were dropped into them, it would mean an end to our future aspirations in Kalimantan, for sure!

Then, when all seemed lost, the bow rose again as if lifted by an invisible mighty hand. My helper, sitting cross legged on the bow, had broken the main force of the wave coming over the boat and although we got a heavy load of water inside, we were still afloat. With the large waves looming closer I quickly dropped the skeg again and gave the starter cord another desperate yank. It started. I immediately clunked the gear lever into 'forward' and opened the throttle. Within a few breathtaking seconds, we were back to the familiar waters of the channel.

In the boat my other helper was bailing water frantically to keep us afloat. Another 750 metres of hectic manoeuvring remained before we were free of the grips of the dreaded rapids. Finally, when we bounced out at the bottom of the rapids, my friend on the bow thrust his fist towards heaven in a gesture of victory. Once again we had emerged victorious, more by the grace of God than by good management. The beads of moisture on our foreheads were more than just splashes from the river!

Our back packs were thoroughly water-logged, but they were at least still in the boat. There and then I promised myself that I would always have a new pair of spark plugs on hand to replace any that had been stolen. That was the first and last time that Colleen went with us through the Ngeri rapids! After that I always waited an extra day before tackling those rapids when the water level was falling.

I used to tell fellow missionaries about the hazardous rapids in the Silat area, especially the big one called Ngeri, meaning 'Terrible'. One time Bruce Rattray came with us and we had to pass through those same rapids. The water was about average that day, but the rapids were still frightening to a newcomer. When we came to the first of the rapids and saw the white waves thrashing about in all directions, I headed the boat into it and said to Bruce, “Hold onto your hat!” He gripped both sides of the long-boat and prepared himself for a big battle. After 20 minutes of roaring waves, and the screaming of the cavitating engine, we finally came to the top of the rapids and I steered towards a little backwater where we always stopped to dry out.

Bruce was wringing the water out of his hat and said to me, “I see what you mean!” I was very tempted to say, “But wait until we get to the BIG one!”

When we were ready to go back down through the rapids, Bruce asked me if I had checked the spark plugs recently and I said they were fine. Nevertheless he checked them out himself while I was busy. He was taking no chances! We usually felt like we had been over the Niagara Falls in a barrel after going through those rapids! I remember once I had to literally prise my fingers off the outboard throttle from gripping it so tightly.

To get to the Silat River from our house at Nanga Entibab we had to go through the Dankan River rapids. We usually stopped at the top and devised a plan of attack first. We had to make sure we used the same signs to communicate, because a shout couldn't be heard over the roar of the water. Colleen and Lynette would walk along the river bank while Evan and I would lower the boat down the river, stern first, using long ropes from rocks near the river bank. We had to make sure the long-boat never moved side-on to the swift current, otherwise nothing could hold it.

Pulling our boat, with its load of fuel, through the Dankan rapids.

Despite our being very cautious on the rivers, I managed to punch a hole in three boats during our eleven years in Borneo. Nobody was badly injured or killed, so I thank God for His protection. Others lost boats and belongings and barely escaped with their lives.

I learned in my early days to never underestimate the power of water. The Silat River is like a ladder of rapids, one after the other, so when it is in flood very few locals are brave enough to leave the land. Even whole trees are swept cartwheeling down the river when it is in flood.

The Dankan rapids that we had to take the boat through to get to our house at Nanga Entibab.

The same Dankan rapids in flood; a turbulent, seething mass of water hiding the dangerous rocks!

JET BOAT

After battling shallow rivers for years, I decided we had to get a jet boat of some kind. Hamilton Jets were too large for the small winding rivers, so another alternative was needed. While we were in New Zealand on furlough in 1977, we purchased a Berkley Jet and a Rotax motor, along with some printed plans for making speedboats.

On our arrival back in Pontianak, we bought marine ply to make the body of the boat. We had no experience at all in building boats, but Evan and I needed a project to work on together. We worked on building the boat whenever we had spare time.

This work was the source of much amusement for the locals and they had long discussions as to whether it could ever work! The only printed plans we had were for a speedboat, but we soon realised that they would need some drastic changes to be useful in Kalimantan. Eventually we made the boat 40 centimetres narrower and 50 centimetres longer than the plans. These changes should never be attempted, the experts told me. However, this design worked out perfectly. If we ever made another we would have used those same dimensions. Looking back, it could only have been the Holy Spirit guiding us.

When we put the boat to work we found it to be ideal for the job. It even surprised us with its performance. We were able to fly through water that was only 15 centimetres (6 inches) deep, whereas previously we would be dragging the long-boat through the rapids using a rope. It could only carry two people and a small amount of luggage.

We used the boat for about six years until the plywood began to weaken. We then put the jet unit into a small long-boat. This worked well for two people, but it could never take much weight as it would become difficult to manoeuvre in the smaller rivers. Another missionary inherited the jet boat when we left the field.

Evan’s Perspective

We were always trying new and innovative ways to simplify life and make less work in Kalimantan. One of these ideas was a small jet boat. Jet boats were unheard of in Kalimantan at the time. Through gifts from people in New Zealand, Dad was able to buy a 24 horsepower motor and a small jet unit along with plans for building a 10 foot plywood boat.

It didn’t take too long for Dad and I to put it together. When we were finished, I was given the opportunity of taking it on its maiden voyage. It worked well; until I turned a corner. The front seemed to catch and did a spin, the kind of spin that jet boats are well known for! The problem was that this boat would spin when we didn’t want it to; it did a spin when turning any corner. We worked out that we had to make a longer body, and then the boat worked perfectly. It astounded many onlookers as we raced at full speed over shingle with only a few inches of water.

We soon found another problem to fix. Reversing on the jet boat was enabled by a cup-shaped device dropping down into the stream of water, causing a reverse thrust. Dad let me try out the new boat and I took Lynette with me. We were going along nicely when my leg accidentally hit the handle for the reverse. The result was that the reverse cup dropped into the stream of very strong water coming out of the jet unit, forcing us to an immediate halt and making the nose of the boat dive right into the water!

We sat there helpless as we watched the water rise up the windscreen to within two inches of the top. If the windscreen hadn’t been there, we may not be here to tell the story! It must have been funny to see, a boat zooming along and then suddenly stopping and diving into the water with its back lifted right up in the air! We soon fixed the problem so that it would never happen again.

One day Dad took me in the boat with him to try it out. He headed straight for a log lying across the river, just under the surface of the water. But rather than slowing down, he sped up and I thought “Here we go; our new boat is going out with a bang!” However, as we went over the log there was not even a bump; instead it just floated over with a feeling similar to that of air turbulence in a plane. I was amazed at this result, even though I had taken it through three inch deep water myself. This machine was a winner and the answer to the problem of the shallow rivers in the Silat area. It saved hours of travel and was less stressful.

Colleen’s Perspective

During our first furlough a friend gave me a “word” from the Lord: “Have confidence in your husband”. At the time I remember thinking, “How strange! I’m sure I do have confidence in him.” Then I wondered if perhaps “husband” had referred to the Lord. I pondered this in my heart for some time.

After returning to the field, Ken and Evan built the jet boat and the day came when I was invited to go for a ride in it to see what it could do. With trepidation I got into the boat and we were off. How fantastic to be travelling so fast in such shallow water! My heart was in my mouth several times when I was sure that Ken was going to hit a log or a rock. Then that word that was given to me came to mind. It had indeed referred to Ken, so I sat back and tried to relax. What a tremendous blessing the boat turned out to be, travel time was easily cut in half. Instead of our son asking for a loan of the family car, it was, “Please can I have a loan of the speedboat?” He and Lynette had some fun times together in it when it wasn't being used for missionary work.

THE SWIMMING PIG

KJ, John Callaghan and I were in the mission launch, slowly making our way up the Kapuas River to the Silat area.

“What's that out in the river?” KJ was pointing to what looked like three or four people swimming in the middle of the wide Kapuas River.

“It can't be people swimming that far from the shore... and there's no boat nearby.” John said.

We decided to change course and have a closer look. As we got nearer, we could see that it was a large sow with three small piglets swimming across the river. They looked fairly exhausted from the long swim. We must have been living for too long in Borneo because we thought, “Here is some fresh meat to take upriver with us!”

When our boat came nearer, the sow and one piglet, decided to return to the river bank, but two piglets kept heading for the other shore nearly 400 metres away.

We were able to manoeuvre the launch alongside of them and then KJ jumped into the river and was able to grab one. He threw it into the boat and we quickly pounced on it. KJ went after the other one, but it had reached the bushes by the river bank so he was unable to get hold of it in time. Meanwhile we had begun tying up our little porker's legs to keep him immobile while we continued travelling. Just before dark we arrived at the village of Semerluang where John knew the Village Chief. They were glad to see us, especially when they noticed the fresh pork on board! It made a delicious meal with fresh rice. The Dayaks said that it was rare for pigs to take to the water. So we all thanked God for His provision.

I saw several crocodiles in our time in Borneo. The crocodiles were about three metres (ten foot) long. These were blamed when dogs or small animals went missing and were never found. Crocodile meat was very nice to eat. It was like eating large slabs of white chicken meat.

I once saw two grey leopards after they had been killed. They were about the size of a Labrador dog. I wouldn't like to meet a live one! Apparently the leopards were stealing the tame pigs that a Dayak had been rearing not far from our house. Black bears were also a nuisance; they would steal the sugarcane planted near houses in Entibab. Knowing that we kept animals for pets, several times the local people presented baby bears to us to keep as pets. This was normally after the mother bear had been killed. We declined the offer each time, knowing that small bears become big bears and become dangerous.

There were plenty of deer in the jungle. There were also orang hutan (meaning “jungle person” - the wild man of Borneo – or as they are called in the West, orangutans) which weighed more than us. Large proboscis monkeys were also plentiful, along with many other species of monkeys. We would regularly hear the monkeys calling to each other in the jungle, especially the gibbons whose loud whoops were quite distinctive.

Evan and Lynette kept small monkeys as pets. They were a source of much amusement. The monkeys would act like a watchdog baring their teeth and making a fierce face to frighten the local children and chase them away! This was fine until the children turned and did the same to the monkey. At that point the monkey would become terrified and would run off home, squealing all the way!

TRIPS TO THE COAST

In the Hulu (Interior) there were many things that could not be purchased. A trip to the city on the coast was needed every three or four months in order to get supplies such as fuel, medicines and foodstuffs that were not available inland. Our mission’s 20 ton mission boat, the Pelayan Injil, was navigated downstream by the headquarter’s team to the city of Pontianak and back again, transporting the supplies inland.

Going down the large Kapuas River would normally take three days of constant travel. Coming back upriver took five days, unless there was moonlight, in which case it was safe to travel through the night. Without moonlight, we would be forced to tie up at an overhanging tree on the riverbank by about 10 pm.

The large mission boat the Pelayan Injil, with the smaller Utusan Injil behind it.

In spite of the boat having an airplane’s landing light attached to it which we could swivel around to look for obstacles at night, it was still difficult to see objects floating in the dark water of the river. Sandbars simply could not be detected. Even the river's banks couldn’t be distinguished from the dark water sometimes. Once, after travelling carefully all night, the boat ended up at almost the same place we had started from the evening before. This was because the man who had been steering the 20 ton boat had followed the riverbank of an island midstream. In so doing, he had made an unintentional “U turn” right around the island.

I remember one night, at about one in the morning, we were not able to tell where we were. We thought that we had come up the wrong side of the river and were heading upstream instead of down. The only way to find out for sure was to stop and tie up to a tree. We watched the water carefully with a torch. When we saw a stick floating past us in the wrong direction, we realised that we had indeed been travelling in the wrong direction for an hour or more!

The larger mission boats were made of wood and had an aluminium sheath attached to the outside of the hull. This was necessary because the water at the coast was salty. Shipworms lived in the saltwater and they would eat through the wooden planks making the boat very dangerous to use. I have photos of timber at the coast with shipworm holes that you could put your thumb into.

Whenever the mission boat went down to Pontianak to get supplies, we had to find every available empty drum for refilling. We would have about 80 drums, stored under the floor boards. Often there was trouble with fuel leaking from a drum and so those ones were marked and would be stored upright to avoid loss. A slow leak under the floor could cause the bilge to fill with explosive fumes. Just one spark could make us the first missionaries in orbit!

We learned to load the boat with a gap in the centre so that we could see if fuel was leaking into the bilge water and monitor the bilge water level. The wooden boats leaked constantly. One of our New Tribes Mission friends lost his boat full of supplies and barely escaped with his life because he was unable to see the water level inside his boat after it had been loaded up. The boat slowly filled up to the point where water was seeping through the loose top boards of the hull, and by the time the owner realized that there was a problem, the boat was slowly sinking and it was too late to get to the shore and fix the problem. So we live and learn... often the hard way!

The best drums were used for petrol. They were hard to get. Because of this KJ discussed with Woody and I the possibility of welding the leaking drums. He felt sure that if the drum was washed out thoroughly and then filled with water, it would be safe to weld without any danger of it exploding. I said it was best to forget the idea; it was simply too dangerous. But KJ felt it would be okay, so when we were tied up at a small outpost near the coast, he borrowed a gas welder. He had a try at welding an empty kerosene drum on the jetty while a few Indonesians looked on. I was in the mission boat preparing missionary’s shopping lists for the next day’s purchases when there was an ear splitting explosion outside.

I rushed to the door to see KJ and two Indonesians picking themselves up from the deck. The drum had split open at the seam like a clam shell in the middle of them. One of KJ's “helpers” had been standing beside the offending drum when the explosion took place. All the rust flakes in the seam of the drum had shot out like shot gun pellets, peppering his face and chest with the fragments. KJ had to take him to the hospital about five miles away to have the embedded particles removed. Needless to say, no more attempts were made to weld the drums!

Once while travelling on the Silat River, I arrived on the scene just after a Chinese trader’s long-boat had sunk. I helped them to recover drums of fuel floating downstream. But the trader’s sacks of rice, sugar and salt were gone forever in the rapids. He was fortunate to have retained his boat and saved his life. His helpers were good swimmers too.

Our two children learned to swim in the pool at boarding school. I could see how strong they were in being able to swim against the swift current in the river near our house. They spent a lot of time in the rivers! I often wondered if Colleen and I would be able to save ourselves in the turbulent rapids. I think not, as we are both poor swimmers and we would barely be able to save ourselves in favourable conditions. In the smaller rivers we were never far from the bank. However, in the wide Kapuas River we could be almost a kilometre from land in the wide stretches nearer the coast. Two American workers lost their lives in the river while we were there, so we were always cautious.

Colleen’s Perspective

On the mission boat, the Pelayan Injil, there were four rooms with bunks in each room. There was no glass in the windows, only bars and shutters. There was a kitchen that was always overrun with big cockroaches, and a tiny bathroom/toilet that had two holes in the floor. This was both the toilet and used for pulling up buckets of water out of the river to pour over yourself for a ‘shower’. There was also a communal area with a fold-away table and chairs. The boat had lots of storage under the removable floorboards for drums of fuel and other goods.

At least two or three families would go down to Pontianak at any one time. The men took it in turns to steer the boat. It could be quite cool up front when steering at night. One night, Ken had taken over the steering and put the communal rain coat on. After a couple of hours I went out to see him. I went to grab him and put my arms around him from behind as he sat on the seat. Fortunately I stopped myself just in time... It wasn't Ken, but another senior missionary who was sitting there wearing the same coat!

The wide Kapuas River is very windy. On every trip to the city, the boat would cross the equator seven times going in each direction. In Pontianak, most of the time was spent buying things for the families inland. There was always something that we preferred to buy ourselves instead of burdening others to do it. So we tried to make the trip to Pontianak once a year as a family, this was our 'holiday'! There were always large orders of food, medicines, books, and fuel to buy for each family who lived upriver.

Nathan Woodward on the boat, checking purchases of food supplies.

Lynette’s Perspective

Evan and I loved going down to the coast! It was a highlight of our year. It was our chance to visit teenagers from other missions, as well as do our own shopping. Spending time with other teenagers was the biggest attraction. I dated two American guys (not both at the same time!) whose parents were with the New Tribes Mission in Pontianak. Our annual visits to the city were the only time we got to see each other. The New Tribes Mission guest house was usually the centre for getting together. We would play games, go out to eat, watch videos and have a lot of fun together!

Evan’s Perspective

After completing my High School education, I spent 18 months living on the mission launch called the “Pelayan Injil”. I enjoyed every bit of the lifestyle. At this stage, we were going to and from Pontianak about once a month. This was because of a change in government regulations which meant the captain, Peter Ellis, needed to do extra work in renewing annual visas for the missionaries. There were times when we had to do a return trip inland just to get a signature on some new document that was holding up the process.

Often we travelled all the way to Pontianak non-stop. We took turns steering so that each of us could have a break and get some sleep. The Kapuas River is over 1100 kilometres in length, but most of the time we only travelled as far as the WEC headquarters at Nanga Lebang, which is around 285 kilometres inland as the crow flies. A couple of times we went as far as Putussibau, which is 440 kilometres inland. While working on the boat, I was given the average working wage of 10,000 rupiah per week for fulltime work. At the time, this was equal to about NZ$10. I was able to get a box of 24 cans of Coca Cola for the princely sum of 4,500 rupiah! These were welcome on the long hot afternoons on the boat.

While there were fewer obstacles in the Kapuas River than in the smaller rivers, they were also bigger. Not only were there natural hazards but also man-made hazards such as the huge, long log rafts that were floated downriver to the coast. This timber was then exported. One missionary family left the town of Sintang and headed back to Nanga Lebang in the dark. As they were going around a long sweeping corner of the river, they saw a light in the middle of the river. They decided to give it a wide berth and stay close to the river bank. They didn’t realise that the light was there to warn people of a log raft tied up at the side of the river bank. Their boat hit the raft and went right up onto it.

The Pelayan Injil had lights but we used them sparingly, especially on moonlit nights. We later installed a generator onboard that powered floodlights that would light up the way ahead. If a piece of wood in the river was big enough, the impact would cause a leak in the boat’s wooden hull.

We had maps of the river in the form of a long scroll that had been made by Fred Woodward years before. It was worth its weight in gold as it gave us crucial information such as where rocks were located in the river. Sandbars tended to move with the river current, but not the rocks! One time we came across a rock that was huge; it was twice the height and twice as long as our boat. On top of this large rock was a boat that had been beached there for some time. It had been propped up and the owner was hoping the water would rise high enough for the boat to float. However, it was there for over a month before the water level came up again.

To enable faster travel on the Kapuas River, the Indonesian Government commissioned a series of passenger boats that were called water buses. These wound their way up and down the Kapuas River daily at twice the speed of our mission boat. Neither we, nor the Dayaks liked the water buses as they created large waves of around one metre deep and were closely spaced so they could easily sink or damage a boat.

Most people dreaded their approach and would make a dash to the side of the river to hold onto their boat while a water bus went by. Not so with us kids! We loved to not only swim in the waves, but would take our canoes out into the waves and deliberately sink them. So when we heard a water bus coming, we headed for the water! The Dayaks must have thought we were very strange. As we got older, our “play” changed and we were able to use the outboards for “skiing” on the river, using a plywood plank. At times we even skied behind the Pelayan Injil, which got to a top speed of just eight kilometres per hour! If we ever fell off we had to tread water until the boat turned around. In all our time in Kalimantan we never wore life jackets. I have no doubt that God’s hand was on our lives during the time we were in Kalimantan through the prayers of God’s people back in New Zealand.

EVERY DAY LIFE

“Tenggiling! Tenggiling!” I had been around for a while, but I had never heard this word spoken. Before I could ask my host what it meant, he had jumped up, leaving his hot coffee, grabbed a long spear from the wall and ran down the notched log to the ground. I turned to the other Dayak in the Village Chief's house to ask what a tenggiling was, but since he too was getting up to go, I ran out the door after him to see what the commotion was all about.

As we ran with others to the river I asked him, “What is a tenggiling?” It had to be something serious to make a Dayak run! The only time I had seen a Dayak move this fast was when he was in deadly peril of a tree falling on him. It turned out that a tenggiling was a rare animal that was very sought after for its tasty flesh. By his description we would call it a scaly anteater. It had to be speared from behind because of its hard scales. Not many were killed to eat.

On our treks amongst the villages we were served up some unusual things to eat. I enjoyed eating snakes, but declined the offer of boiled snails. Lizards, crocodile meat and monkey meat were served up. I almost vomited up once when I saw a tiny cooked monkey’s hand on my plate, complete with fingernails! Some of the delicacies that the Dayaks eat are not very inviting for even the hardiest Westerner. Usually I didn't ask any questions. There is a Bible verse that says, “Eat what is set before you.” (Luke 10:8). Some inland food, however, was quite tasty. Fried fungus was nice and crocodile meat and swamp snake (pythons) were tasty.

The Dayaks eat only twice a day. They sit on their grass mats in a circle. A large pot of rice is placed in the middle of this circle, along with smaller bowls of vegetables or meat. Dayaks feel as though they haven’t eaten if they don’t eat rice; it is very important to them. The men always eat first. The women and children never join them, but eat what is left when the men have finished. The Dayaks are experts at eating rice with their fingertips. Spoons were used only to dish up the food, and then the food was eaten with the fingers. Knowing that we were not very proficient at this, they sometimes provided us Westerners with Chinese spoons. The plates we ate from were not flat, but shaped like soup plates.

We often ate fern shoots with rice at home. These were given to us in exchange for medicines (for malaria, dysentery etc.). There are some tasty fruits in the jungles that have no Western equivalents for. Colleen made jam out of some of these and cooked others.

Lynette with a rather large pineapple.

I especially liked the large brown mangoes, but they were difficult to get. An honourable mention must be made of the famous durian fruit. I could never get past the smell of them, but Colleen, Lynette and Evan seemed to enjoy eating them. The durian fruit are about 20 centimetres (8 inches) long. They are hard to get into as they are round with spiky thorns all over them.

We swapped medicine for not only fruit and vegetables, but also hill rice. We preferred to eat the local hill rice, but we also purchased rice from Pontianak as a last resort. This rice didn’t taste as nice as the hulu rice and was often riddled with small pebbles. This made the sack heavier so that the traders could get more money for it. Usually we had two Indonesian meals and one Western meal each day. Colleen and Lynette became quite proficient at making bread. As the flour became older and filled with bugs, the bread became heavier and more yeast was needed to make it rise. It helped to frequently spread the flour out in the sunshine on tin trays to dry it and kill any bugs.

It was always difficult to get food up the rivers to our home in good condition. Sometimes the folk doing our shopping in Pontianak packed the washing powder or soap in with the biscuits so we had soap-tainted biscuits for three months! Kerosene sometimes leaked onto the sugar sacks. I remember one sack of dried milk powder was so hard that we had to put it through the hand-powered food grinder before it could be used!

Colleen’s Perspective

Cooking meals was often a challenge. It would take much longer than making a meal in New Zealand, as we had to start from scratch. If we wanted minced meat, we had to mince the meat ourselves. If we wanted peanut butter, we had to grind the peanuts ourselves. If we wanted rice bubbles, we made them ourselves. There were no pre-prepared foods from the freezer or supermarket shelf, nor could we go and buy a loaf of bread. We did have canned and dried goods to supplement our diet. I often tell friends that it was like camping for years on end.

When corn was available, Evan liked to cook a cob over the open flame of the stove. He loved to 'hang out' with his Dayak friends. Once they took him to the hills some three hours walk away to bring back some durian fruit. Ken never got a liking for durian. It is one of those fruits that one has to get past the smell of in order to enjoy eating it! The smell of it is like rotten onions. The flesh is yellow and mushy, but very rich and creamy. Many fruits did not have much of a flavour, but the durian made up for all the other fruits.

I found some durian candy in Pontianak and took it home to New Zealand, but I couldn't get rid of it. People thought it had gone off! The Dayaks had a wonderful relish called Tempoyak that they would make by fermenting durian. Even Ken liked it, because it no longer tasted like durian. Once when Ken and I were eating a meal in a village, the hostess offered me some Tempoyak. I could see that it had live maggots in it, so I politely declined the offer!

During the dry season, the weather was hot and oppressive every day. One day I said, “I wish something exciting would happen.” We didn't have to wait long. There was a strange noise that seemed to be coming closer and closer. It wasn't a boat, it was something in the air. It got quite deafening and the house started to reverberate as the air throbbed with the noise. Megsy, our cat, started running one way, then the next, not knowing where to run to get away from the noise! The cat was absolutely petrified, as were some Dayaks, we learned later.

We looked over toward the soccer field about 100 metres away from our house and saw an old Russian helicopter landing. We counted 14 army officials getting out of it. This was a one-off event. It was a special visit leading up to the elections. They were visiting other army officials in the village next to us.

We held weekly home meetings in the village. A kerosene lamp would be lit and hung from the rafters. The Dayaks would usually store their rice in bamboo baskets or sacks placed on a grass mat across the timber rafters. One evening, after singing some scripture songs that we had translated, something small fell from the rafters near the lamp. Immediately the area was cleared of bodies that had been sitting along the wall. Another and then another little body fell to the floor. They were small pink baby mice that didn't have any fur on them. They were being cooked by the heat of the lamp. One grown man couldn't stand it and ran outside and soon others followed. The room was in an uproar, I don't think we ever finished that meeting… it was very humorous!

While we were at Nanga Entibab, Lynette asked to be baptised in the river near our house, along with several other young people who had gone through teaching on the meaning of baptism. It was a very special event for us.

Ken baptising Lynette in the Entibab River.

SICKNESS

The hot and unhygienic conditions, coupled with the dampness of the interior, meant that diseases lurked everywhere and the under-nourished were easy prey. Most Dayaks are malnourished and all carry diseases, such as malaria, throughout their life. It is little wonder that they fear sickness. The people have almost no medicines and are several days journey from hospitals. The standard of these hospitals, of course, leaves a lot to be desired.

I visited a health post set up by the Government, but it was poorly run. There were no beds, and blood and vomit were dried on the walls. Dogs were strolling in and out of the few rooms and wherever human hands had touched, the doorposts or handrails were black with dirt. The medical officer was often not there and when he was, he only had injections of iron or penicillin to offer. The medical officer would often borrow medicines from us or send us patients. Later we told him that we would bring large orders upstream for him from our mission trips to the coast. We found it difficult to get payment from him for the medicines, so we usually ordered extra supplies of just the basics and he bought them from us when he needed them.

Colleen and I felt that wherever we were in the interior, we would need to run a health clinic. We gave out medicines and taught basic hygiene to help the people. Every four months when the big mission boat went down to the coast for supplies, we would send an order for about NZ$400 worth of medicines to help the local people. Often we would run out of the medicines before the next trip.

Most of our own medicines were given out freely, but we expected people to pay a little or exchange some food for them if they could. A few people were known to resell the medicines for high prices in other areas. In the Silat area we had a spare room for families who brought in their sick. We had needles and sutures, but never needed them as we used to make butterfly-plasters for smaller wounds. More serious wounds would be taken downriver to a medical post or hospital.

Sometimes folk wanted to borrow our outboard motor and boat to take patients downstream. However, they were too inexperienced to trust with the boat, and we needed it for ministry in any case. So we usually provided the fuel for a local to take them or took them down ourselves. We were able to give out antibiotics to keep infection from spreading until they could get more medical help.

We found that the Dayaks responded quickly to medicines that most Westerners had built up resistance to. Malaria was probably the worst disease, with dysentery a close runner-up. Skin diseases were rife. There were also many cases that defied diagnosis. Most Dayaks are infected with worms that rob them of vitality and add to inherent malaise. We took worm tablets regularly to rid ourselves of worms. I passed worms as thick and as long as a pencil at one stage. The locals said that I was as skinny as a dried cicak (small lizard)!

Many Dayak families have had ten or more births, but they only have four or five surviving children who live to become adults. Death is usually regarded as “fate” even though many deaths could have been prevented by better hygiene. Colleen spent many hours teaching the women basic hygiene, without much success. She had to teach them that boiling the river water was essential before drinking it. With everyone using the rivers as their laundry, kitchen, bathroom and toilet it is no wonder that so many fell ill. They would say, “Why build a toilet when there is a river 100 metres away?”

Fortunately, with prayer and the help of medicines, we were able to see many brought back from the brink of death. Some sick people were carried for hours by family members, only to arrive too weak to be helped.

Pregnant women face endless taboos and are not allowed to eat eggs, meat and nourishing fruit. This is when they most need these foods for themselves and their unborn child. There is also no family planning; the second child comes too soon after the first. There is not enough of the mother's milk for the two of them. It is common for the first child to begin to contract diseases around this time.

Thankfully, our family suffered no lasting effects from the illnesses we had in Kalimantan. Evan had Typhoid at one stage. He and I had regular bouts of malaria. All of us had dengue fever, as well as less serious illnesses. We were often tempted to give away our personal medical supplies to help sick folk on our doorstep. However, being so far from medical help and having no two-way radio in the early years, it was not wise.

Colleen’s Perspective

On one of our trips from the coast back to Nanga Lebang, Evan contracted Typhoid even though we had all been inoculated against it. At first we all thought it was just a bout of malaria. But the high fever wasn't responding to medication. By the time we reached our headquarters Evan was worse, so we contacted the Baptist Mission hospital via two-way radio. They suggested another medicine: tetracycline. By now Evan was very weak and needed help to get to the bathroom. He hadn't eaten for days and his hair started falling out.

It took several days before we observed any positive response to the medicine. He lost seven kilograms (15 pounds) of weight in fourteen days. We thought at one stage that he was going to die. We prayed for him and felt that the Lord was going to spare him. He had work for him to do.

Evan had developed strong muscles due to helping load drums of fuel and food into the mission boat. He loved to do this. But even though he had been very strong and healthy, it took a long time for him to recover from his battle against Typhoid.

Evan’s Perspective

During one of our visits to Pontianak, I was swimming in the Kapuas River near our mission boat. I went under the water and when I came up I saw I was next to some human excrement that I quickly brushed away. Unfortunately, there was an outbreak of Typhoid in the area at the time. I contracted it even though I had been fully vaccinated against it. I was very lucky to survive through the next month. I don’t recall much of that month. I was given some very strong medicine to help pull me through. The result was hair loss for months afterwards and bad teeth ever since. I did survive, however, thanks to God.

Almost every day I played soccer or volleyball with the young Dayak men on a field at the local school. I have many great memories from these energetic afternoons, including bathing in the river after the event!

During durian season, (the fruit delicacy with an awful smell) I would go with Dayak friends to a hill near our village to look for fruit that had dropped overnight. You had to be careful as the durian trees are around 100 feet high and the heavy, thorny fruit would drop from that height with no warning. Sometimes a rustling sound would be heard just before the “thud” of the fruit hitting the ground. One of these durian trees was located near our church building. One day I thought I would play a trick, so I hit the ground with a large piece of wood to create the sound of falling durian. Almost immediately people came running to get the precious fruit, only to see me come out of the bushes and confess that it was just a trick!

The Dayak people are very superstitious and easily frightened, which appealed to us kids. One night while Mum and Dad were out, we discovered a new use for the plastic pipe that we used for siphoning fuel out of the drums. We found that if you blew into the end of the pipe, it made a strange sound at the other end. It was several metres long, so we put the end of the hose between our house and the next door house. I blew into it and there was a sudden burst of activity and talking next door, with kids rapidly exiting the house! I showed them the next morning what had caused the commotion.

Lynette’s Perspective

The people who came to our front door would rarely, if ever, knock; knocking seemed to be considered rather rude. Instead they would either call out quietly if they knew us, or if they didn’t know us, they would just make a noise to alert you that someone was there. The most common “doorbell” was someone clearing their throat or coughing quietly. If we didn’t immediately respond to this and go to the door, the coughs or clearing of the throat would grow progressively louder.

We often recount, with laughter, a visit by Anum; a young boy at Entibab. He came to our front door one day and Dad went out to see him. Dad asked Anum what he needed. Anum said he needed some ‘bat trai (‘bat was short for obat and means medicine).

Dad had never heard of trai medicine before, so he asked Anum what this medicine was for, was it for a sore stomach? Anum began to grin and said no. So Dad asked if it was for a headache. Anum started to laugh and said no, he wanted ‘bat trai! Dad said he didn’t know what Obat trai was, could Anum tell him what sickness it was for? Anum, laughing and barely able to contain himself, said it was for his torch/flashlight. It was then that Dad realized that Anum was asking for batrai – batteries!

Although I am of average height, funnily enough, I grew up thinking I was quite tall. This was due to the small stature of the Dayak people that we lived amongst. For instance, in the photograph below, I was about 16 years old, but the two girls on either side of me were 18 and had already reached their full height!

Our house at Nanga Entibab had bark walls on the outside and wooden slats on the roof. There was no ceiling, only exposed rafters and this allowed air to flow easily throughout the house. It was the largest house by far in the village. Most Dayak houses consisted of one room; two rooms if it was a larger house. Ours had a laundry, kitchen, bathroom, three bedrooms, a study, a guest room, a living area, kitchen/dining and a front sitting room that was separate from the rest of the open plan house. Dad fixed hinges to the wall of the sitting room so that it could open up completely and we would have a large room to seat (on the floor) quite a few people.

Mum had the ability to make any house we were in feel like a home and the house at Nanga Entibab was very comfortable as far as houses in the jungles of Kalimantan go!

The bathroom had a squat toilet on a cement floor with a large bak (a 1.5 metre square container) that filled with rainwater from off the roof. There was a dipper to dip the water out of the bak and pour over yourself as a ‘shower’ or for filling up a bowl with water to wash your face or hands. We lived close to the river and often bathed in the river. We had to use the river to bathe in during the dry season when rainwater grew increasingly precious and was reserved for drinking water. The rainwater didn’t need to be boiled for as long as the river water and it didn’t have a taste to it. In the dry season we would haul up buckets of water from the river for flushing the toilet, rather than using our reserves of rainwater.

We kept chickens, for a while, in a chicken coop at the back of our house. We got a few eggs from them, but it wasn’t a very successful enterprise. The local people would bring us eggs occasionally, once they learned that the weird white people ate them. However, we had to test all the eggs they brought us to make sure there wasn’t a chicken already forming in them.

At the back of our house we had sugarcane growing, along with ubi, a type of cassava. We used the leaves of the ubi as a vegetable, as well as the roots. They were very easy to grow. We also had pineapples and a few banana trees growing. Unripe pineapples and the flowers from bananas were cooked and commonly used as a vegetable.

There was a long verandah along one side of our house where Ev and I spent many hours playing games and reading books. Under the house we kept our monkey, where it had its own cage to sleep in. It was kept on a chain attached to a collar around its waist. The chain slid along a pole so it had a lot of room to move around. It could also come up to the back door step of the kitchen when it wanted to see us or get some food!

The monkeys (we had two, Toto who died young, and then Joey) looked upon us as their family, since we got them when they were little. Several missionary families had monkeys as pets. They were a lot of fun! When you held them they would carefully look through the hairs on your arm for fleas, just like they would with a fellow monkey. I would take our monkey down to the river to swim and bathe whenever I went to the river for the same purpose. Joey liked to eat the soap for some strange reason, so I always had to keep it out of his reach. Our monkeys were good swimmers and seemed to enjoy going to the river with us.

We sometimes let our monkeys roam free in the trees. However, we had to keep an eagle eye on them when they came back into our house as they would be into everything and anything. They could be difficult to catch again! The monkeys developed a strong bond with us and didn’t like strangers. They acted a bit like a watchdog. We knew how to interpret their sounds and facial expressions. They would bite someone they saw as a threat, so we made sure to keep them away from people if they were showing signs of aggression. The bite wouldn’t draw blood as their teeth were blunt, but it could give a nasty bruise.

Lynette holding Toto while waiting for our boat to descend through the rapids.

Across from our house at Nanga Entibab was a small bark hut consisting of just one room with a dirt floor. This was where two Australians lived during the first year we were there. They used the hut for sleeping in and had their meals with us. They were attempting to build an airstrip with the same tractor that had been used to build the Riam Sejawak airstrip. However, after many months of hard work, they finally gave up. The Silat area had too many large boulders that couldn’t be moved. They needed much heavier equipment than the small tractor.

In our spare time, when we weren’t in the river keeping cool, Evan and I either read books (the same ones over and over again), played games, or listened to the radio. We could get Radio Singapore, the BBC and the Voice of America. The daily ‘sched’ times of connecting with other mission bases via the two-way radio were a highlight of each day.

As children growing up in Borneo, the dress code (or lack thereof!) seemed rather odd. Legs are considered very rude in the Indonesian culture and therefore they had to be covered and kept out of sight. Even Dad, if he was going to visit government officials in the villages, had to put on long trousers and wear shoes. He didn’t wear shorts for these visits, as shorts would have been considered very offensive. Even though married women were often topless, they always had those offending legs covered up! Sleeveless tops for women were considered rather risqué too; it was preferable to wear something with sleeves on, despite the heat. The Indonesian people are very modest in dress. The traditional costume for women is an ankle length sarong, and long sleeved blouse. Mum and I would often wear a sarong for visiting village folk, it meant you didn’t need to be quite so careful when sitting on the floor. As is typical in Asia, shoes were always left outside when entering a building of any kind.

When we were younger, we would wear swimsuits when swimming in the river. This was pretty respectable, considering the fact that most of the children our age would swim with nothing on at all! As teenagers, however, we had to wear shorts and T-shirts when swimming, so as not to offend the local ‘dress code’ by revealing too much!

At Christmas time, we would have our best meal of the year. It would consist of food items we had received in food parcels from New Zealand during the year. We would have some meat (if it was available), some small potatoes from Pontianak (or dried potato from New Zealand), and items from our food parcels: dried peas and carrots from a packet, and potato chips – a real luxury and enjoyed to the last crumb! For dessert we would make up a packet of jelly from New Zealand. We sometimes made ice cream from sweetened condensed milk. However, the freezer in our kerosene refrigerator was tiny, and so ice cream was a rare treat. We could buy cans of Coca Cola and 7Up even in the interior of Borneo as the Chinese traders would take them inland, but they were not cheap, and were always regarded as a luxury.

The Dayaks would trade rubber and gold to buy coffee and sugar from the Chinese traders. When we visited the Dayaks, we were usually served very strong, black coffee. This was made by boiling the coffee in the water along with lots of sugar. The end result was a dark, strong, sweet coffee, with about an inch of sediment left at the bottom. It was considered very impolite to finish your drink completely, so we always had to be sure to leave about an inch in the bottom of the cup. Apart from coffee, we were often offered very hot, smoke-tasting water in the villages. It tasted smoky from the open fires it was boiled over. Other drinks we were offered included diluted hot sweetened condensed milk and occasionally hot tea.

Whenever giving or receiving something it was polite to use both hands. If you did use only one hand, you were supposed to use only your right hand as using your left hand was considered very offensive and rude. Being left-handed, I found it difficult to remember to do this!

DISTRACTIONS AND SIDE-TRACKS

The Dayaks always built their own churches from jungle materials. Some had mud floors and bark walls, some had hand-sawn boards for the floor; but all had wooden shingle roofs. Some church buildings had rows of horizontal poles for seats, but most people took along their own mats to sit on the floor like they did at home. No physical contact is allowed publicly between male and female, even between husband and wife. They would not even sit together. The women sat on the left side and the men on the right, with the children moving backwards and forwards between the two sides. One day we thought we would try to change things a bit. We went to church early and Colleen sat on the men's side while I sat on the women's side. The Dayaks didn't know what to do for a start, but it ended up being a mixture! The next Sunday, however, things were back to normal again. Tradition dies hard.

Once in a while we would have a quiz in the church meeting, recapping some of the teaching from over the last few months. This was to see if the believers had misunderstood anything. It also meant we could correct any belief that was incorrect. We would usually play off the women against the men. We would have a prize or penalty. The folk thoroughly enjoyed those times!

There were always plenty of distractions in meetings. These could include a hen flying through the window, a dog strolling through the crowd, and a man climbing through the window during the sermon to use the non-existent toilet outside, then re-entering the same way.

At one meeting the pressure lamp hanging from a rafter above, steadily burned through the beam holding it and eventually crashed to the floor in a ball of fire! The Dayaks usually hung the kerosene lamp above the speaker so that when it got dark he could still read his Bible. But this attracted lots of light-loving insects that burnt themselves on the hot glass of the lamp and rather inconveniently dropped down onto the speaker. So I usually kept to one side of the lamp to avoid trouble. I did have an angry kerawai wasp drop down my neck and exit out my sleeve once, and once was enough!

Pak Kebuyau, the church leader at Entibab, was leading the meeting one day while he was recovering from a cold. During the meeting he paused, and without explanation, he calmly strolled over to the window and with a strenuous blow of each of his nostrils assisted by his fingers, he cleared the mucus from his stuffy nose. He then returned to the matter at hand as though nothing had happened. This kind of thing would never do at the Baptist Tabernacle! However, it was everyday life in Kalimantan. We hid our smiles and carried on.

The Dayaks were very superstitious and afraid of anything unusual. At an evening meeting in the village of Aboi, I had been teaching for about half an hour. One young man was playing with his ballpoint pen when it suddenly popped out of his hand and landed noisily amongst the 80 or so people present. In the dim light from a faulty pressure lamp it had not been seen and the sudden noise frightened everyone.

In a flash, that area of the building was cleared! Dayaks scrambled over one another to get away. Then they all looked back in fear to see what had hit them. After a few minutes they all found places to sit among the others attending, but nobody went back to sit in that area of the building for the rest of the evening. We stopped and prayed against the powers of darkness that tried to disrupt the teaching, but I don't know how much the folk took in that night after the exploding pen incident.

MY MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT?

A visit to the Jitan area was urgently needed. I announced at the Entibab Sunday meeting that I planned to go over there on the Monday and be back on Wednesday in time for the home meeting that night. I invited anyone who wanted to help with the meetings and witnessing to come along.

More than half of my trekking I did alone, but it was good to have new Christians come along to give their testimony and help teach new choruses. Only two teenage girls wanted to accompany me on this occasion, Buangi and Daratina. I would have felt happier if one of the young men had offered to come as well, but I thought that since there were two of the girls that it would be okay. In the Indonesian culture it is unacceptable to be alone with someone of the opposite sex unless you are related to them or married to them. They are very careful about such things, and so were we.

We had good meetings in the Jitan area. We stayed with Daratina's father who was the local trader (even though he couldn't read or write). He had previously been a witchdoctor. We left the Jitan village for the return trip at about 1 pm, knowing that it would take about four hours walking to get back to Entibab. But after only an hour, Daratina stopped us at a junction on the trail saying she wanted to stay that night with her relations in the nearby rice field. There was only a tiny grass hut for sleeping in so we couldn't all stay overnight.

This created some difficulty for me. If I continued on with only Buangi, it would not look good to the Dayak people who were very careful and sensitive about such things. But if I went back to the spiritually dark village we had left an hour ago, it would also not look good. I decided reluctantly to go ahead with the three hour trek still ahead of us to where the people at least knew us well.

About one hour later Buangi called from behind me, “Oh Pak!”

“What’s up?” I asked in the local dialect.

“Kencing!” I knew that was the word for wanting to urinate so I nodded and moved on a few yards to wait on a rotten log by the muddy trail. I said to myself, “I hope nobody turns up at this point!” After a while I glanced back nervously and Buangi was still doing her thing so I busied myself with removing leaches from my legs. Soon we were mobile again and all was well until we came to an unused gambling town.

Obviously hundreds of Dayaks had come to watch cockfighting there over several days by the look of the hurriedly built shelters. Cockfighting was illegal in the villages, but it still happened regularly in hastily built “towns” in the middle of the jungle away from the villages. We had gone to the Jitan area by a different route earlier so we hadn't encountered this haven for gambling. The problem now was that there were many trails leading away from the “town” and we didn't know which one to follow.

I knew that the original trail went downhill towards a river, so I chose the most used path leading downhill. But as we went on, this trail began to fizzle out near the river. I realized that it must be a track to the river for the gamblers' ablutions. As I was trying to sort out where to go from there, I stopped and looked up to see a lone Dayak hunter standing on a tree trunk that was forming a bridge across the river. He was wide eyed at seeing this white man in the remote jungle with a teenage Dayak girl!

I called out in the local dialect, “Hi! Where's the track to Sauk Atas?” He signalled us to cross the huge log bridge that he was on and to follow him. He felt it his duty to guide us right back to his village over an hour away, which I was more than happy about. While walking back, I explained clearly how I came to be in that predicament. I don't know if he believed me or not, but at least I knew it was true.

Our guide to Sauk Atas had a baby who was very ill and he was keen to have me pray for his child and give it some medication. I stopped at his house to treat the baby before we carried on. This meant that I got back home at dusk, just in time to prepare for the evening meeting at Entibab.

Looking back, I wonder if I could have done anything differently. But nobody ever mentioned it, and the locals seemed to respect me more after that. I guess that was the most embarrassing thing that happened to me in Kalimantan! I thought that perhaps my reputation was not in tatters after all! After this incident, I was even more careful to avoid situations that could give cause for suspicion or doubt.

God gave me a verse that said, “Abstain from all appearance of evil”. Not just abstain from evil. So I endeavoured to do just that. For instance, if a woman asked me to come into her hut to pray for a sick child and nobody else was around, I would ask her to bring the child to the door, so that I didn't have to go inside. I did these things to guard my reputation.

Another embarrassing time for me was when I was visiting the spiritually dark village of Rentung. I arrived there after ministering in three or four other villages further inland. When I arrived it was about 3 pm, but most of the men were still away in their rice fields and the few women minding the children were just waking from a midday siesta. After a short talk with them on the longhouse verandah, I excused myself, saying that I wanted to wash off some sweat in the nearby river. I always washed the sweat off my trekking clothes at the same time and hung them to dry for the next day's walk.

While I was alone, scrubbing my shorts on a log, a young mother came down to have a bath and she proceeded to strip off totally and entered the water nearby. I pretended not to notice and worked away at my washing. She then came over to the waist-deep water and started to ask me some questions. I thought to myself, “This doesn't look good. I've got to get out of here.” So without even finishing my washing, I excused myself and hurried back up to the longhouse.

There were several such situations over the years and I had to be ready for the unexpected at any time. After being in the dark interior for a few years I realised that the native women were experts at seducing men. I had to always be on my guard. One of our best missionaries was forced to leave the field after having an affair with a young Dayak woman who worked for his wife. Later his child was born to the Dayak woman and is probably still living in the interior today. It would certainly be very difficult for a single missionary to live in those conditions. After returning to New Zealand, we continually stressed this to missionary candidates when we were helping prepare them for the mission field.

When winning ground from the enemy, we have to be doubly cautious so that we are not defeated ourselves.

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

After the novelty of “the new white man” had worn off, I had to do much of my trekking alone. I always tried to get a Dayak to go with me into new territory. Even so, quite often my guide knew as little about the trail as I did.

One time a believer escorted me to a distant area where he had been years before, and we had a good time helping his relatives there. However, part way home he said, “There is a shortcut through to the main river near here.” We soon found the trail, but after a half hour battle with the overgrowth, I thought he must have been the last one to have used the trail! It was slow going and his parang (jungle knife) was in constant use cutting a way through the jungle. We eventually came to the edge of a ravine with a large moss-laden tree trunk lying across it forming a bridge. It was about a metre in diameter, but had obviously not been used in a long time. We both wondered about using it, but as the alternative was a long trek back, we thought it was worth a try.

My guide went first and, because he had a big pack on his back, I figured that if it held his weight, it would surely hold mine! The trunk was wobbly as he gingerly neared the centre. Then there was a muffled crunch as he dropped through the top layer of rotten wood! Fortunately, the bottom half of our “bridge” was quite solid and, with a lot of care, we were finally able to reach the other side. Later when we met up with the main track again we had to part ways. We both had tears in our eyes as we finished praying together at the side of the trail. Trekking together is a great way to get to know folk and builds a bond between the participants. You could call it the “fellowship of sufferings”.

Often, when there had been rain during the night, it would be a battle to get anywhere on the trails because of the flood waters. I can remember floating my trek-pack across a muddy river on a hastily-made raft and swimming behind it hoping that the next river would not be as flooded. Due to the very high rainfall, the jungle is a maze of swamps, streams and creeks, with only a few hundred metres between each.

At one river a previous traveller had left a home-made raft by the track so I tried it and found that it took my weight reasonably. There was a swift side current though and soon I found my pole was not going to be much help. In no time I was swept a long way from the track. There was not much show of finding it again. Then my flimsy raft jammed firmly on a stump under the muddy water leaving me stranded in a wide expanse of water. I decided I would have to get into the water and release the raft and then somehow swim and guide it to the bank.

This took a long time and I found myself a long way from the trail. I prayed as I pulled my wet pack over my shoulders. When I pushed a few metres into the lush undergrowth, I came to the edge of a small rice field. In the centre of it was a small leaf-hut with a wisp of blue smoke curling from its roof. From inside the hut, the old Dayak woman gave me directions back to the main trail. I was then able to continue on to the next river.

The continuous wet weather made tramping slow and tedious. Most of the trails never saw sunlight and were permanently muddy. We sometimes wondered if we would eventually grow webbed feet in these conditions! Many people in the interior have stubborn fungus infections. Jungle-rot attacks the feet and fingernails and soon deforms them.

In the top of my trek-pack I always carried a large plastic bag that had originally contained milk powder. I pushed one corner inside the other and this made a nice hood-come-cape that covered not only my head, but was long enough to drape over my trek-pack when rain fell. My Dayak friends would cut off a banana leaf to do the same job (banana leaves are huge in Borneo). But even if we did get soaked, our clothes were dry again in 15 minutes because of the constant heat.

POISONS

The Dayaks are experts with poisons. Apart from regularly poisoning the rivers to reap a catch of small fish to eat, they also were able to poison their enemies without them knowing it. Borneo is known for its head-hunters for good reason! People tried not to offend anyone. This made it very difficult for them to preach the gospel as they were always concerned that the gospel might offend someone. They would lie to your face rather than offend you, which made it very difficult to find out the truth. They would tell you what they thought you wanted to know rather than telling the truth, which they thought you might not like.

I wondered sometimes if I had been poisoned when I had to run out into the dark many times in a night. My stomach was well accustomed to Sulfaguanidine and Enterovioform medications for diarrhoea. It wouldn't have been so difficult if there had been a toilet available!

Poisoning seemed to be the most popular way to kill people while we were there. Witchcraft was also often used, but very few were killed by a gun, knife or spear. Many of the Dayak tribes cannot get along. Some feuds continue over several generations. These grievances tend to be very petty and the people hold grudges easily.

We sometimes had opposing parties shake hands and announce the feud over in front of the church congregation. I found, however, that I had to see them do something tangible for the other person that very day to clinch the matter. I would ask one to do something good like chop firewood and give it to the reconciled enemy or ask a woman to bake some nice rice cakes and take them to the other party. In this way the rift was healed and there was no further trouble.

Witchcraft was often used to draw one partner to another. There was constant trouble from men committing adultery with another man’s wife while the husband was absent. The women were often forced into it with threats of witchcraft. These threats were always the most feared.

One Dayak woman who had to sleep alone was just settling down to sleep at night when she saw a man's hand trying to undo the knot tying the door closed. Despite her warnings he did not leave so she slashed at the hand with a jungle knife. This sent the would-be intruder running away. He came back later in the night and jabbed a spear through the sleeping mat where the woman slept. The first stab missed her so she had time to scamper up the bark wall to the rafters where the rice was stored. She was safe there for the night. The offender was, of course, easily identified the next day!

Curses would be put on others and this was one of the reasons why the Dayaks would strive to never displease or offend anyone. This became a big problem when a Christian had to take a stand against problems such as gambling or drinking alcohol following conversion. When I asked one man why he had gone off with another man to a cockfighting (gambling) session, his excuse was, “He asked me to.” The hardest word for the Dayak to say is “No!”

FAVOURITE STORIES

There were some amusing things that happened in Borneo that we often recounted on the long hours winding up the river in the mission boat. I think that perhaps some of the stories became more “enhanced” as time went on! I especially remember one about a missionary's dentures.

The lady was elderly and her teeth were not fitting too well. At night she would take them out. When travelling on the older mission boat everyone slept in the one communal room, some on the floor and others on bunks attached to the wall.

This lady was sleeping on one of the bottom bunks and as usual, placed her false teeth into a small tin under her bunk until the morning. When she awoke she reached for her teeth and found they were gone!

Soon she had everyone looking around for her teeth. They were nowhere to be seen. Then someone remarked jokingly, “What's that the dog's chewing on?” Yes, you've guessed it... the dog was having a good chew on the missing molars!

There was a lot of furious scrubbing going on at the back of the boat for a long time after that, as the teeth were prepared for re-entry!

Bruce Rattray also had trouble with missing dentures. After a long day winding up the Kapuas River it was well into the night when we decided to tie up to a tree for the night. With the light on the bow of the boat, we kept an eye out for a strong overhanging branch where we could tie up easily without getting too close to the bank.

When we found a suitable limb protruding, Bruce got out onto the point of the bow as we idled up to it. At the critical moment as he leaned forward to secure the rope, he sneezed and blew his false teeth out into the dark depths of the water. Because of the depth of the water and the fast flowing current, he was unable to recover the teeth. Bruce was faced with looking gummy until he could get a new pair made. His wife joked that she’d never known him to be so quiet!

Fortunately, we were only a day away from the large inland town of Sintang. Bruce was able to have some new ones made by a very primitive dentist. As it turned out, the teeth were very well made by the Chinese man. When Bruce went home on furlough to Australia and had dental work done on the few teeth he had left, the dentist asked him, “Where on earth did you get these dentures? They're made like a tank!”

I also had occasion to have a partial plate made in Pontianak. The old Chinese dentist made them very strong, but they were not a good fit. I spent quite some time filing and sand-papering them. It was about six months before they became comfortable to wear. The dentist I went to had an ancient pedal-powered tooth drill. Can you imagine the dentist pedalling away while trying to keep his hand still enough to drill your teeth at the same time?

ARREST THAT MAN!

A missionary in Indonesia needs to obey many Government rules in order to stay and work in the country. You must buy the red and white Indonesian flag and put it up at your front gate on specially designated days. If you own a boat with an inboard motor, the country’s flag has to be flown at the back of the boat whenever you travel anywhere. You must also buy a coloured, framed picture of President Suharto to be placed in the sitting room of your house, to show that you are faithful to the military state.

Failure to follow these rules could lead to censure and even arrest as a dissident or rebel. On a “special” day, the soldiers would walk through a village and soon let you know if you had forgotten to raise the flag!

I did get arrested on one occasion and was marched off to the police post in the next village. Peter Smith had come upriver by outboard and long-boat to pick up some of the airstrip making equipment left at Nanga Entibab. Peter arrived at the Dankan rapids at about midday and we were able to get up through the rapids to our house with a lot of hard work. By the time we had loaded the boat with all the gear, it was about 3 pm. It had begun to rain, the kind of rain that sets in for a day or two.

Since it was very difficult to get through the Dankan rapids in such low water, we decided to pray. We asked for the water to be a little higher the next morning. Instead of having to navigate through the rapids, Peter could then just float out over the rocks to the main Silat River and on down to our headquarters. The following morning the water indeed was up and still rising and very swift; too swift to venture out into. We knew from experience that we would have to wait two or three hours to get out. It was still too dangerous.

The law stated that if you housed a foreigner for more than 24 hours, the head of the house must travel to the nearest police post and report the foreigner’s presence, his length of stay, and his reason for being there. So I knew that I had to report Peter’s presence and take him to present his passport at the police station if he stayed after 12 noon that day.

At noon Peter was ready to go, but was waiting for the swiftness of the water to ease a little more, so that the rapids were not too turbulent to get through. It was then that an armed policeman arrived at our door and sternly told me to accompany him to the police post right away. It was a kilometre’s walk alongside the rapids to the police post, so I said goodbye to Peter and walked in front of the armed policeman to see his superiors.

The Police Chief asked me for the name of the Westerner who had stayed with us overnight and wanted to know why he was there. After I gave my explanation, the Police Chief explained the law to me and the reason for it. He was a little put out that a guest had been in his area without him being consulted. He wanted Peter's passport, but by the time I got down to the river mouth to get it, Peter had already disappeared downstream with Evan's help!

The Police Chief was even more unhappy with this news and kept me at his office for a long time, taking down all the details. Finally he let me go with a warning saying, “Don't let it happen again!”

The Police in the Upper Ketungau area required me to keep a book of all my travels. This had to be handed in to the police office once a month so that they knew what was happening in their area. I did this for about three years. The Army sometimes sent patrols with me on trek to report on what was going on in the distant villages. They would force the Dayaks to attend our meetings at night. This did nothing for the Kingdom. Fortunately, the soldiers would become weary after a couple of days of difficult trekking in their heavy boots and hot uniforms. I would then be left in peace while they stayed on to do a bit of gambling with the local Dayaks, before returning to their base.

Lynette’s Perspective

I well remember sitting in the boat for what seemed like forever, in the hot sun, waiting for Dad to finish ‘checking in’ at the police checkpoints! When I was back in Kalimantan with my husband in 1990, we stopped at Nanga Silat, the village at the mouth of the Silat River. We needed to report to the police before going inland further, as required by law. Having foreigners call in would make the policeman’s day! They wanted to stop and chat and know what we were doing there and where we were from. They told us that they needed to keep our passports until we came back downstream, but we refused to do that. We told the police that we had travelled throughout Java and Bali and had not once been asked to show our passports to police, or needed to ‘check-in’ with them anywhere! They seemed rather surprised at this and realized that they had overstepped the mark. They let us carry on even though we hadn’t relinquished our passports.

JOGGING!

In the heat of the tropics nobody moves very fast. In fact, if anyone does move fast, there is something seriously wrong, a matter of life and death.

One time we were staying overnight in the village of Semerluang. It was late afternoon and I was sitting on the floor talking to the Village Chief while Fred Woodward (also known as Woody) went for a bath in the river. When I looked out the door, I saw Woody doing a jog along the path that served as the village’s main street. Woody was our field leader and was based at Nanga Lebang. He kept fit by jogging regularly, and would often jog up and down the length of the airstrip at Lebang.

This time, unbeknown to him, a dozen Dayak children were running along behind him. They wondered where he was running and why! When Woody reached the log bridge at the end of the path, he stopped, turned around, and began to jog back again. All the children stopped too. As Woody jogged off again they started laughing and pointing at one another saying, “That fooled you!”

Several adults were peering out their doors also wondering why this white man was running. They thought there must be an emergency and couldn't understand why anyone in their right mind would expend so much energy, seemingly for no purpose! Woody, of course, needed the exercise, after sitting in the boat for hours.

PRACTICALITIES

The Village Chief carefully laid a well-used stick beside my waiting mosquito net. “What’s that for?” I asked him.

“To keep the dogs away during the night” he replied, pointing his chin towards his dog.

When I looked at the mangy dog curled up in the warm ashes left from cooking the evening’s meal, I thought, “I can do without him in my net!” After talking until late, I tied my mosquito net in the corner of the hut and crawled into “bed” for the night. It took me about half an hour to find suitable hollows in the bamboo slat floor for my hips, ankles and shoulders before I could get any sleep. The flax sleeping mat didn’t offer much padding or comfort.

The Chief had a prize cockfighting rooster tied in one corner of the hut. It didn't seem to know when sunrise was though because it let out ear piercing crows several times throughout the night. This was a common occurrence when staying overnight in a village.

I well remember Fred Woodward (who had been on the mission field for many years before we arrived) telling us about when he and a co-worker slept in a village with their mosquito nets side by side. During the night Woody felt the co-worker rolling into him in his sleep so he moved more and more to one side to give him space. In the morning Woody woke completely outside of his net and looking inside his mosquito net, he saw a mangy old dog fast asleep!

Whenever we held an evening meeting in a village, we had to stay overnight. Travelling in the jungle or on the rivers in the dark was distinctly hazardous. I was caught in the dark a number of times and I promised myself, 'never again' each time. The damp lichen and fungus on tree bark glows an eerie light green in the pitch-black. The weird sounds of a myriad of insects in chorus add to the problems of slippery tracks and biting insects. Even on a well-known trail it was extremely difficult to find my way. Many of the trails never saw sunlight and were no more than tunnels through the dense undergrowth. It was extremely rare for anyone to venture into the jungle at night and only in a life or death situation would anyone in their right mind try to travel on the rivers after dark. We did both, which makes us now wonder about our sanity!

Due to lack of sleep when travelling, I found that I could only endure five or six consecutive nights out in the villages. Late nights and early risings finally take their toll on one’s health and open the door for sickness to strike. So I learned to curb my expeditions into the distant areas. At home we slept on 40 millimetre thick foam on boards so that we would be better prepared to withstand the rigours of sleeping on grass mats on the bamboo floors in the villages.

Staying overnight in a village was more difficult for women because there was usually only one room to each house. The missionary had to be able to dress and undress in public with lots of folk sitting around watching the spectacle! Colleen learned how to get changed under a sarong (a length of batik cloth stitched to make a circle). I got used to changing under a towel folded over at my waist to hold it up. Unfortunately, one time when I left home in a hurry, I grabbed the wrong towel and found at the critical moment that it was too short to go around my midriff! Fortunately, I did have a couple of safety-pins in my medicine bag that came into good use on that occasion.

The locals never took their eyes off a new Westerner in their village. In some villages I was the only white person they had ever seen, so I was quite a curiosity. Folk sat around me staring and passing remarks in their local dialect. Some of it I understood, but I pretended not to!

Some children once asked me how I came to have such a long sharp nose (the Dayaks have flat noses). So, as a joke, I showed them how to pull their nose with their fingers so that it would become long and sharp like mine. They then busied themselves trying to pull their noses out! The men would ask me what kind of medicine they could take to grow whiskers. The ladies asked about what medication they could take to make their skin pale! We did have some humorous times.

HELPING IN PRACTICAL WAYS

Missionary work for us involved not only the spiritual side of life, but also the physical, practical side. Because of this, we were often found helping the local folk within the church and also non-Christians. At that time the Government was helping the more progressive villages by supplying diesel generators for lighting. Unfortunately, there was nobody locally who knew how to set the system up for them so I found myself often helping to install the generators and the wiring. Every house was allowed one 25 watt light bulb. Some villages had tried to set up their own generators and were having problems.

Way upriver, at Nanga Lungu, the villagers couldn't understand why their generator was overloaded when they switched it on. They asked me to come and have a look at it. The wiring was okay, but I could see that the drive pulley seemed too large for the size of the generator. I sent one of the young men to fetch my Bible from my trek-pack. While he was gone we prayed over the machinery. When my Bible arrived, instead of reading a verse to the folk, I opened it at the front page where I had earlier written down the formula for the pulley sizes, horse power, etc. This immediately revealed the problem and we ordered another pulley, which finally had the whole system running well.

Everywhere we went, the Dayaks had broken inboard motors, outboard motors, radios, tape-recorders, hand sewing machines, and so on. Sometimes we spent all day repairing something, and then we would meet and teach the folk at night. Although some of them were able to afford these machines, they had no idea how they worked or how to maintain them. We grew up with mechanics and technology as part of our culture, but this was all new to them.

One day, some men from a nearby village brought a camera for us to repair. When I asked what was wrong with it, they said it wasn’t taking photos. They said that none had been printed yet. So I asked how they knew there was a problem with the camera. Before I could stop them, they opened the back of the camera, exposing the film, to show me that there were no photos on the negative yet; therefore they concluded that it must be broken! So we had to explain to them how the camera actually worked.

When visiting villages, I carried pliers, screwdrivers, and other tools to aid the folk where I could. Working alongside the Dayaks and teaching them how things worked, brought me closer to them. This created a bond of trust that helped greatly in winning them to the Lord. There was always the danger of having “rice Christians,” who were “Christian” to get what they could from us, but at least we had helped them where help was needed.

Sometimes people would leave equipment that needed repairing at our house for attention when time allowed. Evan became very adept at fixing radios and tape-recorders and so the word spread and they kept him busy. He would often have a dozen or more machines on the desk in his bedroom waiting to be attended to.

Evan’s Perspective

I enjoyed helping the Dayak people by fixing their radios and tape-recorders using my limited knowledge of electronics. In Nanga Entibab we had a small 350 watt generator that was set up to run out of fuel by 10 pm each night. We therefore, only had electricity from 6-10 pm each evening. This meant I had to wait for the evenings to do any work that required the use of the soldering iron.

MOSLEM CAMAT

“Tuan, can you come down and fix the Camat's new generator? It's stopped generating power…” the Camat's servant said when I answered the door. The Camat (pronounced chum-ut) was the top Government Official for the whole area and I always tried to keep friendly with him and his family. He was a Moslem man from Java and had one wife in Java and one in Kalimantan. He had always been very helpful when we needed official papers and I wanted to keep it that way.

I stopped my work, grabbed a few tools, and followed the Camat's servant back to the big house overlooking the village. Out the back of his house was a small kennel-like shed that housed the offending machinery. The Camat said they had been connecting up a lead acid battery for charging, but couldn't get any power out of the generator. I thought that maybe they had connected the battery back-to-front and blown a fuse, but I couldn't find a fuse box anywhere and they had no instruction book. So I said “We'll just take a moment to pray about this.” I prayed a short prayer asking the Lord's help to get it functioning again. While I looked around for a cover-plate, the Camat was fossicking in the corner for the tools that came with the machine. It was then that I found a button marked “Reset”. That told me that it had a thermal overload and probably only needed the button to be pressed to fix it. I did just that and told the servant, “Give it a try now.” After a couple of winds the engine started and the voltage gauge shot up to normal output.

The Camat was amazed and thought it was a miracle of God! But I soon brought him down to earth by showing him the reset button for next time. The Camat was very happy and gave me a cup of coffee. Then he asked me to have a look at his new Honda water pump down at the river. Upon examining it, I found that the brand new machine had no compression at all. The servant was afraid that he had ruined it by running the new motor too fast. It only took a few minutes to squirt some oil under the exhaust valve and lever it down into position again. That fixed it. Before leaving I told them to add some oil to the fuel for a few weeks to prevent it happening again.

There was a great deal of improvising required to keep things functioning. When we lived at Riam, Pak Maruk, the Dayak trader from the next village, had the only diesel inboard boat in the area and he was almost “the local bus” for the surrounding villages. He called me in one day to check out his 4 horsepower diesel engine because it was pumping very little oil inside the motor, and making lots of knocking noises. I found that the connecting rod (big end) had worn right down to the shaft metal. I had some aluminium in my tool box at home and was able to shape it to fit the big end journal and with a lot of filing, I got a reasonable fitting bearing. This brought the oil pressure back up and the transport was available again for the locals.

However, using such material for big end bearings was unheard of and I told Maruk, “This is only a temporary measure to get you down to Sintang where you can buy the proper shells.” Actually, I was surprised that the motor got them down that far even, as it was a three day journey. In fact, Maruk felt the motor was running so well that he didn't bother to buy the proper parts and I was astounded when six months later he told me that the engine was still running well with the aluminium bearings!

Two years later when we left the area, it was still being used. Although we had moved to the Silat River area, I was later told that Maruk was getting a new boat, but keeping the engine. Who knows if it still runs on aluminium bearings?

We often had to make parts because there was no way of getting spares. It is amazing what can be done with very few resources. We didn’t easily throw things away, but made the most of whatever we had. Some Dayaks at one village lost their only propeller in the river. They made another from ironwood, which served them well for several months. Unbelievable, but I saw it working myself!

Methylated spirits and petrol were expensive and difficult to obtain in the interior. People used kerosene even in their cigarette lighters. I would never have believed that a lighter could light on kerosene, but theirs did. Kerosene was also used to pre-heat the pressure lamps, instead of methylated spirits. It was a little sooty for a while, but it worked. Usually villages had no ‘socks’ or ‘mantles’ for the pressure lamps and we would be forced to use small kerosene wick lamps at the meetings instead. So I began to carry mantles with me, which would give us reasonable light. The villagers could then use the pressure lamps each night, long after we had left.

For each new church building completed, we supplied a 1.5 metre square blackboard for teaching. Some churches were used as schools during the week. This meant that the congregation was contributing to the village as a whole. There were great opportunities to teach Christianity in schools in later years. Travel difficulties meant that we could only teach at three schools during the week.

Government schooling was very haphazard in the distant areas and the teacher often just did not arrive. I would open the school, teach for as long as I could, and then the children would go home if a teacher had not made an appearance. Our approach was to teach the children songs first. They then helped to teach their parents. This worked well because their parents couldn't read and had to learn by listening. We often asked the Lord for Christian school teachers as they made a great difference to the work.

Colleen’s Perspective

Our mission started a basic Bible School for the Dayaks who wanted to become church leaders in our WEC area. The Bible School was situated near the airstrip at our headquarters in Nanga Lebang. Evan had finished his High School studies by this point so he went and stayed at Lebang and helped to build the classrooms. He preferred doing something practical rather than studying!

A WOODEN PLANE

When Evan was about 14 years old and able to use the outboard motor, he was very helpful on the rivers. He was handy with the paddle too and able to “read” the water to know where there were underwater obstacles. I took him along on an evangelism trip to the villages of Jasa and Sungai Tanjung once. After an hour or two on the river, with only a 2 horsepower outboard, we arrived at Jasa where we would spend the night. There we held an evening and morning meeting before continuing further upriver.

This was a great time for me as this was the first time that Evan had come on a trip to help me. It was great to be a “father and son” team for the Lord. I had great plans for Evan to come on more trips with me so that I could be more effective for the Lord in that vast area. When we tied up the boat and took off the outboard to go up into the village, Evan reached into the front of the boat and pulled out a small wooden airplane that he had made and had painted with the MAF colours. He had brought it with him to have something to play with while his father was busy with ministry. While I had dreams of him helping in the ministry, he had plans to play with his shiny new plane! It was too early for him to do adult work, and I was expecting too much too soon.

It brought home a lesson to me: when God wants to get us into His work of saving souls, often we are too busy planning to play with our “shiny toys” instead. He is disappointed that we are not yet mature enough to work with Him. There are so many things that keep us busy, but they are not profitable for the kingdom of God. He has greater plans for us. Later on, Evan could be relied on to arrive with the boat on a fixed date at a certain village to meet me and save a long and tedious trek home. This was a great help in the last few years of our work there.

Lynette was a great help in playing the piano accordion for the many church meetings we held over the years. She basically taught herself how to play the instrument. Although there was no written music for the hymns and choruses we sung, she was able to pick them up by ear and made a big contribution to the work. Prior to this, I had to play the accordion myself.

Colleen and Lynette leading Sunday School in our house.

The Dayaks looked up to our children and they were regarded as “heroes”. The Dayak children would follow them around and copy their actions and try to learn English words from them.

Even today, after many years, the Dayaks still ask about “Pun” (Evan) and “Net” (Lynette). Both have been back to Kalimantan with their spouses to see their old friends in the villages. They also made a return visit to the boarding school where they lived for several years.

It is certainly not easy to live in the interior of Kalimantan Barat, and a Dayak village is very primitive. Looking back, we are thankful that our two children were happy to stay with us and help us in the work, winning souls for the Lord.

I think both of them would have liked to have stayed in Kalimantan forever if we had let them! Looking back now, we can all see that it was best for them to return to New Zealand when they did. Evan was nineteen and Lynette seventeen and a half years old when we took them back with us to New Zealand.

Lynette’s Perspective

Neither Evan nor I wanted to leave Kalimantan Barat. It was very hard for us to leave our friends and the life that we knew there. It was especially hard to leave our fellow MKs (Missionary Kids) that we had grown up with. They were our family. We knew that we wouldn’t be seeing them again for a very long time, if ever, as we would be living in different countries, scattered around the world.

In many ways, we lived a very sheltered life in Kalimantan. Even for all its unique dangers, we were not exposed to the negative aspects of Western “civilization” such as consumerism, peer pressure or even generation gaps. I am grateful for the unusual environment and conditions that we grew up in.

I wrote an article for the New Zealand Correspondence School magazine when I was 14 years old. It describes a little of what every day life was like for us as teenagers in Borneo:

My family and I live in a Dayak village in the interior of Kalimantan Barat where we are missionaries. Often, surprising, startling and rather funny incidents happen because of the people's customs and traditions. Since we have been here for five years, a lot of these things seem quite normal now. However we still laugh at them sometimes. For instance, how would you react if:

... a muddy dog ran across your table while you were eating? (The floor is the table in Dayak homes).

... almost every time you got into your boat (or car) to travel, other people got in too, with live chickens, rice, belongings, etc?

... during a meeting, a man walked about the room squashing mosquitoes against the wall?

... you were busy cooking and when you turned, you found several strangers peering over your shoulder?

... you had walked for three hours through the jungle to ask your friend a question to find he wasn't at his rice field?

... strangers borrowed your boat (or car) without asking?

... there in your bedroom you discovered a snake or scorpion?

... some children asked whether the photo of a car was a bicycle?

... a man walked into your church service wearing a singlet and underpants (the normal wear for working men)?

... after you had served your guests a drink, they let burps fly (a sign of satisfaction)?

... someone in your sitting-room looked completely through a magazine upside-down?

... your Correspondence School teacher asked for an article for this magazine by a date which had passed a few weeks ago, by the time you received the letter?

These are just a few of the amusing things that happen here. Even with the oddities, I like these people and this land. You may think these things are strange, but perhaps that is because of OUR strange customs! Maybe it is US who have to change – not them!

LESSONS LEARNT FROM THE DAYAKS

The Dayaks taught us many things. As Westerners, we thought at first that we knew much better. However, we were soon to learn the hard way that they knew many things that we did not know about the primitive conditions we lived in. Dayaks never wore or owned rain coats. When I wore mine I found out why. It was far too hot to wear. Even in pouring rain, I would be wetter on the inside than out! I soon adapted to throwing it over my head instead. Later, I began using a plastic bag split up one side or using a banana leaf like the Dayaks did. When you adapted to Dayak ways, you were accepted more readily.

Once I was sitting in a small bark hut talking with a local church leader. I looked out the door where his son was splitting rubber-wood ready for cooking the evening meal. I thought to myself, “That’s an unusual way of splitting firewood!” When I was a school boy I had to chop firewood every evening. I thought I was an expert at splitting wood. Our farm house had a big open fireplace that used a lot of wood, but I had never split wood the way this boy was doing it! So I went out and had a try at doing it like he did. To my surprise, I found it was easier than the way we did it in our culture.

The Dayaks would regularly sun their rice on grass mats to keep the rice from getting moist and mildewed in the humid conditions. We did the same thing with not only rice, but also with flour. We found that the sun very effectively killed not only the bugs and weevils, but also bleached the flour.

I often wondered why the Dayaks always abandoned their rice fields after only one crop. When we tried planting a vegetable garden we discovered why. Nothing survived. Ants and bugs would eat the seeds we planted before they had a chance to germinate. The Dayaks cut down the jungle in a different area each year and burn it off before planting a new crop of rice. The intense heat of the burn-off not only kills the myriad seed-eating insects in the ground, it also provides potash to fertilise the soil. Fertilizer is unobtainable by the Dayak farmer. The soil is mostly leached of any richness by the heavy rainfall. One missionary from the United States sent home a sample of soil to find out what was lacking in order to get a good crop. The report from the States came back saying that the sample lacked just about everything but told him what he could do: “MOVE”!

The Dayak buildings have a roof with almost a two metre overhang. The reason for this is so that direct sun can barely touch the walls. This keeps them cooler. Most houses have no windows. They often have rows of horizontal sticks where the roof meets the wall so that air circulates right through the house. There is rarely any wind in Kalimantan Barat – at the most there would be a slight breeze just before a storm. The roofs are steep so that the wooden slats shed the rain without leaking. Almost every night the rain falls, sometimes in torrents, and for a long time.

The level of the Entibab River near our house at Nanga Entibab, would rise about 60 centimetres an hour causing a rise of seven metres overnight. Even our drums of fuel would float from under our house overnight! If there was a night without rain, the water level could drop by three metres overnight.

A few Moslems living in the area disliked us and tried to sabotage our efforts whenever possible. They would untie our boat at the top of the rapids at night, in the hope that it would be smashed on the rocks below. Fortunately, the place where we moored had a slight back-current not easily visible. The boat would still be there in the morning. Sometimes they cut through every strand except one or two, hoping it would break during the night, but God protected it.

Only twice did the boat go missing. We located it a few weeks later downstream, but had to pay to get it back. Later on, I had a rope tied underwater at the stern of the boat so that if it was set adrift it would still be held by the unseen rope.

In the wet season I got up frequently in the middle of the night to check to see if our long-boat needed rainwater bailed out of it. I also checked the mooring rope to see if it needed to be moved higher as the river level rose.

Once, when I was at a village, during the evening meeting that lasted about three hours, our long-boat (with the outboard motor fitted on it) sank due to the persistent rain. It took a couple of hours the next day to get the motor going again.

The rivers always dictated our travel movements. It was frustrating trying to arrange ministry according to the river’s level. We could never promise to be at any one place at any one time.

HANDING OVER

From the commencement of our work in the interior of Kalimantan, we planned to work ourselves out of a job. That way we could leave and the work would go on without us. We saw that some missionaries had all the local people depending on them. This meant that when they left, the whole work stopped. It was like having a new building that relied on the scaffolding to hold it up. We would plant church groups then move on, leaving a chosen person as the leader. Every two months we would return and stay a week to teach. As a result, most of the churches had only lay leadership.

When the Dayaks bought their first pressure lamp for the Entibab church, they wanted me to keep it at our home. However, I told them that it was theirs and they must look after it. I gave them a padlock to lock it up in the church building with the needed kerosene. Subsequently, when they accumulated offerings, (some rice and some money) they wanted to leave the offerings with me. But I again said that they must devise a way to keep it themselves so that they were not dependent on us as a family. They appointed a treasurer and kept a notebook of the amounts. They also kept the offerings locked in a kerosene tin. In this way the churches became independent and were able to run themselves. I would only preach at their invitation, because we were often away in other villages.

We would take small teams of young people out to the villages to help teach new choruses. We had hand-play cassette players that needed no batteries. These were planted in strategic villages so they could learn to sing the songs. I also took new converts out with me on treks, so they could share their testimonies with folk in other villages. This gave them a real boost, as they saw God using them to change the lives of others. They had to nail their colours to the mast so that there was no turning back. Once when we went down to the coast for a few weeks, we returned to find that some of the local believers had been to another village to evangelise the Dayaks. This happened without us initiating anything!

A church group at the village of Lebak Naja had some relatives in another village. They went there every second Sunday and held meetings to explain the way of salvation to them. The Chief of the village did not want them having church meetings, so the new converts finally went to Lebak Naja each Sunday. Years later when I visited that village, almost three hundred people came to the evening meeting in their new church building.

Believers were baptised in the river and outsiders were invited to attend. Everyone in the area knew who had become a Christian. Sometimes there was open opposition to such meetings. Antagonists stood at a distance and mocked those who took a stand for their Lord.

The Dayak Christians believe in baptism by immersion, as taught in the New Testament. When they are baptised they often change their name. They take the name of a Bible character as though they are now a new person – which they are! When we were baptising some of the first believers in the Entibab River, there was a loud eerie laugh echoing up the tunnel of trees over the river. It sounded like the devil himself. I could see sudden fear register on the faces of the onlookers on the riverbank. So we started a rousing victory chorus to drown out the sound and then continued the baptisms without further distraction.

A PADDLING EXPERIENCE

Merambang was a Dayak village with two longhouses nestled in a pretty valley on a small river. It was on the edge of the area where we worked in the Upper Silat. To get to Merambang it was necessary to go by sampan (dugout canoe). It took about three hours of paddling from the Silat River to get there.

Dayaks transporting balls of rubber in a sampan.

The believers in the neighbouring villages often said that I should go there, but because of the pressure of the existing work and the time involved in just getting there, I hadn't done anything about it. I had just finished some meetings in a nearby village, and after talking with the Dayaks there, I agreed to go with a young man who had relatives living at Merambang. His Uncle had a radio that no longer worked and he wanted me to take it back home for Evan to repair.

We began paddling our way upriver after a morning meeting. We enjoyed the experience of pushing our way up the winding green tunnel, with lush foliage on either side of the small river.

We had only been paddling for about an hour when we came across a large tree that had fallen right across the river, completely blocking our way. The trunk of the massive tree was at least two metres thick and at the foliage end it was resting on a shallow shingle bar. At the other end, the trunk was only a few centimetres under water, preventing us from getting past.

My guide surveyed the scene for a minute and then said, “We can only go under!” There was no way anyone could lift an ironwood sampan over that trunk so the only other way was to unload our gear onto the top of the tree trunk and sink the sampan under the tree, pushing it through to the other side. Then the sampan had to be bailed out again. This gave us a refreshing dip in the clear mountain water, and we were soon on our way again. There was a sad lack of water further up that river and we spent most of our time dragging the canoe over shingle bars and logs.

It must have been about five o’clock by the time we tied up the canoe on a long piece of rattan vine. There seemed to be a lot of people and activity in this small village. For a few minutes nobody saw us plodding up from the river. Then suddenly the small children saw me and were terrified and started running for cover! They had never seen a white person before. No missionary had ever been that far and they had only heard about white-skinned people from others. We were led to the Village Chief's hut, the only hut separate from the longhouses. There we learned that there was to be a celebration that night to cleanse the village of evil spirits that had reportedly been causing problems for the inhabitants. When I heard this I thought, “This is going to be a real clash of powers!”

The village had paid dearly to have a witchdoctor come from over the mountains to do this work. The Chief said that he couldn't really put it off. Instead he said he would announce that the Christian teacher was available for any who wanted to learn about the Christian way of life. So he supplied us with the evening meal and we talked with several who came and wanted to learn. Among them were two young men who on a later visit trusted in the Lord. We also had a talk with the Chief. He said he wanted the village to leave the old ways and become a Christian village, but was not yet brave enough to do it. Thus we got the invitation to come back later and teach everyone together about the way of the Cross and what it meant to become a follower of Jesus.

Later that night, before we could hang up our mosquito nets, we went over to the longhouse where the biggest commotion was going on. Inside, about a hundred people sat around watching the famous witchdoctor perform his rites. He was in a trance by that stage and was dancing around wildly slashing at the air with a sharp parang (jungle knife). This parang came dangerously close to the bystanders and I was afraid someone might be injured.

He was dancing around a pig that had been killed as a sacrifice – the people believed that this sacrifice would keep evil spirits away from the village. Pig’s blood and chicken’s blood were regularly used as sacrifices to appease the evil spirits. Brass gongs were being sounded incessantly, “to keep away the spirits”, I was told. We left at that stage, but the gongs, drums and screams went on until the early hours and didn't do much for my beauty sleep!

It was about midday (I never wore a watch) before people began to appear the next day. By that time we had cemented some good friendships with the two young men I mentioned earlier. One of them came downstream with us to get some medication that I didn't have with me. I often wonder if that village ever became a Christian village. I don’t know if any other missionary went up there again. There certainly was a lot of work to be done. They were lovely people, but unfortunately, very misled.

Outside the village, there was an old idol. It was a large post made of ironwood with a face and hands carved into it. It even had shining shell-type material set into its eye sockets. Maybe so it could see better! The friend who came upriver with me said we should knock it down. But I said we could only ask the people if we could, and if they said 'no' then we could not do that. We did ask the Chief if he wanted us to do away with it, but he said, “Many of the old people trust in that to protect them, so I can't give permission to do that yet.”

There is no advantage in taking away such things by force as it will immediately be replaced with some other fetish. When the people trust Jesus, they will do away with the idols themselves. At one stage, we had a young Bible student from Java in one of our villages for six months of 'practical ministry'. He dug up some 'sacred ground' where there was supposed to be evil spirits. Nobody would go near the spot and feared to go close to it. So after preparing the ground, the Bible student planted a garden. This caused a great furore in the whole area and the people feared revenge from the evil spirits.

News was sent to me that they were about to throw the young man out. I had to try to calm them down. The student said that what he’d done was scriptural because the witchdoctors in Acts 19 burned their magic books and turned to the Lord. I pointed out that it was done voluntarily by the people after they had turned to the Lord. It wasn't forced on them. So he learned something new! It would be good if the Dayaks no longer had these taboos and superstitions. The people's trust in the enemy’s power had to be broken and replaced with trust in God and His power.

THIRD TERM

Colleen’s Perspective

When it came time for our second furlough in 1982, Evan was 19 and Lynette 17½ years old. We felt it was time for our two children to stay in New Zealand, while Ken and I returned to the field. It was a very hard year of furlough, having to accept that it would soon be time to part from them once again. We prayed that they would get jobs. Evan began working at a Turners and Growers fruit distribution centre and Lynette as a receptionist for a Christian Chiropractor.

Our home church’s youth group in Hamilton really accepted them. They did some fun things together. We had rented a house from friends in the Apostolic church and our home church had furnished it for us while we were on furlough. A month or so before having to leave, we had to find places for them to live.

Before returning to the field, a family we knew who had a son of a similar age to Evan, said that they could look after him for us. Another family, who already had three teenage girls, told us that they would love to have Lynette live with them. So it was settled, and the Lord had provided again. We celebrated Evan's 21st birthday with a party a few weeks early, before we left to return to Kalimantan.

We flew 'business class' on 'economy class' tickets on that trip back to Indonesia. There had been a mistake made by the airline with seating arrangements, which worked in our favour. I wept all the way. I thought to myself, “Evan and Lynette need me now more than ever. I won't get to help them go through boyfriend and girlfriend stages.” So it was heart breaking to return to the field without them. Regardless of how I felt, I knew that it was the right thing to do. C. T. Studd, the founder of WEC, said, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.” That mission motto took on more meaning for me. For weeks after we got back, whenever I saw something in our belongings that reminded me of Evan or Lynette, the tears would flow. However, I felt the Lord whisper to me that I would be back with them within a year.

Upon arriving back on the field, Ken and I were asked to go to another area. It was closer to our headquarters than Nanga Entibab. Merakai was quite an established town and it had a Government High School. There had been a mission base in the town for many years. Bruce and Annette Rattray, who had been our nearest missionary neighbours when we were at Riam Sejawak, had been based at Merakai.

Our task was to oversee the boy’s dormitory near the mission house. These were boys who had come to Merakai from distant villages to attend the region’s only High School. We also had the church of 200 to care for, and Religious Instruction in the High School for two hours each week. Of course there was also a need to visit other villages in the wider area. This was stretching our capabilities! The boys in the dormitory were hard to manage and didn't like authority.

Boys in the dormitory at Merakai in 1982.

We were warned that when it rained a lot, there would be snakes around. One day I had just swept out the front room of our house when in my peripheral vision I saw a small snake head for the wall, and then disappear. I called out to Ken. He thought I had been seeing things when he couldn’t find the snake! We looked again and saw that there was a tiny hole at the bottom of the wall where it must have disappeared. The kerosene refrigerator was on the other side of that wall, so into the kitchen we went. But still no snake! Ken thought I had really been seeing things by this time and went back to his study. “I am staying here with a broom until it comes out,” I said. Then the Lord told me to get the can of fly-spray. I sprayed it into the hole and the snake came writhing out with me screaming!

Ken always maintained our boat. One day it needed to be turned over. Instead of getting help, he did it by himself and badly injured his back. This put him out of action for some time. He really needed to have it x-rayed. We contacted the mission hospital at Serukam on the radio. They said that we would need to go to Singapore or back to New Zealand for the x-rays. We prayed and asked the Lord to show us His will on the matter.

'Home' sounded great to me, but we needed to know definitely from God if we were supposed to return to New Zealand. This was soon confirmed and we had the blessing of the field fellowship. Visa's had to be extended every year. Extensions began to be increasingly hard to acquire around that time. The government did not want as many missionaries in Borneo and were beginning to phase missionaries out completely.

We arrived back in New Zealand just one day short of a full year. This was exactly what the Lord had spoken to me, that we would be back within a year. It was a joyous reunion with our two children, who had grown into adults while we were away.

Ken had x-rays taken of his back. They found vertebrae out of alignment. Nothing could be done. He had a brace to wear and was given pain killing drugs to take. Over the years the pain has eased and the Lord has given him a measure of healing; today his back rarely troubles him.

We were on the staff at our mission headquarters in Auckland, New Zealand, for two years after returning from Kalimantan. Ken gave lectures to the new missionary candidates and also helped with administration. I became the caterer in the kitchen. We typically had 12 to 20 people to feed. Rice was no longer on the menu daily like it had been in Borneo!

RETURN VISIT

In 1991, seven years after returning to New Zealand, I went back to Kalimantan Barat for a visit. A young Christian, Mark Bell, accompanied me. My Indonesian language came back as soon as we arrived in Pontianak and I had no problem communicating.

Pontianak had progressed a lot! There were many more vehicles and there was now a narrow tar-sealed road reaching about 200 kilometres into the interior. After that point it deteriorated into a “fairweather only” road.

We located the MAF office and scheduled a flight inland to Nanga Lebang. MAF took us to their Cessna float plane that was moored on the Little Kapuas River. The pilot had to pump water out of the floats for what seemed like forever. Then, we taxied out onto the river, where all manner of boats were criss-crossing the busy waters.

I wondered how the plane was going to be able to take off amongst it all. However, when the pilot opened the throttle the way ahead cleared and soon we were in the air. Flying at around 3000 feet, there was nothing but green jungle as far as the eye could see.

The few Dayak villages were almost hidden by tall trees. After an hour of following the meandering Kapuas River inland, the plane began descending. I soon recognised the stretch of river near the headquarters’ airstrip at Nanga Lebang. From experience I knew there were lots of logs floating down from the mountain rivers, so it was a nail-biting landing for me. When I felt the logs hitting the floats I realised why the pilot had to pump water out of them each day.

From Nanga Lebang, it was a day’s journey by outboard motor to the upper Silat River area, where we had lived at Nanga Entibab. The staff at headquarters lent us a 25 horsepower outboard and long-boat. The next morning we headed upriver. The trip was uneventful until we were almost to the mouth of the Silat River. Then the propeller hit something under the water and sheared the pin. This was no problem because we had a toolbox with spare pins and tools. As I was removing the propeller, I noticed that the owner had fitted a wire to the centre of the propeller nut so that it could not drop off into the water. I thought this was a great idea. I put the propeller into the boat and as I was reaching for the toolbox, I heard behind me an ominous “plop”. I swung around and saw only an empty wire! The nut was gone forever. The wire had worn its way through the nut centre over the years, and decided to drop off just at that moment in time.

Usually there would be a spare nut in the toolbox, however there was none. So we paddled to a nearby village and asked if we could get a nut there. We had no luck. One man had some water pipe that we cut off at the right length to hold the propeller behind the split pin. This was viable if it was not under load. So we gently idled back to headquarters, arriving just before darkness fell. We found a nut to fit the shaft and ordered another new one for the mission headquarters by MAF radio.

The next day we set out again. This time we got right up to our village in only seven hours. The church at Entibab was expecting us. We met some of them going down to the main river to see if we had arrived yet! They prepared a meal for us and after talking till late, we slept in our old house overnight.

The next day was Sunday. We were asked to be the speakers at the regular meeting. Mark gave his testimony and I translated it into Indonesian. Then I preached for about half an hour.

In the afternoon we walked an hour or so inland to another church, where the folk had also heard that we were coming. About three hundred attended the meeting that night. We were impressed by their new church building. My thoughts went back to the days when only about a dozen would meet together in that village.

During the next few days we trekked around another four villages, holding meetings in each church to encourage the believers. We had further meetings on our return journey downstream. Some of the people we spoke with were only children when we had left the area. I didn't even recognise them!

One village impressed me the most. It was Nanga Lungu, one of the more remote villages. When we had left that area nine years earlier, there were only two families and a few young people who were believers. Together they had built a small church building. The opening of the building was one of our last engagements before we left the Silat area in 1982.

During our early days at Entibab, one of the teenage boys, Kunlen, trusted the Lord. I remembered when he and I had prayed together in a tiny thatched hut in the jungle. A year or two later he landed a job with a logging company upriver and he relocated to Nanga Lungu. He maintained an unmistakable testimony for the Lord amongst the Dayaks there. He was asked to become their church leader, a task that he fulfilled admirably. About that time he married a local girl whom he had met at one of our youth camps. They became well respected throughout that whole area as the years passed.

When Mark and I went to Nanga Lungu, I was pleasantly surprised to find that almost all of the villagers had become believers through Kunlen's ministry. The original church building had been enlarged to accommodate the growing numbers. It was very encouraging for us to see what one new believer could do for the Kingdom.

KIJANG SKULLS

Mark and I noticed that in most of the believers' houses in Nanga Lungu there was a kijang skull hanging on the wall. A kijang is a small deer, called a “barking deer”. The horns were used for hanging up hats, jungle knives and so on.

I asked why they all kept kijang heads. The story then came out that a few years before, somebody in the village had killed a kijang in the jungle and had brought the carcass back to the village for all to eat. They had a great feast. The witchdoctor was away hunting at the time and couldn't be contacted. So, he missed out on the feast. When he arrived back the next day, he was furious at having missed out on the feast. He thought there was a conspiracy against him. Because of that, he put a curse on the people announcing, “If anyone eats kijang meat from now on, they will become violently ill and could even die!”

Underneath the surface, Dayaks are a very fearful people and so most of them thought this would truly happen. Someone trapped a kijang some months later. When he brought home the meat, lots of folk were afraid to eat it, especially the non-believers. The believers held a meeting and prayed that the curse would be broken forever and that they would be free to eat the meat. After a lot of prayer they divided up the meat and anyone who wanted some, took it home to cook.

The unbelievers predicted dire consequences for anyone partaking of it. However, the believers under Kunlen all had a feast and during the following week they were all as healthy as ever. Unbelievers who had eaten a little became quite ill and feared they would die!

Nowadays the people in that village freely eat kijang meat without any adverse consequences. So the kijang became a sign of victory in Jesus, and the Christians now hang their belongings on the thing that was feared by many and was supposed to be their downfall.

When we left the area, there were many tears as we idled off down the Silat River. We haven't seen the folk there since, but my son Evan and his wife Linda did get back to the area for a day or two in January of 2008. They were amazed at the progress in the area. The Nanga Entibab church had saved their offerings and bought a cell phone. So now we sometimes get a text message in Indonesian from the jungles of Kalimantan... something we never dreamed could ever happen in those early days!

Since being back in New Zealand, we have heard about the serious illnesses that abound in Borneo. After seeing a recent documentary on television about the devastating diseases there, we realise that it is only by God's grace that we got out alive!

As one missionary put it: “No money in the world would be enough to keep me here if I didn't belong to the Lord!” Fortunately, he and many others like him, persevered for many years to bring about the Dayak church. That same church continues to grow to this day.

“One thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead. I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” Hebrews 3:14.

Table of Contents

One Family’s Story of Life in the Jungles of Borneo

Contents

To the Reader

Map of Borneo

The Call

The Early Days (Daze?)

Into the Hulu (Interior)

Family Life in the Kampung (Village)

Using the Main Highways

Pilots, Planes and Airstrips

A Man Eating Snake!

Trials and Tribulations

Setting Out in Faith

A New Area

Living with the Rivers

Trips to the Coast

Every Day Life

Distractions and Side-tracks

Favourite Stories

Practicalities

Handing Over

Return Visit