True Jesus Church in Malaysia

The True Jesus Church was first preached into Malaysia in 1926 when a deacon of the True Jesus Church in Singapore named John Voon handed out a copy of the Holy Spirit News (聖靈報), published by the Nanjing True Jesus Church General Assembly, to friend named En-fook Tsen in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. However Tsen was an overseas Chinese businessman pre-occupied with his work and lacked the time to glean over the material, hence he redirected it to a Sandakan friend named Siak-lin Lee.

Siak-lin Lee was a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and asfter carefully examining the Holy Spirit News, he was deeply moved. As a result of his eagerness to seek the truth, he boarded a ship headed for Singapore to search for the True Jesus Church and throughout the whole journey he enquired for the whereabouts of the church. After his encounter with deacon Voon and a period of examining their teachings he received baptism on 11 January 1927; three days later he received the Holy Spirit .

At the same time, with consent of Elder Tan and deacon Voon, he headed back to Sandakan to preach the gospel. In this way the first True Jesus Church in Sandakan was formed in 1927. In 1932, they sent deacon Philip Tyan to represent the church in Malaysia at the Eighth Delegates Conference held in Shanghai.

Evangelizing amongst the indigenous areas

Shortly after the dedication of the Tuaran church, a certain church sister named Lumbihan Gimpit, whom belonged to an indigenous Borneo tribe named Dusun, preached the gospel into the mountainous region of Wangkod and thereby established the first Dusun church with brother James ordained as deacon to pastor the church. Numerous church prayer houses were also formed near the vicinity and church dedication ceremonies were conducted in an area whenever the number of believers attained a sufficient level.

In early 1958, a man named Sahoh, who belonged to the Murut tribe located in Sungei Paal fell seriously ill, and hence the tribesman urgently invited deacon Philip to come to the interior regions. Deacon Philip, after preaching the gospel to Sahoh, interceded for him through the laying on of hands and miraculously he was no longer spitting out blood; a few days later his sickness was totally cured. In this way, Sahoh believed in the Lord and a prayer house was formed at his house. This charismatic movement soon spread throughout the whole village, many signs and miracles were manifested. After a surge in the number of believers, deacon Thomas Chew and ten other fellow co-workers came to Sungei Paal and built a church chapel.

See Also

• Christianity in Malaysia