Sarawak Mission Trip : Rantau Rimau (Day 5,6 & 7)

It was a short distance from Masit to Rantau Rimau, our next long houses. In this house, the team had decided to stay here for two nights. This was the long house that I had heard a lot of stories from the team last year. Many felt uneasy during their stay here. This was due to the fact that the place had an eerie feeling. Besides that, the kids in this long house had some kind of skin allergies. Other than that, the people in this house don’t seem united because of the separation between the SIB and the Roman Katholics. There is all together about 54 houses in these long houses.







As we stepped out from out boats, we were given a very warm welcome from the villages of this long houses. The guy whom I had seen in Masit was the first to come out to greet us. Dressed in a colorful vest and sporting a headgear of feathers, he did seem to be the head usherer of this place. As we approached the long house after climbing a flight of stairs, three woman adorned in their traditional Iban costume were there to great us. The air was filled with Iban tradisional song. The atmosphere was very welcoming as we were lead into the back of the place where the church was situated, dancing the ngajat as we made our way there.

Everyone soon gathered in the church hall. I could see from the windows a building coming up. It seems that it was the new church that they were building. The people of SIB would gather during the weekend to build the church and the tentative date of completion was 2007. It seems pretty long to finish the building although the building was already up but understanding that they only build it during the weekend seems logical. I was quite surprised to see the facilities that were in this long house. They were equipped with necessary music instrument like drums, bass and electric guitar. Besides that, they had power during the day as well as compared to the other long houses as they had solar. I was quite impressed to see all of this.



There were many things that I would remember about this place. One of these experiences would be my first attempt in preaching. It was a daunting task for me. I needed to prepare a message that would bring across an intended message clearly. Initially, my plan was to preach on Mark 2. This was one of the chapters that we had done during our devotion as preparation for this trip. I felt that this chapter relevant and there were many thoughts or lesson that could be expounded from here. However, I made a last minute attempt to only speak from verse 1-14 after doing some research online. The passage that I would be preaching on was about the lame man being brought down to Jesus through a hole in the roof of the house. I decided to speak on the five different characteristics of the people who were in the house; Helpless One, Helping One, Healing One, Hindering One and Hapless One. By nature, I have always tried to think of something or some way of telling a story in a different and creative way. Instead of having skit , I decided to use some visuals to explain the story. I decided to draw the different scenes from the story and go through the story by bringing the audience to where it all took place.



After going through it all, I realize that my message took longer that expected. It took around 45 minutes which included the interpretation into Iban. I knew that my message was too long and draggy at times after gathering comments from my team member. I had spend a lot of time explaining the story that I wasn’t able to engage the people to the main points of the story at the end. Other than that, I had also planned to call for an altercall after seeing the encouraging response the day before. However, this did not come to pass. There were many lessons learn from my first attempt in preaching. I needed to choose a short story that I would explain briefly and take more time to expound on the points that would relate to the people as much as I can, preparing their hearts so that they would be able to come up for altercall and truly understand what they are asking of God. It was a very humble experience and I believe this would be the first of many preaching opportunities to come in future.

The other would be the picnic trip that the people of Rantau Rimau had prepared for us. I would say that this would be the most unforgettable experience of my life. We prepared to leave from our place to the upper streams after conducting the morning service. There were all together 4 to 5 long boats going upstream. They had brought along all the necessary utensils and food for the picnic which included a gas cylinder, a gas stove, bamboo, bamboo shoots, vegetables and not forgetting the meal of the day, the 48kg wild boar. It was all wrap up neatly to be brought to the picnic site where it would be slaughtered.







As we reached to the picnic site, I was quite amazed at the speed and efficiency of the people in getting all the necessary things done. In a blink of an eye, everyone was at their post doing what is necessary without being told. Some were up in the river trying to catch some fish, others brought down the utensils and started to prepare the fire.



















It was time for reality. The time when the pig would be slaughtered. I had not seen a live animal being slaughtered before except stumbling upon chickens in the market having their necks broken before placing them into hot water to remove their feathers. The pig was placed at the tip of one of the long boats. The bag that it was in was open up to show its neck. Someone had to step forward to sacrifice the animal and Mr. John proudly did the honours. It was simply quick to see the knife in his hand going through the neck of the pig and seeing blood oozing out from it. The pig struggled. It was still moving even when the head was nearly detached from its body. It was a horrific death. I had found out later on that the quickest way to kill a pig is by piercing the side of the neck, near the backbone. It would definitely helped ease the agony of the pig had to go through.

After the slaughter, I would see the pig reduced into chunks of meat in a matter of seconds. It was so fast that everyone helped chopped the parts of the pig and clean the animals from the meat to the intestine. It was a very clean process except having to see the gaud of the pig was down the river by the current. Here are some of the images of the process of slaughtering a wild boar.





























It was a simply awesome experience to see all the people doing all the different task in order to make the picnic a success. I couldn’t help but to stand and watch what they were doing. Other than that, I was totally speechless when I tasted the roasted wild boar. There was no ingredient at all to marinate the meat. It was all natural and the best part was, they only needed to roast it over a flaming fire. Besides that, I had a chance to try my hand at casting a net, swinging down a long extended vine into the river and going down the river with the current that almost cost us our lives.







The next interesting thing was the ngajat session that we had for supper. I was quite puzzled at first to see a banana tree tied to one of the pole of the house which was adorned with food and drinks. I soon came to find out that we would be doing the ngajat around the tree and cutting down one of the items to be place on the mat for supper. Everyone had a chance to try it. I couldn’t wait for mine. There were many hilarious moments during this session. One was them was Pastor Paul who tried to do the ngajat but did not continue to do so after his knife feel down when he tried to stomp on the floor to begin his dance move. The other would be one of the old mans who actually role on his head after kicking one of the coconuts on the floor. Pastor Marcus was behind all the commentary of the session that really brought laughter to the whole house.



These were some of the experiences I had in this house and I could go on and on telling you all of it but you would only understand what I mean if you were there to experience it. A great place and at the end of the day, it wasn’t so scary after all.