Seven years is a long time to be away from the ‘missions’. It was time to return. I flew into a rain drenched Sibu – Sarawak, E. Malaysia- one Monday afternoon. James Chambers, a Mill Hill Missionary, was there to collect me and take me to his mission in Kanowit. Two days later we went on a two day trip to visit some of the Mass centres in the mission.

Most of the native Iban tribe live along the many miles of river, so the main form of transport is by boat. We travelled by long-boat along Malaysia’s longest river, the Rajang river. It was a good way to see life on the river. I expected to see a river that was clean and clear – instead, all I saw was muddy brown water. It wasn’t difficult to discover the source of the river’s colour. We passed two large open spaces along the river bank where mass quantities of timber were stacked for transportation. Heavy lifting equipment was loading the timber onto large barges – the wood, I later learnt, was due to be exported to Japan. Sarawak was one of the few remaining areas in Asia with large areas of virgin rain-forest and much of it was being destroyed.

We then pulled into a tributary of the Rajang to continue our journey to the first mass-centre. This time the river’s surface was covered with small islands of plastic bags and bottles floating downstream- the river was being used as an open refuse tip by the people who lived further upstream. I expected to see wild-life along the river – some of the orang-utans and crocodiles that I had read about before my visit. Instead all I saw and heard were birds. I expect that most of the wild-life along the river had been killed by the Iban for food.

It rained for much of that two day trip. When we eventually returned to the parish house in Kanowit, I read the local newspaper, the Sarawak Times. The front page had the heading: Major Flooding in Sibu and Kuching. The article described how, as a result of the build up of silt in the estuary of the Rajang and other major rivers in Sarawak, the town centres of Kuching and Sibu had been badly flooded. What was the state-controlled newspaper’s proposed solution? Plant more trees!

As a result of that trip to Sarawak, some of my views of mission have changed. Missionaries have got to be more directly engaged with issues concerning the destruction of the rain-forest and of the natural environment. We need to find ways of connecting with organisations that campaign on green issues and see how we can get them involved. We also need to educate our parishioners about how mission can and must also encompass care for creation. We can obviously continue with our traditional ways of doing mission – but if this is our exclusive focus, then we are living in denial. Or to put it in a well worn phrase, we are merely moving the deck-chairs around the Titanic.

Fr Brian Oswald MHM
Diocesan Organiser APF, Arundel and Brighton

P.S. – I received an e-mail today from Fr James mentioning that the parish church in Kanowit had been flooded.