1. Kuching East District
There are 10 churches and 4 preaching centres in the parish of Kuching East, with an average Sunday Service attendances of 3,601, including 195 from the BM congregation. About 699 children attended Sunday School which also saw 166 new baptisms and 140 new memberships. Average attendances for Thursday prayer meetings were 755. The Morning Prayers at 5:30am daily at Ching Kwong MC continued, while Chin Daw MC and Chin Seng MC held it at 6:00am on Saturdays.
Six church-run kindergartens continued to serve the community with 405 pupils and 40 teachers. Persatuan Dialisis Cahaya Kuching (PDCK) served 72 people in three shifts and had reached its full capacity. PDCK is planning to procure 12 more Dialysis Machines in order to meet the needs of 144 people.
Kuching Methodist Care Centre set up a Classroom for Sensory Integration this year to allow special children to have different sorts of sensory training.
2. Kuching West District
11 churches and 2 preaching centres in the parish of Kuching East totalled an average of 3,498 worshippers. The average Sunday worship attendances of 5 churches and preaching centres are under 100 people. About 523 people (15% of worshippers) joined the weekly prayer meetings.
There were 5 BM services at Trinity MC, Matang MC, Siong Tau MC, Sentosa MC, Samariang (in-charge by Matang MC) and City Mall (in-charge by Trinity MC) respectively.
Hospital visitation was a significant ministry in Kuching. Ong Siew Hui, the Director of Hospital Ministry Kuching, reached out to 2,860 patients this year while the churches with regular hospital visits included: Chin Fu MC, Trinity MC, Siong Tau MC, Zhu En MC and Petra MC. The Day Care Centre, Trinity MC, accommodated 56 senior citizens. The learning centre under Trinity MC offered tuition to 140 needy indigenous children.
The construction of 3-storey Prayer Centre at Petra MC was completed, providing 2 prayer rooms and a hall with capacity up to 60 persons. Although no accommodation is available, Petra MC can help make arrangements.
3. Sarikei District
Sarikei District is currently composed of 11 churches and 4 preaching centres. The average attendance was 2,068 this year, a decrease by 2.82% (60 people) as compared to last year. Sunday school attendance also dropped from 690 to 674 this year.
Prayer meetings also saw a decrease by 2.73% (15 people), recording about 534 regular attendances. However Issachar prayer movement spread across every parish.
On the other hand, there was an encouraging increase in Sunday school attendance for adults from 453 to 597 this year, an increase of 144 people (31.8%).
71 children and 62 adults were baptised while 97 people were added to the Methodist family.
“The Unveiled” Youth Camp in BM and Life Game in BM reached out to 31 youths and 139 indigenous students respectively.
Christian Teachers’ Fellowship met four times this year to motivate each
other to be gospel pigeons in their respective schools.
Twelve longhouses were adopted by this District and were delegated to local churches to help shepherd the longhouse residents.
4. Bintangor District
About 889 believers in Bintangor District attended Sunday Service regularly while the average attendance of prayer meetings was 247. BB and GB ministry recorded 140 GB boys and 92 GB girls in total.
In reaching out to the community in a friendly way, an interesting and unique approach “Banana Gospel Ministry” was adopted. Longhouse ministry served 6 longhouses regularly.
5. Sibu West District
75 children and 102 adults were added to the kingdom of our Lord God this year. Nonetheless, the total number of worshippers did not increase accordingly; in fact it decreased from 2,304 last year to 2,282. The Sunday school attendance dropped by 4.02% from 721 to 692.
There are 5 church-run kindergartens in Sibu West. Meanwhile, the churches also ministered to students and teachers in 12 primary schools, 5 secondary schools and 2 colleges.
Fifteen churches in this district adopted a total of 24 Iban longhouses in 4 areas. Tien Tao MC in the meantime conducted BM Service at 3:00pm every Sunday with an average attendance of 25. En Tao MC on the other hand extended their ministry to UCTS campus by having BM meeting with an average of 23 attendances.
6. Sibu East District
The total Sunday service attendance in Sibu East District dropped 5.65% this year, from 6,800 last year to 6,416. The Thursday Prayer Meeting scored 888 attendances this year, decreased by 77 attendances if compared to last year.
Only Masland MC and Xin Fu Yuan MC observed morning prayer meetings. The former even had two sessions, 5:00-6:00am from Tuesday to Saturday with about 15 attendances and 7:00-7:30am from Monday to Friday with 10 attendances in average. The latter had its morning prayer from Monday to Saturday from 5:15-6:00am with average attendance of 49.
Tien En MC had an encouraging Thursday Prayer Meeting attendance, about 104 out of 672 average Sunday Worship attendances. Meanwhile, about 100 worshippers participated the Lent fast and pray.
In the area of Social Concern, Doh Ang MC and Toh Ing Preaching Centre showed concerns for the youth by driving them to MY Centre to learn how to play basketball, and to train them physically and spiritually.
7. Sibu North District
Made up of 8 churches and 3 preaching centres, Sibu North scored 5,566 in total Sunday Worship attendances this year, a slight drop by 51 people from last year. Prayer Meetings saw total attendances of 858, with a drop of 40 people in average.
5 churches were involved in Longhouse Ministry, including Zion MC (1 LH), Hwai Ang MC(6 LH), Wesley MC (18 LH), Sing Ang MC (20 LH) and Shiuan Daw MC (2 LH).
66.7% out of 90 kindergarten teachers undertook or had attained pre-school training not only to obtain professional certificates but also to enhance their teaching skills.
8. Kapit District
Kapit District, unique in its geographical environment, has 11 churches and 1 preaching centre. The Siong Ong MC has 8 preaching points and WTK Camp 5 preaching points scattered in the middle of the forest.
The total worshippers amounted to 601 this year, decreased by 153 people from last year; the drop could be attributed to the closing of many timber camps. An average of 143 attended the prayer meetings, about 23.8%. And there were 31 new baptisms, 13 children and 18 adults.
Adhering to the notion of “One parish one school”, Fu Ling MC had started campus ministry in 5 nearby secondary and primary schools, Ik Ong MC 1 primary school, Kiew Ong MC 1 secondary school and 1 primary school, Julau MC 1 kindergarten, Sang En MC 1 primary school.
Longhouse ministry saw Fu Ling MC adopting one longhouse Rh Matang focusing in BM Sunday school for their children. Kapit District showed concern for the home missionaries Ling Fang Fang (Ulu Julau) and Mr and Mrs Chua Kok Kui (Light House, Kapit) through phone calls and greeting cards. The District donated RM1000 to support the longhouse and youth ministries carried out by Light House, Kapit.
9. Bintulu District
The total Sunday Worship attendance in Bintulu District also saw a drop from 3080 to 2961 by 3.86%. The Thursday Prayer Meetings saw 705 attendances in average, about 23.8% of the total worshippers. The children’s Sunday school had 817 attendances.
174 worshippers were added to the Methodist family this year while 85 adults and 88 children were baptised.
Bintulu District was also active in longhouse ministry. Together they ministered to 9 longhouses. Apart from this, the district walked a second mile to serve the indigenous people in setting up 2 community care centres (PKKM) to give tuition classes to their children from kindergarten to secondary students. There were about 97 and 45 students in Sebiew PKKM and Beverly Hill PKKM respectively.
In addition, there were 3 recycle service centres in three locations selling used items with the hope of assisting the underprivileged.
There were 8 churches, 3 preaching points and 4 kindergartens in this district.
10. Miri District
There were 4,512 worshippers on average, however attendance also dropped by 3.03% or 141. The Thursday Prayer Meetings were attended by 850, 18.8% out of the total worshippers. About 1,095 children attended Sunday school every week.
Meanwhile, the total BM congregation in this district was 417 on average.
Compiled by Saffronlee