Rev Thomas A. Harris was the only African-American missionary among the over 200 missionaries who served in the Sarawak Methodist Church. Rev Harris and his wife, Jennie D. Harris, were assigned as missionaries to Yen Ping Methodist Annual Conference in Yen Ping (now Nan Ping Town) in Fujian province, China, for about 18 months from 1948 to 1950. After the Communist party took over China and forced missionaries to leave China, the couple was posted to the Malaysia Methodist Annual Conference and later assigned to serve in Sarawak on June 10, 1951. They were sent to Kapit to teach in the school and to farm there.
Rev Harris graduated from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and pursued further education at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He also studied language at Yale University and later, theology at Harford Theological College. So he was a well-qualified agriculturalist-cum-preacher. Before going to China, he had worked in Levy, Florida as a county agricultural agent.
Experimental farm station
Rev Harris spent most of his time working in Nanga Mujong, upstream Kapit, when he was in Sarawak. In 1952, building on the foundation of a church and school, he started an experimental farm station (later called a training station) for padi. He tried to plant two crops a year so that the local people could have a steady supply of padi. He conducted courses on agricultural knowledge and techniques in the school and divided the students into small groups. Each group was allocated a plot of land to plant vegetables for the needs of the residential students. Mrs Harris was responsible for training teachers who taught in English.
Rev Harris was also appointed as the principal and superintendent of the local Methodist school.
The farm imported pure-breed pigs, cows from New Jersey and goats from South Africa to enhance the quality of the local livestock. For example, if someone bought a sow he would be given a young boar and he would have to return a young sow when the adult sow gave birth. He also distributed seedlings, fertilisers and pesticides.
The farm was also responsible for teaching hygiene. In 1955, a health clinic was set up. Miss Kong Ting Yu was the nurse in charge; later, Miss Pearl Lee Pi Chuo took over the post. Besides the clinic, they also organised a mobile medical team to visit the longhouses. In December 1958, a new clinic which could accommodate four to five beds for patients and a hostel for the nurses was built. Rev Harris believed that farming should be the prime source of income for the Sarawakians, especially when 97% of the Ibans were farmers. So promoting productive farming and training was very important.
Model of integrated evangelism
In 1959, the church allocated a motorboat to a local preacher, Alan, for visiting and serving the longhouses along the river. The church also set up a youth fellowship, women’s fellowship and adult classes. In 1960, a new church building and a new hostel for the school was built at a total cost of $17,700.
Mrs Harris led the women's ministry, teaching literacy classes as well as handcraft and she was quite successful in her endeavours. She also taught in the school. In fact, this model of mission ministry integrated the gospel (church), education (school), medicine (clinic) and agriculture.
During the 7th Annual Conference in 1958, Rev Harris reported that, “We felt that we have established a balanced Christian working plan at Nanga Mujong, Kapit.” He mentioned that more efforts were needed to train local people to carry on the task.
In August 1966, Rev Harris returned from his debriefing in the US for the third time. Besides farming, he worked closely with Miss Blanche Apple in the education ministry (she replaced William J. Funk who was away on furlough). Rev Harris was responsible for serving all the Methodist schools in the upstream Rajang River area. That same year, the office of Ng Mujong agriculture station was moved to Kapit. However, Mr and Mrs Richard Schwenk, another missionary couple who was still stationed in the Mujong area, conducted agriculture training and introduced hygienic toilets.
In the whole Kapit District, the church activities in the Baleh area (which included Ng Mujong) developed the fastest. The 1967 report mentioned that after the first batch of Ibans was baptised in 1949, following 18 years of education, training in farming and medical care, there was a total of 7,905 Iban believers. It laid a firm foundation for the Iban gospel ministry in the Methodist Church.
After serving 18 months in Sini, China in 1969 and 18 years in Sarawak, Rev Harris and his wife returned to America. It was said that during the 1960s, the couple had adopted two children, Dianna and John Allen, believed to be Iban children. One was from a family of 10 children and the mother of the other had passed away during childbirth.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Post Office and some big companies would print special envelopes to commemorate their companies' special occasions. On the front of one of these envelopes, the words “Methodist Church of Malaysia in South East Asia'' are printed. A photograph of Mr and Mrs Harris is included on the back of the envelope, alongside photographs of some Chinese women and a Kenyah man against the background of East and West Malaysia's “One People'' design. The slogan “One People '' came about on May 10, 1939 when the Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Episcopal Church South and Methodist Protestant Church combined to become the United Methodist Church in the US and adopted the slogan “One People". The slogan was used on the envelope as East and West Malaysia combined to form Malaysia.
