We had left early that morning to take the plane from Kuching to Miri where at 11 am we caught the plane to Long San via a stop over in Marudi. All in all not even two hours flying time and that compared to the early years from the sixties to late eighties when it took us from Miri to Long San 3-4 solid days by boat depending on the level of water in the river to reach our destination.
Since I left Long San in 1998 I had been back only twice and the change that has taken place is tremendous. There are logging roads, not perfect but adequate to travel on. At least if you do not mind the bone-shaking potholes and the boulders around which you have to navigate on the side roads leading to the various longhouses. Quite an experience if you are not used to it.
The last two weeks of November and the whole month of December last year, I stayed in the parish of St Paul’s to give support to Fr Joseph Ding, the parish priest in Long San. I was told that the former Father’s House was taken down because it had become too dangerous to live in. The termites had been holding forth there in such a way that the house was on the point of collapse. In order to avoid any accidents the old house was taken down and Fr Joseph had moved in to a small part of the former convent, not exactly comfortable, rather cramped but adequate.
At that time I had made up my mind to help the parish to build a new house for its priest. Knowing that the people themselves did not have enough money to pay for such a project I set out to get some financial help. During the Chinese New Year I collected a good amount in ang pow for that purpose and I hereby would like to thank all those on behalf of the parish of Long San for their great generosity and my great thanks goes out to my so called “campaign managers” who really did a wonderful job.
The house is now under construction and hopefully will be completed by the end of July. It is a simple construction nothing fancy about it but will have all the basics necessities.
Enough about building the house. The first night poor Audrey Yu of Today’s Catholic, who at my request had come along to take some photographs, was attacked by all the mosquitoes around. Didn’t sleep a wink and appeared that morning with swollen eyes and hundreds of bites all over her arms and face. Poor thing!
During the three days that we were there we visited two logging camps, in each we heard confessions, celebrated Mass with the chapels overflowing with parishioners and after all our prayers were said and done we were treated with a wonderful dinner. I am always amazed about the hospitality of our upriver people. We were really feasted and made very welcome. Sunday morning confessions and Mass in the main Church of Long San, later in the afternoon to Tanjung Tepalit, a longhouse upriver where that evening we celebrated the Eucharist and of course we had to taste some of their glorious rice-wine.
All in all I thank the people for their spirit. For their initiative to build their own beautiful chapels, for being leaders in their own communities without having had a priest for so many years. It was for me a heart-warming visit and I believe that the future of our upriver people is secure in their own very good hands. What a difference from 50 years ago when many of them were still animists.
God has been good to them and they in turn heeded his call. I thank God for all the gifts bestowed on this small Catholic upriver community which over the years has given the Church three Carmelite nuns, five sisters of St Francis of Sarawak, two priests and numerous prayer leaders.
Fr Albert Jacobse, MHM
Fr Albert Jacobse is a Mill Hill Missionaries priest from Holland. He has served the people of Sarawak, particularly the Diocese of Miri and the Archdiocese of Kuching since 1964. He celebrated his 50th priestly anniversary in 2014. Here’s his interview with Today’s Catholic.
Today’s Catholic Vol.27 No.1 April 2015
