(From left) John, Kete, Richard, Ling Geok Lian and Kimi Soon Peng Hai during the recent meet up in Kapit.
KAPIT (May 24): Reverend Pastor Richard Schwenk from Chicago, United States of America has made a surprise visit here to visit his former colleagues, friends and longhouse folks after some 45 years.
Accompanying him during the one-week trip to Kapit were his son John and John’s niece Kete Schwenk.
Richard, who is now 90 years old, first set foot in Kapit in 1965, where he served as an Agriculture Missionary under Sarawak Methodist Iban Annual Conference till 1979.
“I was an Agriculture Missionary under Sarawak Methodist Iban Annual Conference from 1965 to 1979 and was stationed at Nanga Mujong, Baleh to teach the longhouse folks to cultivate land for farming.
“I was later attached to the Methodist Chempro (Community, Health, Education, Motivation and Propagation) where I taught English and Bible Studies at SM Methodist Kapit,” he recalled.
Richard (left) with the agriculture course participants in Nanga Mujong.
Through this Chempro programme, Richard said the Methodist mission had established eight primary schools in Kapit, including SM Methodist, in the 1960s.
Adding on, he said one of these schools – SK Nanga Mujong – had produced outstanding leaders such as the late deputy chief minister and Baleh assemblyman Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr James Jemut Masing, and former Hulu Rajang MP Datuk Billy Abit Joo.
Richard remembered the late Masing as a principal for SM Methodist prior to the Methodist mission’s decision to offer the latter a scholarship to pursue his studies in Australia.
The Methodist Chempro programme, he explained, was initiated after the taking over of Christ Hospital by the federal government in 1973, to which it was later renamed Kapit Hospital.
A group photo taken during an agriculture outreach programme in 1973. Richard is seated left.
The event, he vividly recalled, was officially declared by the then federal health minister Datuk Lee Siew Yeu.
Richard is definitely one with a photographic memory as he could clearly remember another scholarship recipient from the Methodist Missionary whom he recalled as Dr Ting, who later served at the Kapit Hospital upon his graduation from Cornell University, New York.
According to Richard, the federal government had given RM1.3 million to the Sarawak Methodist Iban Annual Conference for the takeover of Christ Hospital, which was later deposited into a bank in Sibu as Kapit did not have any banking facilities at that time.
The interest from the savings was utilised to run the Methodist Chempro activities such as buying aspirins and basic medicines, catering to the healthcare needs of the longhouse people who visited the missionary, he said.
Total Team Ministry members with SIAC president Reverend Joshua Bunsu (centre). Some Chempro nurses (Foochow ladies) are also in the photo.
Upon receiving a PhD in Methodist Theology from a university in the United States in 1957, Richard, 23 at that time, was flown to Manila.
He was later sent to the northern Philippines where he stayed for four years before being officially ordained as a pastor.
He first met his Filipino wife, Caring Candad, in 1958 and proposed to her three years later. They are now blessed with three children.
Newly-weds Richard and Caring Candad, in the Philippines.
The visit to Kapit would be a meaningful one for Richard as he was anticipating a meet up with some of his old friends from the ‘agriculture team’.
However, he was only able to meet 82-year-old community nurse retiree Ling Geok Lian, longhouse chief John Jalok, and Pastor Elizabeth Enjut who is attached to the Sarawak Methodist Iban Annual Conference, Sibu during his visit here.
The others whom he was eager to meet unfortunately had passed away, namely Peter Gani, a former Baleh assemblyman and political secretary to the then Sarawak Chief Minister; former Kapit District Council deputy chairman Wilson Sanggau; a Kapit Hospital employee named Igai and a midwife named Bawang; and businessmen Tan Pok Ngek and Ah Ba Soon.
A family portrait after the birth of the couple’s second son Robert, who was born in Kapit.
John, meanwhile, told The Borneo Post that his father had never once forgotten Kapit, Panto or Mujong in Sarawak where he had served for over 14 years.
“In fact, he had kept reminding us and insisted that Kete and I bring him back here,” he said, while sharing a collection of photographs that his father had brought along during the trip.
He added that he is also the administrator of a Facebook group set up to enable his father to chat with old colleagues and friends in Kapit.
On their trip, John said he planned it with his niece Kete, who is an opera singer in Chicago.
“We flew to Istanbul, Turkey on transit, then to Kuala Lumpur and then to Kuching and Sibu, before taking a bus to Kapit. Luck was on our side as we managed to get cheaper flights, about US$2,000 for a round trip flight for each of us,” he said, adding they will also be visiting Kuching before concluding their nostalgic journey.