Sabah (East Malaysia)

A. Introduction

Sabah is situated in North Borneo and is separated from Peninsular Malaysia by the South China Sea, with a two-and-a-half-hour flight distance from each other. North Borneo was previously a British colony. On 31 August 1963, North Borneo, together with Sarawak, Singapore, and Peninsular Malaya formed the federation called Malaysia. North Borneo then became one of the states in Malaysia, and was renamed as "Sabah". Sabah has an equatorial climate, with a multicultural population of 3.9 million. 55.5% of the inhabitants are indigenous natives (Kadazan, Dusun, Murut, Bajau, etc.); 5.7% Malays, 9.2% Chinese, 0.2% Indians, and 1.5% of other races. The remaining 27.8% are non-Malaysian citizens. Bahasa Malaysia is the national language, while Mandarin and English are also commonly used. The political and economic conditions are stable.

B. Religion

There is some freedom of religion. The proportion of various religions is as follows: 65.4% Muslims, 26.6% Christians, 6.1% Buddhists and 1.6% other religions. The remaining 0.3% are atheists.

C. The Development of the True Jesus Church

In 1927, the Truth was first evangelized amongst the Chinese in the town of Sandakan and it continued to spread to Beaufort, Jesselton, and Telipok. The truth was later preached to the hill tribe in Wangkod in 1936, thus the first church for the Dusun Community was established. In 1958, because a Murut brother was cured of a critical illness, a prayer house was set up at Sungai Apih. The grace of God came upon the whole village not long after accompanied by miracles and signs. Following the directives of Nanking General Assembly, the church here was officially registered as the “Branch Board of the True Jesus Church” in 1952. In 1972 its name was changed to the General Assembly of the True Jesus Church in Sabah. Currently, there are 79 churches and 28 prayer houses. There are 17,735 believers (as of 2018).

D. Matters to take note of when visiting churches

Please refer to “Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia).”

• Sabah GA Website