But it’s not all gloom; in the midst of their ‘challenges’, the pastors remain faithful and continue to persevere. Tais detects too their sincere love for the BM Church in the Peninsula and their earnest desire to see its growth.

Tais estimates that about 75 percent of the pastors serving in the BM churches in the Peninsula come from East Malaysia where they had been successful and effective in their ministries.

However, most of them are facing difficulties here because of the different culture and lifestyle.

"In East Malaysia, life is more relax and they can take their time to build up their ministry. Here, they find the pace of life very fast and modern. Their congregation members are more educated and even the factory workers are more knowledgeable.

"Oftentimes, they feel discouraged when they do not meet their senior pastors’ expectations. As a result, they lose confidence," Tais observes.

"There have been cases where pastors went up to the pulpit to preach or say something, but when they got up there, they panic and said nothing for a while."

Such experience drags the self-esteem further down and they end up feeling even more inadequate. Because of their personal negative perception, they have a tendency to misunderstand or misread what their senior pastors or others say, and this creates relationship problems.

Many BM pastors revealed that they lack support and understanding from their senior pastors. While this may be true in some cases, Tais thinks the truth is that most pastors only imagine it because of their poor self-image.

Whatever the reasons are, Tais calls for greater understanding, patience and encouragement for these BM pastors, especially from the senior pastors, to gently push them along.

In helping them, they are helping the BM Church to grow and achieve independence. "Tolong anak jalan (help the child to walk). Once they can walk, you can let go," he says.

At the same time, he urges the BM pastors to help themselves by joining the pastors’ fellowship where they can find support. In addition, they must keep in touch with current issues in order to be able to minister effectively to their flock, especially the younger generation, who are attracted and tempted to adopt the world’s values.

Tais says the other problems that the BM churches are facing are:

• Lack of financial support – the majority of the congregation are from the lower-income group (factory workers and foreign labourers).
• Insufficient training materials – most of the materials available are from Indonesia. The terms used are not easily understood here. Tais hopes churches that have good BM training resources will share their materials with the other BM churches.

Generally, BM pastors desire a stronger networking and prayer fellowship among the BM churches.

Spurred by the sharing of the BM pastors, Tais will continue to make regular visits to the BM churches throughout the Peninsula. Besides promoting unity and networking through the visits, he hopes to identify new grounds for the BM work.