Quop: A Church and a Cemetery

“Oh, wow!” Jason said, his two-year old brown eyes lighting up.

We had just left the old, wooden Anglican church, which was built in 1865 and where Jason’s Bidayuh mother and I had been married five years ago in her village Quop, in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. The new church had already been in use for over twenty years when I had made a formal request that our marriage take place in the old church. The priest thought the request odd, since the old church had neither fans nor air-conditioning and all of the pews had been removed. So blue plastic chairs had to be used for the guests. The chairs, however, didn’t detract from the ambiance and the warmth of the dark, natural wooden floors, walls, and ceiling.

But what got Jason’s enthusiastic attention was not the church but our descending a nearby slope, away from the church. For the first time he had seen in full view a cemetery where many of his relatives were buried. He was looking at the newer part where many of the tombstones were gleaming white. Much to his chagrin, I led him away, toward the recently dedicated cement steps that led to the top of a hill.

Jason stopped and said, “Water.”

There was a tiny stream at the base of the hill, so we paused for a few moments to admire the water. Jason squatted to get a better look.

“The water of life,” I said, though I didn’t know why I had said it, other than we were standing at the base of a cemetery and it seemed appropriate. Jason was too preoccupied looking at the water to care.

The steps led us to the older section, where the grave markers were mostly bare-wood boards that years ago may have had writings on them, even crosses carved into them, but which time and the tropical sun had weathered plain. It appeared as if someone had stuck a bare-wood board into the ground and that was that. Some of these boards had since been replaced with white markers. Others kept the old-weather-beaten board beside the newer version. Of the few old dates that I could still read, one stated that the person buried beneath us was born in 1875.

Jason and I were both silent, showing our respect as we traipsed among the grave markers. The view of the old church on the opposite hill was splendid – such a fine piece of work carved out of the jungle, at a time when taking heads for trophies was still practiced throughout Borneo. Whenever I see the old church, I smile. This was not only the church where Jason’s mother and I married, but also the same church where Jason’s grand­parents, his great grand­parents, his great, great grandparents, and all his relatives going back 140 years married. These didn’t include all those generations of relatives who married in Quop before the church was build, before the missionaries came and converted them to Anglican. Later, when Jason gets older I’ll explain the significance of this church. Perhaps he too would like to marry in that church, thus keeping the family tradition.

As we gazed around the cemetery, I couldn’t help feel alive. How can you not help but feel alive while standing all alone in a cemetery, knowing that all those who came before you were buried in the very ground where you walked? Yet we were not alone, as Jason deftly pointed out to me by steering my attention from the graves to a long line of marching ants that were going back and forth to their nest buried in the ground. His instincts was to put his foot on that very nest, to close it up, but I told him not to disturb it or his tiny feet would be overrun by hundreds if not thousands of very angry ants.

As we returned to the church service that was still in progress, eager children, much like the ants we had just seen, gathered at the entrance of the old church. They made their way, in single file, to the new church, as did children of various ages descending from two separate paths from two primary school buildings where bible lessons were being taught. Over a hundred children, if not more, swarmed around the entrance of the church awaiting their turn to receive communion and a blessing from the priest. Jason, too, got in line with his mother, who was grateful that we had successfully moved from Penang to Sarawak.

By the way, Jason’s middle name, William, comes from his American grandfather and an uncle, while his recently born brother Justin has a middle name taken from my wife’s grandfather, Rona, one of the graves we had just visited in the cemetery in Quop.
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