My first encounter with Datuk Mutang Tagal and his family go back to 1985 when Sarawak’s first correspondent of the New Straits Times. Forty years ago I was invited from attend a gathering of “Lun Bawang” or “Murut” natives celebrating a series of Christian Miracles at Buduk Nur at the foot of Gunung Murud --Sarawak’s 7,953 ft highest mountain complex.

It was at Ba Kelalan that I met the prominent family of Pastor Mutang Tagal and two sons Dr Judson Tagal and younger sibling Mutang, a 29-year-old University of Malay-trained lawyer. It was here that Pastor Mutang built up his fortunes of growing the famous “Padi Adan” better known as Bario Rice. Pak Tagal also bred the Sabah species of “ponies” and had a stable of horses. Together with Ba Kelalan’s community of about 1,500 villagers and Tagal’s two sons, they also developed the surrounding hills and built a tourist resort.

They built a mini hydro-electric dam which provided power to nine “Kampungs” the enclave. It was through Pastor Tagal that the community enjoyed that facilities, amenities and a Borneo Evangelical Mission or Sidang Injil Borneo” which had served the community since the 2nd world war. My journey to Ba Kelalan entailed flying by Boeing from Kuching to Miri for a night-stop before connecting by MAS Twin Otter to Lawas’s Budur Nur airstrip.

After a week of investigations, I wrote (New Straits Times (December 2, 1985) my story. “I saw a video-tape recording of one of the miracles…women dressed in white skirts and yellow blouses looking up to the sky. “Then as they clapped their hands a small ball a light appeared in the sky…songs of praise and clapping seemed to bring the ball of fire closer and slightly larger. “As it zig-zagged in the sky the villagers of the Sidang Injil Borneo (Borneo Evangelical Mission) continued singing…it appeared to be keeping in rhythm to the choir.”

The reports of “dancing lights” were first reported in April 1985 and at the soccer pitch of the Ba Belan valley watered by quaint streams and brooks and bamboo groves from which they community built their habitat! It was at Ba Kelalan that I met the prophetic pastor Agung Bangau who motivated the villagers to build South East Asia’s highest church called “Gedung Hallelujah” on the saddle of Mount Kinabalu.

From Gedung Hallelujah, we hiked for four hours to get to the peak to witness the first 6 a.m. sunrise on a misty day. Grand-mothers as old as 80 and children below the age of six from the cluster of Ba Kelalan’s 10 villages--Buduk Nur, Long Langai, Long Lemutut, Long Ritan, Long Rusu, Pa Tawing, Buduk Bui, Buduk Aru and Long Rangat—have joined in the pilgrimage since. In my first interview with Agung, he spoke of his journey with an angel who brought him to place he called “heaven”.