Kolombong Church was first established in the year 2000. It is the offspring of Kota Kinabalu church, and is the seventh church established in Kota Kinabalu. The establishment of Kolombong Church was initiated by our late Deacon John Wong, who at that time was the chairman of Sabah General Assembly and also the chairman of Kota Kinabalu church. On the 28th of November 1999, KK church board committee passed a resolution to expand a new church in the Kolombong area. Hence protem committee was set up to look into this matter. After a period of planning and searching for a suitable location, we finally chose a shop lot on the second floor at block B number 8 in Iramanis Centre as our worship chapel. By the grace of God, KK church helped us out to provide a loan, and together with the donations received, we managed to purchase the shop lot at a negotiated price of RM 170k. On the 25th February 2000, a simple ceremony was held at the church premise to pray and thank God, where a new church signboard was raised in the Kolombong area for the Glory of God! Renovation works was carried out in stages, and on the 6th May 2000 the first church service was held on Sabbath day.
Over the years, God blessed Kolombong church abundantly, not only strengthening our financial position, but also added many church members to our fold. The shop lot has a total floor area of about 1,400sf, which includes a small office cum RE classroom, kitchen and washroom. After a few years, the church hall, with the capacity of 90 seating was fully occupied during Sabbath service. During each Sabbath service, about 20 children would cramp into a small room to attend RE classes. The church committee had to find a solution to cope with the increasing number of church attendees; hence the search of a new church premise began in 2005.
The Current Church at Taman BDC Phase 3, Kolombong
After we had successfully bought over the building, we only started to renovate it more than a year later in early 2008. When by then, we were confident that we would have enough funds to see it through. When our neighbors saw that demolition works were carried out, a private primary school nearby realized that they had missed the opportunity of buying this building. So they came to pursue us to sell the building to them. They were very desperate to buy over as this was a very suitable building for their expansion and close to their existing school. They even gave us a CD showing their school expansion program. When we said we needed this building for our church use and were definitely not going to sell, they were not convinced and even tried to inquire Sabah General Assembly’s address to find out if they had a chance of buying over this building. This clearly showed that God indeed reserved this building for His church and blinded the public all these years when the building was left vacant. God even gave us ample time to negotiate with BDC management where we finally agreed to purchase the building.
However, due to the escalating cost of building materials when we started to do the demolition and renovation works, our original estimates had to be revised. Despite the big amount we had to shoulder, we believe that in God there was nothing impossible. Thank God, many of our fellow members were moved by the love of God, and they donated generously. Financial assistance came pouring in not only from our own Kolombong Church members, we also received generously from members around Sabah as well as overseas. We were very touched by their concern and love when we were financially constrained. Thus together with the loan and donations that we obtained, we were able to proceed with the renovation works. Thank God, the renovation and refurbishing works were finally completed in January 2009 for the Lord’s use.
On sixth February 2009 we had our Thanksgiving Service at the new church. This medium sized church can accommodate more than 200 members. We now have a much bigger space for our church hall as compared to the previous church. There is also a mothers’ room behind the church hall. Above it is the control room where all recordings and LCD programs are monitired. In addition to that, we also have two RE room, a meeting room and washroom, all on the first floor. The ground floor consists of a reception room at the entrance, and a senior members’ room next to it. There is a multi purpose hall for fellowship functions, and there are ample washrooms for both brothers and sisters, including one for handicapped members. There is a dining hall at the end of the building, and adjacent to it is the utility area and a store room. A generator set was also installed under the staircase to generate electricity in case of power cut off. We also constructed a wet kitchen behind the building which is necessary when food and drinks are to be prepared during various church functions.
Landscaping with trees, plants and an array of flowers were carried out to beautify the surroundings. The overall sight of the new church is simply majestic in its appearance. It was our dream that the house of God must be well adorned, and our members are very happy to serve the Lord in this beautiful chapel.