In the 19th century the Dutch government, which did not effectively dominate Sumba until 1906, moved inhabitants of the island of Sawu to Sumba in order to establish a foothold there. When Christianity came to Sawu, two congr came into existence among these immigrants (? 1875). In 1881 a conservative Calvinist mission body in the Netherlands sent a missionary to Sumba; in 1892 the GKN took over. It was hoped that the Sawunese Christians would be a stepping-stone for the mission among the Sumbanese proper. But as relations between Sumbanese and Sawunese were bad, during the next quarter of a century hardly a Sumbanese accepted the Gospel. In 1907 the mission made a fresh start by establishing a mission post among the Sumbanese. Teacher-preachers from Ambon, Rote, and Sawu, together with the Dutch missionaries, slowly (first baptism of Sumbanese proper in December 1915) founded a number of congr. Gradually a number of these were given autonomy, but, unlike the GKN mission on Java, the evangelists pastoring them were not ordained as ministers. Not until 1942, when there were more than 5,000 baptized Christians, was the first Sumbanese minister ordained. Two years later he was executed by the Japanese. During World War II Sumba was occupied by a large Japanese army, and the population suffered accordingly. After the war the mission sped up the process of building an independent church. On January the first Synod of the Gereja Kristen Sumba convened. Numbers of missionaries remained on Sumba, but in the next ten years their role gradually changed into that of advisors. They were active in theological education, lay training programs, but also in agriculture (“comprehensive approach”). In 1972 the relationship with the GKN was reformulated in a new agreement of cooperation. During the last decade the church has been going through a process of contextualization, which is leading to a more positive attitude toward traditional custom. The GKS has a number of schools and two hospitals and publishes a magazine,Berita GKS. It considers January 15, 1947, as its birth date.
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