He was then followed by the Rev S. S. Pakianathan who planted churches as well as schools from 1905 to 1918 in Medan, Buitenzorg (present day Bogor), and Palembang.

Within the first decade, the Methodist mission grew rapidly in North Sumatera, Palembang, Java and parts of Kalimantan.

Due to the vast distances involved, the lack of well developed transportation infrastructure, as well as localised opposition from the Dutch authorities and local Christians who were mainly from the Calvinist tradition, mission work was eventually restricted to North Sumatera and Java by 1928.

[3] The Methodist missionaries stationed in Medan started by reaching out the ethnic Chinese migrant community but initially found little success compared to their counterparts working in Java.

[4] As a result of the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation that started in 1963, it no longer became tenable to administer the mission work from the headquarters of the Southeast Asian Central Conference in Singapore.