The first person I would like to make known is Brother Mark. He asked me not to post his picture on the internet so I will respect that request. But let me paint a picture for you. My computer art doesn’t do justice, so imagine a 6’4” white male, bald, tattoos on his hands and around his neck. He is pretty thick, could have been in a biker gang at one point, now put him in an orange monk outfit. Definitely someone you aren’t going to forget.
I met Brother Mark while working at the front desk at Kawan. He came in and sat down and said that he just had a minute so he just wanted to, “plant a seed”. Then he just started to talk about being Buddhist. Never have I ever heard of an evangelizing Buddhist before. But he was telling us all about seeking knowledge and what it meant to him. I didn’t agree with a lot of things that Brother Mark said, but I did agree with one thing. You really should know what you believe. You can’t just take literature, lets say the Bible, and say, “This is truth because ‘so-and-so’ told me it was truth.” I believe that it is important for us to know that the Bible is true because it is true, because we did our own research about the Bible. I have to confess, I’m guilty of just hearing things and believing them to be truth. I’m not saying that you need to question everything that we hear and I’m not saying that the Bible is wrong. All I’m saying is that it is important to know what you believe.
I continued to have run-ins with Brother Mark and every time he would shake my hand (If you don’t know, Monks aren’t supposed to touch women, but brother Mark claims that the monks don’t even know their own doctrine because monks can) and ask me my name. I’ll never forget Brother Mark, he reminded me that it is important to know what we believe.
Trevor was the next face I met here in Malaysia. Trevor was from the UK and began traveling when he found out that his ex-wife was having an affair and wanted a divorce. He was so angry and decided if he didn’t leave the country he would kill his wife and her new found love. So he began traveling and for the next 6 years went around the world. Now things are good with his ex-wife, but he continues to travel. One thing that I loved about Trevor were his stories. He had crazy stories about getting into trouble with the Law and the different places he has been. He had a care-free life and he appeared to love it. But when it came down to it, he was getting tired of traveling, he felt like there was something missing in his life. (JESUS!) So we talked about this void in his life. Trevor talks a lot so it is hard to tell him what you believe or think, however I got to ask questions that got him thinking for sure. I loved the encounters that we had over the course of the month, so if you could, keep him in your prayers.
Mr. Collins… One of the most interesting characters that I’ve met on the race. I met him a few days after he found out that his wife had passed away. There is a lot that he shared with me that I’m not sure I should write on the internet for his sake, but I loved my encounter with him. He was very angry with the Lord for taking his wife from him. He was accusing the Lord left and right. He admitted that he was a christian at one time, but he was just angry. Mr. Collins, like Trevor, had a lot to say and wasn’t too interested in hearing your opinion. However I was able to sneak in a few questions. There was one question that I asked that I didn’t expect to throw him through a loop, but did. The question was, “do you feel like you loved your wife more than you loved God?” He looked at me like I just slapped his face with a dead fish. It hurt, but it was mostly shock. After about a minute of him thinking, he said, “yes, yes I did” and then he went off another tangent. Mr. Collins was very lost, he was hurt and was looking at everything in the wrong light. But I think that we have to look at our own lives and see if there are things that we love more than God. If there are idols in our lives that take priority over the God we serve. People, money, our job, sleep, food… many different things can become idols. Maybe we need a dead fish slapped across our face to remind us that we don’t always make the Lord our number one.
There are so many other people that I’ve met in Malaysia, Anthony, the Samosa man, Getzy, Gloria, Uncle Peter… all wonderful relationships. But these three were three special faces from Kawan that the Lord blessed me with.
