Editors Note: The internet here is a LITTLE slow so hopefully more pictures will come, check back!
And the award for worst blogger goes to… ME!
Well, we have about 4 days left in Malaysia and I still have
yet to write a blog about anything.
So, let’s just start at the beginning:
We left Chicago, spent about 14 hours on a plane, and landed
in Hong Kong. After a 5-hour layover we hopped on another plane to Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. We reached KL at about 6 AM. At the airport our squad said our
goodbyes as our teams split up for the month.
A few teams didn’t leave KL until later that night, so we
spent the day exploring the city of KL. We were fortunate that one of the guys,
Tim, had some friends from college that were able to show us around. We went to
KLCC, a huge shopping mall in between the tallest twin towers in the world.
At 9:30 my team hopped on a freezing train that was supposed
to reach our destination in about 9 hours… it was more like 10. It was… quite
the experience. It was pitch black outside, there were no maps telling you how
far until your stop, there were no announcements as to which town we were
stopping in, and Sungai Petani didn’t even have a sign at their stop letting
you know where you were. Thankfully some kind souls let us know when to get
off.
We arrived in SP at around 7 AM where we met our contact,
Pastor Thomas, and headed to our new home.
This month we have had pretty nice digs. We stay in a 2-story
house with electricity, high-powered fans, cold showers, and running water. We
are within walking distance of a restaurant that lets us use their wifi and we
have an awesome contact.
Our ministry this month has involved hospital visits, home
prayers, visiting with our contacts family, ministering to our host, and
preaching/sharing testimonies at our contacts church.
The hardest part of ministry this month is the translating.
I was giving my testimony in church and sometimes the translator would get a
little stuck on some of the phrases I used. For instance he didn’t really
understand what I meant by a Christian home. There were a couple of times I had
to look to my team for advice on how to rephrase what I wanted to say.
The entire time before I went up to share I was worried
about what I was going to say. I prayed for God to give me the words to say, or
at least to give the translator the words to translate.
When speaking I would say a sentence and then pause for the
translation. Once I got into my testimony, I would say a sentence and the
translator would say about 5! Every time! I’m still not quite sure what he was
saying but my teammates say he was pretty passionate about what he was
sharing.
This past weekend we were able to visit 2 teams that are
working together in Penang, an island about an hour away from SP.
On Saturday we went on a 2-hour hike through the jungle to
reach Monkey Beach. We encountered some not-so-friendly monkeys, but we finally
reached the beach. It was nice to relax by the water, especially after the long
hike.
On Sunday we were able to go to church with Team 6:33. It
was a much different experience than our small church here in SP. After a
2-hour service we had tea and then split up for Sunday School.
Our trip to Penang was nice, but it definitely made us
appreciate our small little town of SP even more!
We leave Saturday afternoon to take a bus to KL where we
will spend the night and then take a bus to Singapore in the morning. From
there we will fly to Australia. My team will be in Darwin working on a YWAM
(Youth With a Mission) base. I’m not exactly sure where in Darwin we will be or
what our ministry will look like. Hopefully, I will be much better about
blogging in the coming months!
