Within a 5 minute walk on the street where we lived here in Georgetown there is an Anglican church, a Hindu temple, a Buddhist temple, and a Islamic mosque. There is such a huge mix of culture and religion literally in the square kilometer we’ve lived within this month. It’s beautiful when the people and their different styles of dress and flavors of food offer so much diversity; however, all the religions make me think twice about what and why I believe.
This week, I made an effort to visit each of the different places for worship on the block. 
I went to a few different Chinese temples. Some are purely Buddhist and some are more Taoist, but there is a lot of sparkle, beautiful Chinese sculpture and many bright colors in the these temples. The ones I visited were quiet and almost completely empty. They seemed to be more tourist attractions than anything. There is one very active temple called the Goddess of Mercy Temple that we walked by every day for a couple of weeks. During this time there were hundreds of people buying flowers, foods, incense sticks, etc to offer to the statues in the temple. I don’t know how much you have to donate, but there are these giant incense logs that are about 6 feet long and 8 inches in diameter. Every once in a while someone would light one. It’s a pretty impressive offering, but for what I don’t know.
I spent a minimal amount of time in the Hindu temple. This one was interesting, very colorful and filled with voluptuous statues of women with many arms and even some with fangs. There are also colorful elephants. The attendant/monk on duty took some pictures with us (we didn’t ask) and dotted us on the forehead with some red powder (we didn’t ask for this either). Then, he asked us for some money. I would have given some just to be nice to him, but honestly I don’t want to be giving money to an unknown spirit or god. (pics)
Finally, the most intriguing visit I had was to the mosque. We were able to tour the mosque after agreeing to cover our knees with the robes at the entrance. We weren’t asked to, but willingly took the head coverings to complete our Muslim look (for pictures of course). Our tour guide’s name is Dean. He is a very kind and intelligent man. I really like him. After the short tour of the mosque, we were able to take off the stuffy attire and spent about 90 minutes in the visitor center talking about faith and religion.
Dean, of course, told us all about Islam and specifically wanted to adjust any misconceptions we have as Americans. To be honest, I mostly think of the extremists when I think of Muslim people. Since spending this month in Malaysia, that stereotype has completely changed. What I have learned is that there are so many similarities between Islam and Christianity. There are some key differences that both sides would consider deal makers/breakers-the big one is Jesus Christ. Islam believes in the Torah as the word of God and other parts of the Bible. One impressive fact is all “good” Muslims memorize the entire Quran in Arabic whether they speak the language or not. That made me think about the amount of scripture I’ve committed to memory and I’m completely humbled. 
It also makes me glad that we have decided to translate the Bible into English so I can read and understand it.
I also had the opportunity to talk with Felix twice this week. Felix is a semi-homeless atheist man that comes in to the Kawan center for meals. He is not a God fan and likes to have fun trying to get Christians frustrated by asking them questions that are impossible to answer. He knows a lot about the science that commonly challenges our faith and asked me about it. I said “I don’t know” to a lot of his questions, but considered the things he and Dean the Muslim asked me about. Honestly, they both may know the Bible better than I do.
I don’t have any profound theological thoughts or advice other than to seek the Lord with all your heart and He will reveal Himself to you. I believe this to be true. I also know that having friendly talks with people about what we believe makes me want to find out more. My teammate and I spent a long time reading and talking about so many questions that Felix and Dean brought up to us. They challenged us to figure out why we believe in and call on the name of Jesus Christ. I have had the opportunity this month in a Muslim nation to think about that in new ways. I love that.
