**Let me first preface this story: It’s Thursday and my team is looking for a place to stay in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We’re currently in Chinatown, but we found a place that looks promising in a different area of the city. We’re about to go check it out, but me and another teammate have a strong feeling we’re supposed to stay in Chinatown. I believe this is why. **
Meet Mooi.
Mooi works at the hostel my team stayed at in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is 57 years young and as sassy as a teenage girl. We had gotten to know her a bit during our stay and had sought her out a few times to ask about good food places in the area, etc, but we hadn’t had a significant interaction with her yet. Well, the third day we were there, we woke up in the morning to find that Mooi had bought us all breakfast. The next day, we woke up to the same thing, except that this time she had cooked the food herself. She made us a soup that she boiled for seven hours. Just for us. We were so surprised and in awe of how much Mooi had blessed us in our stay when we felt like we hadn’t really done anything to deserve it.
After three nights of staying in the city, my team planned to travel to a different city on Sunday after church. We had already said goodbye to Mooi that morning thinking we wouldn’t see her again. Well, God had other plans.
I had been having a feeling of regret and unrest about leaving KL, because I felt I hadn’t had enough time with Mooi yet. I was so tired and distracted by my own interests the whole time I’d been in the city that I was wasting every opportunity God was giving me to just sit down and be with her.
My feelings were affirmed when our squad leader shared that the Lord had put it on her heart that we had unfinished business in KL and we needed to stay longer. Waiting one more day meant changing the entire team’s plans to travel to a new city. Some of my teammates were frustrated by this, but God reminded us that one person is always worth waiting for, and the same was true for Mooi.
Now that we were staying, I knew I needed to go back and take full advantage of this opportunity for more time. We went back to the hostel and she was already gone for the day. The man working said she’d be back in the morning.
Ok. We would wait until the next morning. One more opportunity. I felt like Buddy the Elf saying, “Morning! Morning! I’ll see her in the morning!”
The next morning, Mooi was so surprised to see that we were still there. She said to us, “I thought you left. Why did you stay?”
We told her, “We stayed for you, of course.” and she just smiled.
Anddd… then she blessed us yet again by taking us out to breakfast.
Mooi had loved and served us so much in the short time we’d spent with her and God gave us an opportunity to love her back just by spending time getting to know her.
If I hadn’t stayed one more night, I never would’ve learned about her family, or some of the pain and struggles she’s gone through, or that she is a free-thinker when it comes to religion. We also asked what compelled her to bless us so much and she said that she just loves serving others. She shared that she doesn’t put her hostel on any booking sites and gets guests solely by word-of-mouth. She does her work well and treats her guests nicely and she is consistently seeing new guests come in. Several times, she has had people come to her who have no place to sleep and she allows them to stay for free.
The Lord has been teaching me a lot lately about generosity and servanthood, and Mooi’s actions emphasized the goodness and freedom that can come out of living with such traits. In this case, the most important thing I could give to Mooi was simply my time.
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:12
