My squad rang in the new year on a beautiful beach in Omoa, Honduras. Before heading to Malaysia, we spent 5 days debreifing the last four months on the field. My squad of 37, plus our squad mentor and squad coaches, rented a house on the beach. I appreciated the time of reflection and relaxation, especially after such a busy month of ministry in Honduras in December.
With the new year came a lot of newness. This debreif brought a lot of changes for our squad.
First of all, my wonderful team leader of the past four months, Megan Spradley, was promoted to become a squad leader. The way the World Race functions is that a squad starts off the first four months being led by alumni squad leaders, who have done the World Race before. Ours are the amazing Laine Armour, Tyler Hunt, and Brian Cooke. At the end of month four, they choose three racers to be raised up to take their place, then the alumni squad leaders spend month five training the raised-up squad leaders. I’m so excited for the opportunity for Megan, Jacob, and Liz to step into this new position of leadership–they’re going to be great squad leaders!
So with three team leaders being raised up to become squad leaders, and other changes that have happened over the past four months, team changes were in order. Our squad mentor, Renee, emailed us about a week before debreif informing us that there would be team changes at debreif, so we could prepare our hearts for the change. So new team leaders were chosen, and new teams were announced. My team ended up not experiencing drastic changes. We knew that we’d definitely be losing Megan, and we assumed we’d all be mixed up into new teams like the rest of the squad. But we were suprised to find that the other five of us remained the same. So I am happy to still call Jenna Orabutt, Lindsey Ruff, Megan Conners and Britteny Kramer my teammates for another season. And we have a wonderful addition, Ashley Ganahl. I am so excited for all the great things that Ashley already adds to our team. I’m especially excited to worship together with her ukelele and her amazing voice! Also, Lindsey was chosen to be our new team leader, which I am also really excited about. She’s one of the most caring, humble, and gentle people I’ve ever met. It’s going to be really hard doing life and ministry on the Race without Megan, but I know God is going to bring so much good from the changes.
So with a new year upon me, a new continent before me, and a new team beside me, I am excited for the change.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!”
–Isaiah 43:18-19
A word that God has been speaking to my heart for 2015 is ADVENTURE. I’m not sure what it’s going to look like, but I know that as long as I am following where Holy Spirit is leading me, it’s going to be good.
As we prayed about the vision God has for our team, we felt like He was calling us to press into a few specific areas. Three words we heard from the Lord are strength, courage, and boldness. To reflect this identity, we chose the name Eshet Chayil as our team name, which is Hebrew for “woman of valor.” We also want to press more deeply into the Lord through worship, prayer and the prophetic. We want to see more of the Holy Spirit’s activity in our daily lives. We’re going to study the book of Acts together and strive to live how the early church lived. As part of that, we have a list of 10 “impossible” prayers that we are asking the Lord to answer. Finally, we feel the Lord challenging us to go deeper in vulnerability with each other, to be open and honest with each other and to push each other to be the best we can possibly be.
My team’s ministry for Malaysia is Unsung Heroes. That’s a program the World Race does almost every month where they choose one of the teams to spend the month searching the country for new ministry contacts that would potentially be willing to host future World Race teams. So our sole ministry responsibility for the month is to find Christian organizations who would be willing to host future World Race missionaries. I’m excited for a month of praying about where we should go and what we should do, and just following Holy Spirit’s leading.
A significant challenge presented to us is that Malaysia is legally opposed to Christianity. Some have said it is a closed country, but I’m not sure how a country is categorized as closed. What I have learned from my initial research is that while there technically is freedom of religion here, there are significant restrictions on all religions that are not Islam. Islam is the official religion of Malaysia. The population is 61.3% Muslim, 19.8% Buddhist, 9.2% Christian, 6.3% Hindu, and 1.3% traditional Chinese religions. One of the criteria of being a Malaysian citizen is being Muslim. I found information about this in an article online. “In fact, by law all Malays must be Muslim; for an ethnic Malay to convert from Islam means that she/he would lose his/her status as an ethnic Malay with the privileges which that entails” and “Malays must be Muslim and, if they renounce Islam (which is very difficult as they have to be given a certificate of apostasy by an Islamic court) they are also renouncing their Malay identity. At the same time, converts to Islam (for example through marriage) automatically become ‘ethnic Malays,’ with the rights that status brings” (asia.isp.msu.edu). Malay citizens over the age of 12 must carry a MyKad on them at all times. A MyKad is an ID card with an electronic chip, and on it states whether a person is a Muslim or a non-Muslim. Religious affiliation follows ethnic lines, so the 39% of the population that is not Muslim are the non-Malays–people of Chinese, Indian, and other ethnic decent. Most of the Christian population are the indigenous inhabitants of the Borneo island to whom Christianity was introduced by missionaries. It’s against the law to publicly pray, evangelize, or spread Christianity in any way. Bibles in the Malay language are banned, and any Christian literature must have “for non-Muslim readers” printed on it. Existing Christian churches are allowed to operate, but there are restrictions on building new churches. I imagine Christian organizations and missionaries are scarce, and not well-advertised, so we’ll need Holy Spirit’s help to find any contacts! But with His help, I’m up for the challenge.
It takes time for my mind to process big changes. Right now I’m typing this on the plane to Malaysia, and it doesn’t feel real yet. In three hours and 21 minutes, I will set foot on a new continent, and breathe in Malaysian air. Maybe it’ll feel real then. We left our debrief location at 3:00am on January 5th and we’ll be landing in Malaysia at 9:00am on January 8th (Malaysia time). Two continents, four countries, five airports, a fourteen hour time change, and over sixty hours of traveling is a lot to process in three days.
These three days of travel have been of blur of packs, buses, airplanes, airports, and emotions. We had two long layovers in the US, and many of us took advantage of the short time “home” and got to see friends and family. Tony (my wonderfully dear boyfriend, for those who don’t know) drove 16 hours from Cincinnati to Atlanta and back to hang out with me at the airport for 10 hours. It was a sweet, surreal, romantic, and refreshing time together. After four months of being separated, I wasn’t sure how I was going to react to seeing him, and how I was going to handle saying goodbye to him again. The second he hugged me, I burst into tears. It was so good to see him, and touch him, and smell him. When I left for the 11 months, I had no idea about the layover, so I never imagined that I’d get to see him part way through the Race, but it was such an unexpected blessing. We got to have dinner together. He got to meet my squadmates. He brought me Christmas presents from my mom that I got to open “in front of her” via FaceTime. I got to restock my pack with a few needed items from home and send home some things I had picked up along the way. I’m so thankful for the those precious hours I got to spend with Tony, and am even more encouraged about all God is doing in and through us in this season.
I appreciate your prayers this month. For my squadmates as we recover from the long days of travel and adjust to the new time zone and new culture. For my team as we seek the Lord for direction this month and search for new ministry contacts. For me personally as I work on focusing less on myself and focus more on Jesus and the people He has placed before me to serve. And for the people of Malaysia to be free to know their Creator.
