Month 3: Malaysia What a crazy month. I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with 14 girls. Our apartment was a block from Little India = delicious street vendor food. Ministry was a little different. Had a few days at Eden, a home for disabiled adults. One week working with Kawan, a homeless shelter, where we cooked and fed breakfast & lunch. Got to have awesome conversations with the other volunteers there; not much conversation with the people coming to the shelter because they didn’t speak much English. I experienced an automatically flushing squatty potty (at a mall!) One night we put on music and had paper, pastels and paints and got to draw and paint pictures during worship time. Hiked Panag Hill, which was the craziest and most steep hill/mountain I have ever encountered! Saw how you have to choose to love one another, choose to carry each other’s burderns, and choose to fight for relationships and one another. Watched 3 of my teammates go swimming in the ocean, and then come RUNNING out of the water when a man on a boat passes them and says ‘alligator’ while pointing to the water. only on the WR…. 🙂 Was shocked at how diverse Malaysia is! It is a mix of Indian and Chinese populations. Was also shocked at how many backpackers we met. We were on an island called Penang; you cross the longest bridge in South East Asia to get from the mainland of Malaysia to Penang. We met backpackers from all over the world. Celebrated Thanksgiving twice. Once on the actual day: we went to Chili’s and saw the movie Rapunzel (Tangled in the States?). Second time was the Sunday after: some of the girls cooked us an AMAZING meal that was so close to a Thanksgiving meal in the states, it was increadible. This month was ‘manistry’ month. The girls & guys were split up for the month. This is what we came back to: Overall though, it was a fun time and living with 14 amazing woman of God taught me a lot. Next up: Thailand!
One week working with the Penang Adventist Hospital where we helped them raise money for children having heart surgery. We sold heart shaped coin boxes for 10 RM (aprox $3.25 USD) as a fundraiser. Got to wear sweet teal colored volunteer vests for that one too. One day we raised over 1,000 RM so they threw us a Domino’s Pizza Party on our last day there! amazing!!
Di, Shannon & I at the top of Penang Hill
Ate Torpedo Soup. go look it up.
Thanksgiving Meal at the Kawan Shelter
Sat next to a man on the 5 hr bus ride from Penang to KL who’s ringtone was N*Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye.” For Reaaaal.
Clint (left) hasn’t shaved since the Race began & has no plans to shave until the end of the Race
Curt (right) calls this his anti-Bieber look
Malaysia was an experience. Probably the most challenging month on the race thus far. Challenging because I saw how much the spiritual atmosphere of a place can impact a person. Just looking out over our apartment rooftop, you could see many different mosques, Hindu temples, and Chinese Tao temples.
