Hello friends and family! With one week remaining in Kuala Lipis, Malaysia, I am finally get around to writing you a blog! This month was Manistry for the guys (man + ministry = “manistry” ha), which means they put all the guys (all 5 of them…) on one team and they do ministry together. They went to Indonesia while the girls stayed in Malaysia. Because of Manistry, they also split the teams up. So I was not with the Jesus Jewels this month! Instead, they put all of the 30-year-olds together!! Hahaha. There are 5 over-30s and little ol’ me at 29, so they clumped me in there. It has been FUN! We named our team The Golden Girls. 😉
^The Golden Girls! L to R: Tera (also from Jesus Jewels), Tina, Tai, Beth (fellow Texan from Houston!), me, and Julia.
^ a view from the bridge. This is a SMALL TOWN, y’all! Especially compared to being in Kuala Lumpur for 10 days at the beginning of the month! The World Race coins them “bush months” or “beach months” — this is a “bush month” for sure! Haha!
^the bridge adjoining the new part of town with the old part of town
Rain!! from Whitney Vines on Vimeo.
^the first real rain I’ve seen in 7 months! It was glorious! One thing (among MANY) I miss about Texas is the thunderstorms!
^Our ministry this month has been teaching English. We have 3 classes with children and 3 classes with adults. These are two of our adult students. We are practicing present tense and past tense, especially can/could will/would is/was/am/were. English is hard! These two guys work in construction 6 days a week from 8am-6pm. They go home, eat, shower, and come to English class from 8-10pm. This is how they spend their Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights! Dedication!
^We have a toaster oven. So, we baked! We made cookies from a box for the neighborhood. We walked up and down our street hollering at our neighbors to come out, haha. We couldn’t walk up and knock on their door because they have all have locked gates. So here we are a bunch of Americans banging on their gate so that they would hear us and come outside. 🙂 This effort resulted in a neighbor offering to show us around the city, and a college girl who wants to hang out one night. So fun! It was also a good way to advertise our English classes!
^We went to the village to do some children’s ministry one day. I swear it felt like Jurassic Park. Malaysia is so tropical!
Jesus Loves Me from Whitney Vines on Vimeo.
^The kiddos at the village singing us a song. We played lots of games with them: hot potato, red light / green light, limbo. We sang songs and danced. We had so much fun. The four girls up front were my favorite 🙂 L to R: Niya (white shirt), Jasika (blue shirt), Riya (purple shirt), and Eliamira (black/white dress) 🙂
We will go to Penang Island, Malaysia on Sunday for month 7 debrief. On April 5, we fly from Kuala Lumpur to Manila, the Philippines! Pray for safe bus/plane travels for the squad that day.
NEXT BLOG = Logistics. I already have it written, people! I am just collecting some photos and videos to include with the post. 🙂 I’ll most likely post this next week from debrief. Stay tuned!
When the Jesus Jewels were leaving Vietnam, our ministry contacts were praying for us and they used the phrase, Lord be with them as they “practice their faith.” That really stood out to me. That’s exactly what I feel like we are doing. We are all still practicing. We are all still exercising and trying. The phrase has been stuck in my head so I asked my team what they thought about it. Here are some of their responses:
Tera (Jesus Jewels / The Golden Girls): “Practicing your faith means to put actions to the words you speak. It’s nice to talk about how your faith is important, but it’s not until you actively walk it out that it actually means anything. To practice my faith means to pursue love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in my life. It means to live as if I actually believe the words of the Bible to be true for my life today…right now. To live as a reflection of the life of Christ, and impact the world around me with His love!”
Steff (Jesus Jewels): “For me ‘practicing my faith’ means it’s not something that comes easy; you have to practice. I took probably 5 years of piano lessons when I was younger and NEVER practiced. The result of that is I’m now I’m a famous concert pianist. WRONG! I’m terrible at the piano and wish I had practiced more (Mom you were right). I hope someday that I don’t look back at my life and say I wish I had practiced my faith more. The here and now is all we have. Let’s start living. Let’s start believing. Let’s start practicing.”
Jordan (Jesus Jewels): “Hmm… Practicing my faith means to walk in confidence in what I know to be true in Christ. It means every day trying my best to shine light in the dark places by using the gifts that God has given me. On a personal standpoint, God has given me a spirit of love. So to practice my faith and use the tools that He gave me, could be to have a listening ear to someone who needs help, loving on kids in an orphanage, or praying for someone. Practicing your faith doesn’t have to be this big elaborate thing, just trusting God will use your gifts the way He designed them.”
Julia (The Golden Girls): “I believe to practice your faith is to do just that… practice :o). Know your goal, then learn, do, and repeat. ‘Seek Me and You will find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.’ Jeremiah 29:13. If our faith is simply to accept Jesus as Savior and Lord and have Him live in and through us, that verse is our goal and awesome promise for practice. If it’s a sport and the goal is to really ‘get’ it, you step into all areas of that sport, not just the ones you choose or are comfortable with. Practicing our Christian faith seems similar… not just doing what we think we’ve seen or have heard about, but pressing into the real thing and knowing God/Jesus/Holy Spirit, our ‘coach’, and what He says, intimately. Knowing, understanding, believing, and applying His Word. Practicing anything takes intentional time… time to learn the practical and spiritual application and doing it, however natural or unnatural it seems, time to learn from respected biblical teachers and people who have practiced before and with us, and ultimately moving towards having Him be natural in and through us, however joyful, difficult, or even painful that process of growth may be at times. It’s worth it and the promise is clear, now we just get to go for it and everything else we learn along the way!”
LeAnna (Jesus Jewels): “It doesn’t matter the day, I believe every day, God makes opportunities for us to put our faith into practice. Lately, God has been pushing me in this area. He wants me to show up, so he can use me. For example, the other day, I was exhausted, and didn’t feel like going to ministry, but when I went, I had the opportunity to encourage and pray for someone that shared similar struggles as me. That’s so cool! I followed through, and God used me to further his kingdom!”
Tina (The Golden Girls): “As a Christian, I am called to be Christ-like. Christ saw those in need around Him and gave freely of Himself to help them. I strive to do the same. This is one way that I practice my faith. I trust in God, that He has my best interest at heart. I believe that as I grow in my relationship with Him, that He will guide me as I make decisions, as I live my daily life, as I look to Him. I think part of practicing my faith is exercising disciplines like loving others as I love myself, extending grace to people especially when I don’t want to, being kind, generous, gentle and loving. I know I can never practice these disciplines too much, only improve my capacities.”
Edie (Jesus Jewels): “For me ‘practicing your faith’ comes through suffering. Jesus came and suffered for our sins and kept the faith throughout all the heartache and pain. He showed such a pure example of that, that makes me what to be more like Him. I’m not sure how gracefully I walked through hard times, but I kept the faith throughout it all and through it I made a more intimate relationship with Him. Being faithful with Christ during hard times to me is ‘practicing your faith.'”
What do you think “practicing your faith” means? Sound off in the comment section!
In addition to what it means to practice my faith, I really feel like God is teaching me a lot this month. I am learning to celebrate rest. I am learning how to biblically balance gentleness and strength. I am learning to sit in His presence. I am learning to make declarations in His name. I am learning to patiently trust in the plans He has for me after the Race, the promises He has made for my future.
The Golden Girls held a 24-hour prayer vigil this week. Each of the 6 of us took 4 hours spread across the day and just prayed. We prayed for each other, for the squad, for our friends and families back home, for our futures. It was really refreshing and unifying!
Thanks for following me along this missionary journey and praying for me! It means a lot to have the support from back home.
Some of you have mentioned wanting to personally donate money towards my journey. I am technically fully-funded as far as the mission trip funds go. But I still have personal expenses like toiletries, postcards, and any extra fun adventures I may want to experience — like the canyon swing from Nepal for example! or seeing the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam! or my quick trip to Singapore earlier this month! all FUN things! 🙂
If you are interested in donating to my personal funds, you can write a check and mail it to my parents. They will deposit it in my bank account. I can access those funds fee-free through my international Charles Schwab card. Make check payable to: Whitney Vines. Mail to: 1009 Seminary Ridge, Garland TX 75043. Terima kasih! (“thank you” in Malay, the language spoken in Malaysia!!)
April starts month 8. I’ll be home in 4 short months. Wild! I love Asia, but I miss home too! See y’all soon. 🙂
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