After four days of debrief we
hopped on a bus and headed to Malaysia..
One 10 hour bus and then another 13 hour bus.. Thank you God for
Dramamine and comfy chairs!
(Here is our lovely teammate Matt as an example of how our travel went…:)
Arriving to Kuala Lumpur was
exciting, the first time in a big city setting in the last 5 months.
It was so
nice to have the conveniences and normalcy that back home we so often don’t
even think twice about. Kuala Lumpur is like a melting pot of people, so many
different races and foods.. Kind of like a New York City.
I think the most shocking thing to
me was that Malaysia is around 95% Muslim. We had half a days worth of debrief to prepare us for the
culture and to warn us about the laws against converting a Muslim to
Christianity. We learned some great witnessing techniques. After a long morning we had the
afternoon off to go explore the city. Josh and I were excited to go check out
the mall, just to feel a little like we were back home, and to look for a new
journal.
Everywhere we looked we saw women
with head coverings.
It began to become a very stark reality for me. This
religion is serious. Every time a woman gets dressed she is reminded of her
religion. Five times a day they pray and the prayers are announced over a loud
speaker,
if they leave this religion they are excommunicated from their
families and friends.. This is no joke. It is their lives. I thought to myself,
“How can a religion with a false god be growing so rapidly?” Then God reminded me, Satan is the god of this world. I still struggled with grasping the thought of people being so devout to a
god that cannot fill them.
Not knowing what to do with all of this
I just kept walking. As we hopped down the stairs toward the subway
I saw this Muslim
man by the stairs with prayer beads praying over the people as they passed by.
My heart ached as I thought about how faithful these people are to
their religion. I wanted to turn back and grab his hands and look him in his
eyes and tell him about the one true God. A God that doesn’t require religion
or works to get to heaven but offers it as a gift through His Son! A God that
promises that His Word is all truth, and doesn’t offer a book that has parts
that are “corrupt”. I was
overwhelmed by the fact that Malaysia is almost entirely Muslim, and that is
just ONE country! Inside I cried, “We must do something! But what can I do?!”
In the midst of this hopelessness
God gave me hope. He used Josh to remind me that 12 uneducated, goof ball
fishermen changed the face of their world through Christ. Just 12…. who’s to
say that we can’t change an entire town, country, or nation? With Christ it is
all possible! We must remember His calling to GO OUT and make disciples of ALL
nations. He told us to do that, so of course He will be with us and for us! *Psalms 2:8 Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.
We sat in a church service on Friday night where over 30
Malay people gathered with us to worship our Savior, Jesus. That is 30 souls
that the love of Christ has found on the other side of the world and they are
passionate prayer warriors with vision!
They are asking God to bring in 300
souls to their church in the next 2 years. That would mean this church would
grow ten fold! I love it! This church believes God for great things. It has
encouraged Josh and I to believe God for greater things in our own lives. I
mean after all, He is the God of the impossible~ please join with us in praying
for their vision to come to pass!
