Greetings from MALAYSIA!
I still can’t believe that I’m writing to you from Asia, the third and final continent of this incredible Race. WHAT?! Malaysia has quickly exceeded my expectations – the food, the culture, the people – it’s given us a warm (and humid) welcome! God’s doing a lot of work here and I want to share a bit about what my team and I are doing in Penang, Malaysia!
SPADES is staying at St. Joseph’s Home, a home for children with single parents/family backgrounds that are unable to comfortably provide for their children. There are about 40 children between the ages of 6-19 that live full time at the home. And what is our role? To hang out with and love these kids.
A typical day at St. Joseph’s includes: walking the kids to school in the morning, eating delicious Asian meals with them, playing card games, helping them with homework (that is, if it’s in English), making up dances, praying with them and singing “Jesus songs” with them. Every night ends with relief when my head hits the pillow but eager anticipation to repeat the same schedule the next morning.
Unfortunately, due to Malaysian codes we are unable to take pictures of or with the kids so instead of sharing pictures, I’ll bring you into our lives in Malaysia via some of my favorite moments thus far:
The first night we arrived, fresh off three days of travel from Africa to Asia, we were ready to take a cold shower, settle into our rooms and try to sleep off our jet lag – what started as a quick introduction to the kids turned into a night watching and learning the dances they were learning for a performance at an elderly home – and this wasn’t because we had to, it was because these kids have personalities that pull you in. We were finding renewed energy simply being around these kids, finding so much excitement in knowing we had a whole month with them. When we went with them for their performance two days later, I sat in the audience beaming with pride like a proud mom (who had known her child for two days).
Every night the kids gather in the Prayer Room and recite their prayers before bed. Trying to bring our own twist to Prayers, we’ve begun singing “Our God” with the kids before prayer. The first time I played my guitar with them in this setting, I felt like a celebrity with a crowd of 20 groupies gathered around me, wanting to learn every word, every chord and every note to this song. Since being here, we have sung “Our God” well over twenty times (maybe it’s time to teach them a new song).
My heart this month is drawn to the teenage girls – after a few days of trying to think of a creative way to engage in meaningful, Christ-centered conversations with them, they asked me to play guitar for them, requesting worship song after worship song. (let me mention that the girls singing every lyric of these songs are Christian, Catholic, Hindu and even Buddhist!) We spent hours praising the Lord on Friday night and they left that evening wanting more – the Lord is now flooding my mind with ways I can go “behind the music” with them and talk about the meaning behind the lyrics they know so well – it is SO cool to see how God is using my music as a ministry for these kids!
Please keep this home and my team in your prayers for the remainder of this month – God is doing some really phenomenal work here and we are soaking up every moment that He has given us to pour into His incredible children.
