Wow everyone time just flies these days doesn’t it? So I know I didn’t blog while I was in Malaysia but I still created so many sweet memories that I want to share with you all.
I spent almost a full four weeks in Penang, Malaysia(April 4- May 1) which on the race is an oddity. My team and I were working with the YWAM base and doing a lot of really cool ministry. When we met with our hosts during our first day in Penang we found out that we as a team were going to be in charge of finding a lot of our own ministry. Which as racers we call ATL or Ask The Lord.
YES!
I have been waiting for this opportunity. Throughout the first 6 months of the race I developed a real passion for evangelism and I knew I was finally going to get to stretch my spiritual legs so to speak. We did have a few set days of ministry from YWAM. Which involved working at the Kawan center/shop and weekly prayer/worship times, but the rest of our time was up to our own discretion on how we wanted to spend it. I’ll kind of explain what our set ministry looked like before I dive into how the Lord guided my team and I this month.
We spent mornings on Mon, Wed, and Fri at the Kawan center/shop. Which was so much fun! The Kawan center is a soup kitchen for the poor and homeless to come and enjoy free breakfast, lunch and worship! What a blessing the Kawan center was. The majority of people who came every meal were elderly and just the sweetest. I had the honor of helping lead songs most days and it brought so much joy to my soul. I wouldn’t say by any stretch that I am gifted in singing, but man they didn’t care. They were just so pumped to get out the tambourines and start jamming! For the most part we sang songs in Hokkien(kind of like. Chinese but not haha), but every now and then they’d let us lead a song in English! And I tell you what I’ve never seen a group of people get so excited about “Go Tell it on the Mountain”! A lot of my teammates also had opportunities to cook the food at the Kawan center but I tried to stay away from the kitchen because they kept making me eat weird foods. (Apparently I don’t like ginger who knew)
On the same days/times some of us instead of going to the Kawan center would volunteer at the Kawan shop. (You’d find me here more often than not because well… no one asked me to eat food haha) The Kawan shop is basically a second hand store that is run so the profits can be used to support the Kawan center. Most days at the shop you’d find us sorting through bags of donated clothes, organizing the storage room, and ironing clothes to go out on the floor for sale.
Every Tuesday morning my team and I would catch the 8:00am 101 bus and take a 30minute ride to the other side of Penang to have worship and prayer with other local long term missionaries. It was a very cool experience because we got to engage in corporate worship (in english!) and they had specific prayer prompts every week that we would break up into small groups and pray for collectively. I got to learn a lot of information about Malaysia and their govt. through these prayer times because I was talking with people who have lived in Penang for years.
As you can see this leaves a lot of open space for allowing the Lord to lead and guide our team this month in ministry. We went out almost everyday to evangelize and make connection around the city. And man did the Lord move! One of the biggest testimonies of God’s goodness I’ve seen in Malaysia would be giving my team the opportunity to paint a mural!
So Penang is one of the street art capitals of the world! If there is a blank wall you can expect it to be painted on in the near future. Which we got to see in person while we were out evangelizing one day. We met a really nice guy who was in the midst of painting a mural and we asked if he needed any help. He did not, but he was kind enough to give our contact information to a guy named Tommy who is opening up a new shipping container market in Penang and was looking for local artists to paint murals all over his property.
How cool!!!!
Melissa is the artist on our team so she met up with Tommy one day and picked the wall we were going to paint on and sealed the deal! And you want to know the coolest part of this and how I know God was in it? Tommy gave Melissa complete artistic freedom to paint whatever she wanted on that wall! Wowowow!! What an opportunity! My team and I got to not only paint a mural, but we got to incorporate God’s love into that painting! In all it took about 5 or 6 full days of work to clean the wall, draw the design, paint the wall, detail it, and seal it. And we got to shine God’s light all over that property! To Tommy and his wife, the workers, the Starbucks next door (that we visited quite frequently!) And to everyone who sees that painting from now until… well… I’m going to say forever!! I’ve attached the video below that my sweet teammate Melissa made of out journey painting this mural.
God is so good Y’all. He will open doors and create opportunities we could never imagine. Put your trust in Him and the harvest will always be plentiful.
Stay Blessed,
Marah
