This month we are in Malaysia, (Our first country in Asia) and MAN do I love it already. We are in the city of Penang and are surrounded by many different groups of people with many different religious beliefs.
This month we are spending time working at a local homeless shelter where we get to prepare meals and spend time with the locals that visit there x3 a week. We also get to visit Penhop (Penang’s international house of prayer) where we spend time praying and listening to the Lord and praising him for who he is. I really enjoy anytime we get spend here and absolutely love this ministry. And in our free afternoons we spend a few hours doing what AIM calls ATL. ATL is just a fancy abbreviation for ask the Lord time. During this time we pray and ask the Lord what he wants us to do, where he wants us go and then we spend time doing it. In this we have found that ATL is not about setting aside a time each day to do it, but to live with this type of lifestyle where we are open and looking for ministry opportunities wherever we go. We have seen the Lord give us natural opportunities to build relationships outside of this daily time in talking to the food truck workers that we visit often, in talking to random people that we come across and even people who start conversations with us.
Here are a few cool things we have seen happen so far:
Since our first day here we have been building a relationship with a man who owns a food truck that we visit often. He is very friendly and we visit him almost every day of the week. After almost a week of doing this the food truck next to his noticed our consistent visits and then started asking us questions and talking to us. They saw how we really cared about him and were curious about us. We are now seeking to intentionally visit them as well (I am leaving out names to the people we have met to protect them, there are certain laws against evangelizing towards certain groups/religions present here).
On our first day here we met a tourist from the U.S. outside of a local convenience store who heard us speaking english and sought us out. Her name is Kat and she was very curious and very open to talk about different things. She has recently moved onto visit another part of Malaysia, but I have kept in contact with her in hopes of continuing to build relationship there.
Last week during our time of ATL I saw a random man drawing on a wall and struck up a conversation with him. We found that he was a local painter and told him that another squadmate was a painter as well in hopes that she would be able to help him. In response he said that he knew someone else who needed someone to paint for them and gave them her contact information. In a few days my squadmate was visiting the site and was given the opportunity to paint whatever she wanted in a mural for them. PRAISE THE LORD. She now will get to visit this same site each day and paint while building relationship with the owner of the place.
Two nights ago, while walking back from visiting our food truck friends a man that we greet each day walking to and from ministry stopped us as we walked by and said “Hey I have banana cake come in.” We all immediately followed him in and he brought us banana cake made by his mother and soon sat down with us to talk. We all laughed thinking about how random this was but saw it as another ministry opportunity. We talked to him about different things and soon he brought up that he believed in mother nature as the highest being. The coolest part is that we had not prompted him in any way, he brought it up completely on his own. We then found out that he had made relationships with world race teams in the past. This was so cool because we never told him that we are a part of the world race, he just merely saw a difference in us as we walked past him each day and took a chance. It is also cool that world race teams in the past set us up so well in faithfully building relationship with him making him feel comfortable enough to bring up what he believed the first time we had a conversation with him. We are excited to continue visiting him and seeing what comes from our time with him.
In all of this, it has been so fun each day to see where the Lord takes us and what opportunities he gives us. And with each one that he gives and we take advantage of her gives another!
Please join me in praying for each of these people we have built relationships with thus far. Pray for soft hearts, opportunity to share the gospel and for continued opportunities to share God’s love with new people as well. Also, keep praying that we would be people who say “Yes: when to whatever the Lord speaks and whatever he gives.
We are so excited to take part in what God is doing here in Malaysia and can’t wait to see what he does in the rest of this month! 🙂
Here are also a few fun pictures to give you an idea of the beauty and life in Penang. ENJOY! 🙂
Penang is full of tons of awesome street food. We eat noddles from this place often which are only a little over 1 USD.
Penang is full of street art and we look forward to walking new streets and finding new fun things each day.
Me and one of my squad mates pretending to the pet the street art because we can’t pet the stray animals.
Penang is also full of quirky little museums such as a glow in the dark museum, an upside down museum, and a chocolate and coffee museum etc.
Temples and mosques are a common sight as we walk through the city to ministry each day.
team fab and I trying Penang’s popular white coffee. It was TASTY. Man, do I love coffee!
Visting Penang’s International Food Festival this weekend. We tried ostrich, goat, local desserts and some street noodles. YUM.
You can get anything in a bag here. Its my favorite. I have gotten noodles in a bag, soup in a bag, drinks in a bag. Such a smart on the go technique.
Last but not least, the Lord answered a small and sweet prayer of mine in providing a nearby rock gym. The Lord delights in even answering the smallest prayers about things that matter to us! 🙂
