In our church, people would greet each other by saying, “Praise the Lord” and it was definitely something I needed a reminder of this month.
(This was actually taken in Singapore, when I took a day trip there.)
Ministry: Bethel Assembly
Location: Sungai Putani, Malaysia
Currency: Ringet (4 R = $1)
Language: Malay (Tamil and Chinese, as well)
Overview:
This month we lived in the second story of a small Tamil (Indian) church. Our room was right above the sanctuary and was used as a recording studio/storage room before our stay. We slept on our sleeping pads and used the church bathroom. The church had services every night from 10pm to 5am, which, while we weren’t required to go to them, were very loud. This month was characterized by a lot of local food, little sleep and a good push toward intentionality within our team
This is a picture of the church.
What types of ministry did you do in Malaysia?
Here, we preached at home services and church, learned to lead worship and participated in prayer with our hosts. However, our biggest ministry this month was working at a school for students that had Down’s syndrome, severe autism and other disorders. This was my favorite ministry of the entire Race. These kids were intelligent, fun and so, so happy. I fell in love with them and with the teachers there, who had some of the most incredible hearts I’ve ever seen.
The school was broken into five classes, divided by cognitive ability. Here, I’m with some of the level three students, posing with their projects from the art class I taught.
How did you get to ministry?
This month either Pastor, his brother, Matthew, or another member of the church would pick us up in a car or van to take us wherever we needed to go, including ministry.
What did a typical day look like?
8am: Wake up/Get ready
8:30am: Picked up for ministry
9am-11:30am: Teach at school
11:30am: Picked up to go home
Noon-3pm: Rest
3pm: Lunch
3:30pm-5:30pm: Team time
5:30pm-8pm: Quiet time/Prep sermon/Get ready l
8pm: Dinner
8:30pm-10:30pm: Church
11pm: Bed (Sort of, anyway)
11 Lessons from Malaysia:
1. Every night the church would have a service beginning at 11pm and going until 3am or even 7am. The drums would be going; people would be singing, yelling, laughing, coming into our room asking for things, etc. I learned to live on almost no sleep.
2. Malaysia consists of three main people groups- Malays, Chinese and Tamil.
3. Malays are seen as the most important. They get tax breaks from the government, have their own banks and even have a better chance of getting into a good school.
4. The Tamil people are considered to be at the bottom of the totem pole. When walking into public places, signs would be written in Malay, Chinese and sometimes even English, but never in Tamil.
5. Schools and churches are, for the most part, completely segregatoed.
6. We were in Malaysia during the month of fasting for Muslims- Ramadan. During this month, able bodied Muslim individuals fast from sun up to sun down every day for a month.
7. The main religions are Islam (typically Malay), Hinduism (typically Indian) and Buddhism and traditional Chinese religions (typically Chinese). Less than 10% of the country is Christian.
8. Evangelizing to a Muslim is illegal here.
9. Popular food is also split into the three groups- Malay, Chinese and Indian- curry, rice, mee, rotie, etc.
10. Drinks to-go are served in a bag with a string tied at the very top.
11. OJ definitely killed his wife. (My team and I became obsessed with the trail, Netflix documentary and interviews this month, randomly. Haha.)
From left to right: (Back row) “Auntie”, Shema, Lakota (Front row) “Kakak Ani”, me, Maisitah, Crystal, Azian, Rachel, Priya, Umi
