I’m not going to lie, if you asked me last year to point out where Malaysia is on a map, I wouldn’t be able to. Now I’ve been living here for a little over a week and I can honestly say I could stay here forever. This month, my team is living in a little town on the beach in Pahang, called Cherating. It kind of looks like a movie set to a surfer movie where a small town surfer girl knows everyone in town and people are somehow always happy. Not a bad place to be for a month.
One thing I learned about Malaysia before we came here is that it is a “closed” country. That means being an active missionary (aka me and my squad) is illegal. This is because the countries religion is Islam, and it is illegal to convert from Islam to another religion. Being a christian is perfectly fine, but being a missionary can get you in a lot of trouble. That’s why we don’t say the “m” word while we’re hear, and we definitely can’t explicitly say to anyone that we are part of a christian organization.
Before we left for the race, while we were still at training camp, we talked about what it would look like to share the gospel without saying the name “Jesus”. Because in truth, sharing the gospel is just as much action as it is words. This month is a perfect example of showing people what the love of Jesus looks like just by how we act and how we love. For example, my team’s “ministry” this month is working with some of the people in our town, by helping around the hostel we are staying at, doing beach cleanup with some other locals, having intentional relationships with some of the shop owners nearby.
The word “christian” literally translates to “little Christ”. Jesus sometimes shared the gospel with people through big, dynamic speeches. But oftentimes, it didn’t look like that at all, it looked like being friends with the people that are overlooked, loving the people that were deemed unlovable, and being available to people when they needed Him. That’s how I want this month to look. Because when you look like that, people feel loved, and seen, and important. So here’s to month 5 of learning how to do life with the mindset of bringing the kingdom of God to earth!
