Now that I’m all caught up on blogs from month four and five (whew), I’m now starting month six in Malaysia–which means we’re almost halfway finished with the race–ah! We had a big squad debrief at the end of month five in Thailand. It was a much needed time to get that fire burning in us again. It’s like football players needing a half time to get refueled to blow out the third and fourth quarters of the big game. We needed this time and are so ready to go!
We were graced with the presence of Momma C and Pappy, Michael and Kathy Hindes, Sean Smith and Jimmy McCarty (Big AIM people :P) and were blessed with some awesome teachings, guidance and support from them. I always love seeing the rest of my squad and get really excited to talk to people about their months and where their hearts are and how we want to grow even more. I LOVE the LOVE our squad has for each other! Not to brag, but S-Squad truly is awesome and I’m blessed with being surrounded by so many amazing men and women of God (Shoutout to Abby, Lauren and Tim–we missed yall!). We stayed in a hotel in Hua Hin with real beds, hot water showers with water pressure, real towels, real pillows, no squatty toilets!(see picture below), life is good…it’s the simple things we tend to get excited about these days. We also had a karaoke contest and Team Raised showed up in true and typical fashion with absolutely no plans and no song picked out (everyone else had outfits and/or routines). We huddled up when our name was called and came up with a game plan: a Thai song. It was actually really hard to sing the lyrics because their words seem to not make any sounds when I pronounce them, but we had a great time despite our lack of planning and looking ridiculous.
Introducing the squatty (bleh). You position your feet on the little ridges, hold on to the wall, and SQUAT. Then you use that big pool of water and little bucket to flush. I strongly dislike these.
Yep 🙂 That’s my team…love ’em
I really do love the fun we all have when the 61 of us are together, but my favorite, FAVORITE part is our worship. The Holy Spirit never fails to move in whatever place it is we’re worshipping and…big things just happen. It’s hard to even explain, but I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else other than praising God the way S-Squad rocks out when we’re together. One day, we ended up out of a room to hold worship in, so all 70ish of us piled into Momma C and Pappy’s room and let loose…it was just great.
We left Thailand on Monday night with three other teams for a 23 hour bus ride to Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia. Yeserday was our cultural briefing for most of the day and then out to explore the city which is a really diverse, big and clean place! I’m not a big city girl but I have loved it here so far. We learned a lot of customs, do and dont’s about the culture and went into learning about working with the Muslims. We were handed a packet on “how to share the Gospel within 5 minutes of meeting a Muslim” and I immediately was not too fond of that idea. I usually don’t like forced exercises and we got (had) to practice our new packets on each other. After we finished, it wasn’t as bad as my bad attitude was making it out to be and I actually just got really excited for what’s to come.
Usually, even the word evangelism makes my stomach turn upside down a little. I know that’s weird to hear, because I’m a missionary for a year and that’s what I signed up for. But, I decided that I’m more the type that likes to share the gospel through building relationships and preferably over a cup of coffee. But, between what God spoke to me through debrief and practicing sharing the good news to Muslims, I realized my perspective was a little off. I’ve viewed organized tools such as this and advice on what I normally see as “forcing religion” as a crutch to not boldly share what I believe. I was put on this earth to share the love of Christ. God is a good steward of time and of people and it’s no coincidence what He has me doing right now. It all comes down to this: we have a tendency to wait and see if others will bring the presence of God. We (I) need to quit waiting for someone to show up and turn us on–we are God’s plan in this hour. Yea, kind of crazy to think about but I wholeheartedly believe that we are the generation…it’s an awesome time to be alive!
“And you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” Colossians 2:10
We are God’s plan right now. I don’t care that statistics show Muslims are a hard group of people to reach. My hope is in my FAITH and in my SAVIOR. I know that as long as I believe in what I pray– pray bold prayers–and follow the Spirit that dwells inside of me, Muslims won’t be hard to reach.
My team and I head off today to a farm an hour outside of Kuala Lumpor. We will be spending the first part of the month there doing manual labor clearing a 5 acre field with Muslim workers. The second half of the month will be spent working on church construction (I’m guessing with Muslims, again). Please pray for the relationships my team and I will build and for the conversations that need to happen. Pray for us to be led by the Spirit and that we’ll be used by Him to show people the truth and love…it’s GAME TIME now :).
Thank you for all of the continued prayers, encouraging comments on my blogs (they’re my favorite to read!), emails and patience for my lack of internet time…love you all!
