Kingdom amidst cows, idols, graves, and Randomness

Wake up at 7, devotions and worship. Breakfast of Campions. Sunday school for the youth (it’s Friday). Try to teach the younger kids a Bible story through Pastor’s wife intrepreting. Takes forever. She screams at the kids before intrepreting each sentence. Her eyes are stern, no smile, even I am slightly scared. Noah’s Ark becomes quite the drama…. Teach everyone the cubic shuffle and other dances. Lunch time.

Afternoon off. Our team walks to Metro Hospital. Spend a few hours in the hospital in the air conditioner….yep that’s how hot it is. Starts pouring rain and booming thunder. Transformer explodes somewhere.. not the first time. Walk back dodging huge puddles. Emily gets soaked when a truck drives by through a puddle. Realize I am preaching that night at a home of only women. Too tired and sick feeling to work on much. Hoping by some miracle it won’t happen. Nope. Leave with two teammates and our contact for the place. Feeling okay and what I have will be good. Trusting God to speak through me.

Drive by houses with huge alters, candles burning. Arrive at womans house. This can’t be it. An explosion of color surrounds me, idols mock me. Pictures of the elephant god and every other Hindu god are everywhere. There is a room with a huge shrine and candles burning. “This changes everything,” I tell Sarah. The women seem nervous, broken, fearful, and confused. Sarah gives a short testimony, something they really need to hear. I launch into my lesson on being the Image of God, being chosen, being His temple, etc.

The chaos of the colors, the dogs barking like crazy out front (they go even more mad when Susie mentions Jesus to them), the women distracted, and more add to this craziness. Finally I shut my Bible, I shut my notebook…..and basically tell them I want them to have what I have. How in the end, God in Heaven is the only thing that will never be destroyed. Our man made idols will surely crumble. We realize that though they need the Word, they are confused right now. They think of Jesus as just another god to worship with their current ones. We pray over them, for them, and over the house; we tell them that they have to seek God with all their heart. He will fill the emptyness and redeem the hurt.

This isn’t an every other day religion, worshiping God just 50% of the time. I feel that because many of them have been hurt by men, their Hindu faith has made them live in fear. Fear of the gods, fear of men, and fear of those around them. We left feeling a little distressed. Dinner at 11PM….to bed sometime well after that.

New day: Saturday. Worship and devotions at 7AM. Breakfast. Leave for a Youth Pastors house. Have tea and talk to him and his wife. Then……into his recording studio (small but awesome and with AC). Yep a normal house in nowhere Malaysia happens to have a little recording studio. He asked Jessica to sing a little snippet for one of his songs. The CDs are going to be produced soon and Jess’ angel voice will be on it. Sweet! ……..Lunchtime.

Go to our contacts mechanic, a nice young Chinese man. He requested we come pray over his business. We walk around and pray, receiving some funny looks from passerbys. Go home to prepare for church tonight…..since we are in control of it (preach, testimony, prayer). Just another day in Malaysia…..

Drive 45 minutes, across one of the top 10 most beautiful bridges in the world, to the church. We have to park at the bottom of the hill…….next to a creepy graveyard. The graves seem to wind through people’s yards and neighborhoods…..big statues of idols are lit….watching the dead people. Up the hill, church begins……in the middle of Susie’s preaching, an old man walks in…starts talking , disrupting everything. A herd of cattle walk through the street…..is this for real? Chaos, craziness….all we do is laugh. Sarah and I get seperated from everyone at dinner….walk the streets of this strange city. A picture of Jesus turned into a Hindu idol….um what? Ride the ferry back across the waterspan…..in bed by 1 AM.