Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
3:00 AM – Wake up to pray for the squad. (F squad is in the middle of 72 hours of prayer and worship where someone in the squad is praying and worshiping at all times, I signed up for the 3am shift.)
I walk past the sleeping “receptionists” into the common area of the hostel, a long table in a dimly lit room. I start praying as some of the residents of the hostel come wondering past in their, ahem, undergarments. I turn my iPod up a little but not loud enough to block out the loud crack. “Was that a gun shot?” It’s the third one I’ve heard tonight and once again, I try and convince myself that it was just fireworks. After all, there is a Hindu festival tonight. There it is again. I’ve heard lots of fireworks in my life and been around a few guns too, I’m still trying to convince myself it was the former. I pray a little more and the Lord opens up 1 Samuel to me. “You have an anointing like Samuel”, He says. Samuel heard the voice of the Lord at a young age. His job was to hear the Lord and then speak what he heard, same as my’n. Samuel was saddened when the people asked for a king, because it meant they had forgotten God as their King. Samuel anointed the kings that the Lord led him to. He was a Prophet. The revelations continue and praise erupts from my heart in the middle of a dirty hostel. 4AM roles around and I head to bed.
7:00 AM – Wake up again for squad leader prayer. We focus on on Isaiah and Ezekiel, the valley of the dry bones. “God breath life into these dry bones. Breath life into our squad, life into this hostel, life into Malaysia.”
10:30 AM – Head out to do ministry with a team. We catch a local bus and enjoy conversation for 30 min until we land at the KLCC towers. The towers are normal now, along with all the Audis, Ferraris and Mercedes Benz rolling around this town. We take another bus and get dropped off at the ministry site to teach english. We walk in and greet the Iranian women who are here to learn English. The English work books come out and I sit down with one very funny woman from Iran in her 40’s. Somehow, someway, we end of talking about Shakira and my friend goes off about the “shimmying” that the she watched on youtube last night. I give a little demonstration about what she might be talking about and the room erupts with laughter. My Iranian friend joins in and we shimmy around a bit, just like Shakira.
2:00pm – The team and I head out to lunch and find a restaurant with the best Mexican food I’ve had on the Race. Score one for KL.
4:00pm – My phone goes off and it’s a text from Natalie.
Natalie is a prostitute my friend Amanda and I met in Penang. Penang is the city I lived in at the beginning of the month and it’s one of my favorite spots on the Race thus far. Amanda and I met Natalie one night during ministry on the streets. Amanda talked to her for at least a half an hour, quite a miracle for a prostitute. She ignored two jobs in order to keep talking to us and then agreed to meet Amanda and I for coffee the next day. It’s was a divine encounter.
Amanda and I woke early the next day to have breakfast, talk and pray over our coffee date with Natalie. We walk to our designated meeting spot and don’t see her. After a while of waiting and a few unanswered phone calls, we realize she’s not coming. But the Lord wasn’t done, he told us to sing. Worship is one of, if not the, most powerful forms of spiritual warfare, so Amanda and I went to war for Natalie. We sat on the side of the road as onlookers, bicycles and cars passed us by and we worshiped. We pulled out my ipod and her bible, worshiped and declared scripture over Natalie, the spot where we found her working the night before and the city. An hour later, I realized that it was one of my favorite moments on the Race.
Two days later, Amanda and I got to take Natasha out to dinner, and the Lord showed up big time. You can read more about that evening here.
After I moved down to KL to be with another team, Natalie texted me and told me she was moving back to Indonesia, that she would be with her family again.
Fast forward to today, Natasha and I are texting back and forth. I ask her about her family and if she has been able to read the booklets that Amanda and I gave her back in Penang. She was having a good time and did read them, that’s as far as the conversation got.
It’s not everyday that your daily ministry includes texting a prostitute in Indonesia that you met in Malaysia, unless you are on the World Race.
7:30PM – Dinner time. Run through the monsoon rain to get to the local Indian place, so we can get Chai and Roti.
9:00pm: Come home soaked and start to pack. Tomorrow we leave for Pangkor Island. It will be the fourth location I have lived in this month. I start to pack but don’t get very far. My phone goes off, it’s a team leader this time. A few texts and a phone call later, I’m tired. I head to bed at 11, ready to wake up at 3am, again at 7am, get on bus at 10:30 and get to Pangkor at 3pm.
Welcome to my life.
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P.S.
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