Where has the time gone? It’s hard to believe we have less than 2 weeks before we close our chapter in Asia and head to Central America. You know the time is flying by when it’s almost week three and I am just now getting to my first blog about Malaysia.
Lots of things have been happening here. I’ll try to just give you an overview of where I am in life right now.
It’s been a month of transition and preparing for new transitions.
For transition, one of my closest friends on the race and my teammate since month one, Alexa went home. You can read her blog about it here http://alexaanover.theworldrace.org/post/home1. It’s been a process for me to figure out life here without her, but the Lord is teaching me things through it and I know she is learning on her own journey back home.
Due to the change, our team transitioned from a 6 member team to 5. We also went from Team Amala to Team Riddikulus. Yes, that is referring to the spell in Harry Potter that has to do with overcoming your biggest fears in defeating a boggart. If you are not familiar with Harry Potter, a boggart is “an amortal shape-shifting non-being that takes on the form of the viewer’s worst fear.” So we are overcoming fears this month or at least all working towards overcoming something. We also are all huge Harry Potter fans and have spent many hours on the Race enjoying reading and re-reading the books, so the name seemed fitting.
As for preparing for new transitions, we are preparing to say good bye to another one of our teammates, Makita, at the end of this month. You can read her blog about it here http://makitabueto.theworldrace.org/post/my-next-country-is-america.
I never thought come month 8 I would be continuing on with the Race without two girls that I have grown very close with. Good byes are never easy and that’s why it has been a transition, but I know the Lord is taking them both to where they need to be and that He has a plan for me as I stay behind. Also, because of these two big changes, it unfortunately means that my team is left with only four girls at the end of this month and will most likely be seeing some sort of team changes come month 9. We have no idea what those new teams will look like, hence the preparing for transitions. We know there’s the possibility of all staying together, staying with just a few or being completely split a part. It’s hard to imagine so much change so close to the end, but we are all in a really good place with it. We know the Lord is going to place us into teams that He has specifically chosen for us. It’ll be different, but with change comes opportunity for growth. So I am excited to step into more growth.
World Race tells us that for some Racers, the biggest time of growth is during the last 3 months and I am hoping that is exactly what I experience. I’ve been spending a lot of my time this month praying about that growth and asking the Lord questions about my identity, where he sees me in my future (my life calling) and so many other things. He’s teaching me a lot, especially with trying to grow in ‘dying to myself’ and I am anxious to see where He takes me by month 11.
If you couldn’t tell by the title of this blog, I am skipping around a bit and trying to cover everything from the last two weeks or so. Therefore, besides the personal growth and transitions my team and I have been going through I also want to talk about Malaysia and our ministry this month!
I may be a bit bias, but we have been blessed with the best ministry hosts. Our hosts, Kumar and Josephine, are some of the most spirit filled people I have ever met. They live two hours from where we are living and doing ministry, so we have only seen them a few times, but every time they have encouraged and taught us each so much about intimacy with the Lord and why He has us here this month. We are around the 30th World Race team they have hosted, so they know a ton about the World Race and our mission which has been really neat.
This month our main ministry is teaching English. Malaysia is a closed country, in other words it is illegal for us to evangelize here, so teaching English is our way of touching peoples lives and shining the light of Christ. Sometimes it doesn’t turn into anything big, but the Kumar’s have incredible testimonies of people coming to Christ because of their continued interactions with World Racers teaching them English. One of the biggest things I have learned while being abroad and serving in several different countries where we couldn’t talk about our faith is that our actions and love say everything. Other than teaching English, we are hanging out with several members from the community, are a part of two Bible studies, and are working to decorate the new English center through painting murals and organizing the space.
Well I don’t’ have much of a wrap up, but there’s a mix of everything. Thanks for the continued prayers!
