Debrief in Malaysia, we had a major overhaul of the teams. I knew it was coming, but even then, it still hit me like a hurricane.
Palms sweaty and heart pounding, I went in search of my Easter egg that contained the list of my new team. After some help from a squad mate I located it and snapped it open. No longer was I on a coed team, but for the first time in my race history, I was on an all girls team (Not that that’s bad, I LOVE my team! RTB WOLF PACK! *howls like a wolf*). But, I was separated from one of my best friends on the race, Mark. That was definitely the hardest part about team changes for me.
A couple of hours after team changes, my team, RTB, (Raising The Bar. And no it’s not like the cell phone commercial, it’s same same, but different) got our new ministry update for that month in Malaysia. My new team leader, Anna, said while we were getting our matching henna tattoos (typical tourists),
“We’re doing Unsung Heroes!”
Immediately, I started dreading it. Molly and I, had already done UH month 5 in Zimbabwe. It was a little rough. But as a new team then and a new team again, I wasn’t looking forward to it. At all. Even though in Zim, we got a lot of contacts, I didn’t fell like we grew as close together as a team, cause with UH, you need Internet access available quite easily. I found I’d rather spend my time watching YouTube or taking Buzzfeed quizzes (or stalking Chris Evans, cause let’s be honest, What. A. Babe. #futurehusbandmaterial). Anyway… And I didn’t want that to happen again with RTB. So right from start, I let the team know how I would like this UH month to look compared to the last one.
Let me explain what Unsung Heroes is real quick like. UH is where a team has no specific ministry but is supposed to go and find a place to live and find people/ churches/ ministries we can partner with as the World Race and see if they would like to host future teams. Our job as UH is to let them know who we are, what we can do for them as a future partnership could develop. As a team we can move as often as we want or as little as we want through the month (in Zim we didn’t move, in Malaysia I think we moved 5-7 times, it’s all a blur really).
We started off in the city of Kuala Lumpur, it’s massive and has a mall about every 50 ft. As well as free buses with aircon and free wifi (what is life). We emailed possible future contacts and waited to hear replies from them as well as visited a couple of churches trying to make contacts in person. Things weren’t going that swell for about the week we were there (except for Texas Chicken where you could buy 3 honey buttered biscuits and an ice cream cone for about $2.50 USD *drool*). But from multiple different people we heard of a town called Melaka that was about 2hrs south of KL. So we packed up the bags and set out for the train and bus station.
We arrive in Melaka and immediately the hostel owner is trying to help us get in contact with churches or pastors he knows of. That’s neat. And through a series of God events (chance meeting with fellow Christian in a coffee shop and an invite to church on Sunday) we go off to church not knowing what to expect, but expecting God to do something nonetheless.
We go to church on Sunday huddled together like shy kids at a park. But the church members were so friendly and so inviting, we knew we found something special. By the end of the service, we had many people talking to us and trying to help us find contacts for future ministries. Everyone was super great and helpful. The church even invited us to their church camp (which was on an island at a resort…).
The next day, Kelly Anne, Cassidy and I had a meeting with the pastor to tell him about what the WR is and about future partnership with his church. The meeting goes spectacular and towards the end of it, he asks,
“Would you guys like a free house to stay at for the rest of the month?”
Um excuse me?
So he takes us and shows us this beautiful house that we could stay at. We told him we were definitely interested but just had to discuss with the team. Later that night we have a team meeting and Shirletha tells us that the church found 7 sponsors to cover the cost for us to go to the church camp with them (we had been praying to either be sponsored for the trip or were not planning to go) and we told them that God gave us a free house! Let me tell you it was some exciting times.
And despite all this awesomeness going on, that wasn’t even the best part of the month for me! God had already showed up in big ways and showed us (ME) that prayer works. The best part for me was meeting a family just like mine back home. A family that had 5 boys from ages 1 to 16 that basically turned into my extended family. Their parents owned the house we were staying in and they lived directly behind us (or we lived behind them… Idk) and they invited us over for dinner multiple times. And just welcomed us and truly invested in us. But I got to hangout with the boys like I would my little brothers and they reminded me so much of them. I did some homework with one of them, played 21 (aka Black Jack) with all of them with M&Ms for chips (oddly the chips kept disappearing…), and went to a park and foot raced some of them (I’m old and slow these days). It just blessed my heart! And really made me appreciate and miss my family more than I ever have on the race so far. If you’re a SnapChat friend of mine, you would have seen them on there quite regularly.
In many ways Malaysia was definitely one of my favorite months. Going into it with a team change and UH sounded like a recipe for disaster in the beginning, but it turned out to be the makings of a masterpiece. Only God could have turned the month around like that for me. Only He could have gotten us a free house, a beach resort with an amazing church, and a family away from family.
I’d say, He’s pretty great.
Oh and a fun fact for ya. Remember Chris Evans? I also got to see him when I visited Singapore. Just another reason Malaysia was great. Go Jesus.
What’s he wearing? Future husband material.
