Let me
start off by saying: Malaysia is BEAUTIFUL. We are working on a farm about an
hour outside of Kuala Lumpur up in the luscious, green mountains. Our work day
begins around 8am (depending on what time our driver picks us up) and we end
around 5pm. We showed up on our first day and met Manik, who we will be working
with during our time here. He met us up at the shelter where we picked up work
gloves and machetes before beginning the mile-or-so hike down to where we will
be working to clear land on the side of a steep mountain. Manik is a
29-year-old short, little Muslim man from Bangladesh who is able to understand
and speak very limited English. This makes for some interesting conversations
during the work day.
[photo by Ginger…Manik, Alex, me, Amanda, Christy]
We began
not really knowing what we were doing, but just following Manik and the other workers
with machetes around and helping them pull trees and brush from the side of the
mountain and haul them to make piles which may or may not be burned soon. Let
me explain: When we asked Manik the first day if we were going to burn the
piles of debris he said, “This afternoon.” Well we worked the whole day and
never set anything on fire. At the end of the day, we asked again and he said,
“Yes, tomorrow.” We showed up to work the next day with high hopes of setting
10+ piles of stuff on fire. We again asked about burning the piles and Manik
said, “This afternoon, no rain.” Ok, awesome. Let’s work real hard in the
morning so we can burn all these piles after lunch that we worked so hard to
gather. Once again, no fire.
This is
by far the hardest manual labor I have ever done in probably the harshest
conditions that I have ever worked in, but I love it! These men that we work
with are such a joy to be around. They are constantly smiling and
laughing–probably AT us most of the time. I’m pretty sure they are talking about us in their own language and laughing at us most of the time, but that’s alright. I’m sure we probably look ridiculous as we struggle to pull huge trees across the side of a steep mountain. I can’t even count the number of times I have fallen, tripped, slipped, etc. Luckily nobody has gotten hurt too badly. Our
team has been dominating a pretty big portion of this steep mountainside
hacking weeds, vines, and tangled brush with less-than-sharp machetes in the
hot sun. It may sound miserable, and sometimes it can be but I just keep my mind focused that I’m working for the Lord.
[Kokon, me, Amanda, Alex, Ginger, Manik]
We all
got sunburnt the first day…the mangled trees and brush we are hauling all over
creation have thorns all over them (aka bleeding arms)…there are an insane
amount of leeches that somehow manage to attach themselves to us and cause us
to bleed all over our already muddy, sweaty, disgustingly dirty clothes that we
wear day after day to work so we won’t have to wash too many clothes. We don’t
exactly have running water, so we can handwash our clothes (in muddy water) but
it takes them an eternity to dry. We take bucket showers (again with muddy
water). Our toilet is actually just a hole in the ground. We live among millions
of ants and other creatures. We have no refrigerator or stove. This is the
first month I would say we are actually “roughing it.” I just keep telling
myself this is preparing me for Africa. J
After our first day of work, we had no form of transportation to get food, so we set out on what seemed like a 40 minute, 5km hike down the mountain to find some kind of civilization with a “grocery store.” We each bought what we could with the small amount of money our budget allowed us for food this month, and began the long trek back up the mountain in the pitch black night to our house. We are pretty much living off Ramen noodles, bread, and any other snacks we could find that don’t require refrigeration or cooking of any kind. My physical body may be exhausted, but I just keep in mind that “the JoY of the Lord is my strength!”
——-
Please be
praying for even more opportunities for conversations with our Muslim worker
friends on the farm–especially as the language barrier creates confusion. Also
be praying that the remaining $1000 will be added to my support account by the
end of this month! Thank you!
