MALAYSIA: honestly, might have been my favorite month of the World Race so far, and it will now forever be one of my favorite places in the world.
We first started in Penang, an island off the north western tip of Malaysia! This is where we met with the rest of our squad for 4 days of debrief after our first month in Asia. Getting there from Bangkok, Thailand was a hoot— an 18 hour train ride followed by a 2 hour train ride followed by a ferry ride followed by an Uber ride. All of that landing us in a bed bug infested hostel, always an adventure;)
Now for the confusion. Lemme tell ya… we crossed the border into Malaysia at a town called Padang, then stayed on the nearby island of Penang, so when we were looking for our next destination as a team, it didn’t even cross my mind to think a town called Pahang would be THAT far away. Everything we were looking into for lodging and ministry was falling through, so when someone recommended a place in Pahang that looked promising, we were all on board! We booked a hostel and started praying about ministry… then I put the address into Maps. 11 hours away… complete opposite side of Malaysia… not one but two buses to get there.. HA! Now I can look back and see how the Lord carefully orchestrated every step of last month, but it definitely came as an initial surprise!
We finally arrived, exhausted and rather confused, to the cutest and tiniest little cottages ever in Pahang, Cherating, Malaysia. We couldn’t find a reception area or anyone to check us in, it was 10pm and pitch black outside, and monkeys rustled in the nearby trees (do not be mistaken, Curious George is a lie and monkeys do not want to be your friend). So we decided to just drop our luggage and make a run for the ocean. My mind.was.blown. The tide was low, the waves were gently washing along the shore, the sky was ginormous, the stars were blazing, and my heart felt so full. The times I feel most alive in life are the times I am in awe of how minuscule I am amidst the splendor of something so vast as the ocean or the sky.
We eventually found a way to get checked in and collapsed into our beds creaking beneath us. When we woke up, we decided to explore the town. Surprise again, it was Ramadan! Which in a small surf town where it’s already off-season, means that the town population decreases to approximately zero people. Ramadan is the month of fasting (during daylight hours) observed by Muslims as one of the pillars of their faith. Nearly all businesses, restaurants, and stores close during this time, and I swear I saw a tumbleweed roll down the street. Being that our month in Malaysia was supposed to be a month where we prayed and asked the Lord what He wanted for us ministry-wise, we began to wonder if we had made a bigger mistake than just not realizing how far away Pahang was. The more we explored, however, we began to find a few of the locals who quickly became some of our best friends!
Every morning started at the coolest surf cafe down the street! Fresh mango shakes, coffee on coffee, and omelets on repeat. We eventually became friends with the main owners, which turned into an opportunity to paint a mural on their cafe’s wall where a previous mural had faded and been graffiti’d over. We started a weeklong painting expedition, which gave us the opportunity to meet anyone and everyone who came to the cafe! When we weren’t painting, we took part in a beach clean up program called Trash Hero, and we also helped our hostel owner scrub out her new timeshare home. We had time each afternoon to relax on the beach with one of our new lifelong friends from England, talking about life and God and religion, discussing our opinions and pains and desires. We watched the sunset most nights from the beach, often accompanied by guitars and worship sets. During a particularly busy teacher holiday weekend, we got to help serve at our favorite beach bar, where I soon realized that my life calling is certainly not waiting tables, as I nearly decapitated 3 people with plates on separate occasions. But hey it was a blast, and they really needed the extra hands! Almost every night ended around a fire or on the beach with a giant circle of people from America, England, Malaysia, Iran, Holland, and numerous other countries, singing Sweet Home Alabama, talking about politics, Jesus, travel, family, and much more. It was insane to look around and see so many countries represented, laughing so hard or talking about such deep topics, realizing how everyone has so much in common when it comes down to it— we’re all just people trying to make the most of our lives.
I just can’t get over how much fun it was. And how much fun it is to just intentionally focus on loving people. My team often had discussions together about how we wanted to REALLY see the people around us, actually listen to them, genuinely care about the things they had to say and the things they felt or believed. Something that seemed so simple had a bigger impact then I ever would have imagined. When I was saying goodbye to one person we had made a relationship with, they looked at me and said slowly, “you know.. I really didn’t know how MUCH I was worth until I started talking to you.” Wow.
I think the biggest thing I learned in Malaysia was about the simplicity of accepting the unconditional love of Jesus, then loving others out of that. Mark 10:15 says that the kingdom of heaven belongs to children. What is one of the biggest consistencies in kids’ knowledge of Christianity? “Jesus loves me this I know.” Honestly what kid doesn’t know that song? Have you ever stopped to actually think about the lyrics though? The Bible says that Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me. That’s really it. Could that really BE the kingdom of heaven? One of my favorite songs called “Pieces” talks about how the love of the Father is never given in pieces.. that it’s not fractured, it’s not a troubled mind, it’s not anxious or restless or passive or broken, it’s always present and good, and it’s always pure. When we accept THAT love, I mean really accept it, and then CHOOSE to love others intentionally out of it, real mindsets and lives and futures change.
It’s easy to feel like, for lack of better words, that “the world is going to hell in a hand basket.” The news is flooded with shootings, hatred, country disagreements and tariffs and yada yada yada. But this last month, I really realized that real change that actually matters is inside of people, one individual at a time being loved and loving others in return. One day when we were sitting at the cafe, two little boys walked in from opposite sides. One was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, light-skinned kid; the other a curly-haired, dark-eyed, African American kid. They looked to be similar in age, possibly between 5 and 6 years old. They saw eachother wearing the same shirt from across the room and lost their minds, jumping up and down shouting, “we’re just the same! You and me, we’re just the same!”
What if you decided to look beyond someone’s race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, political preference, social status, or football team preference, and love them, ON PURPOSE? What would that practically look like for you to find something or someone each day to practice this? Listen, see, celebrate, mourn, understand. Love looks like something each day, it’s up to us to find it. Even if that means you end up unexpectedly 11 hours away in what first feels like a ghost town 😉
