6.13.18 Wednesday
In the Waiting
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My heart feels full and I feel elated!
We are in Malaysia. It’s our third full day here. The first night we slept in the airport. This month is Ask The Lord again which means we do not have a set Ministry. We pray and ask God to guide us and see where He leads.
At the airport my teammate Chandler found a hostel for us to stay at and also emailed YWAM here to see if they needed any help.
God is so cool. The YWAM people emailed back quickly saying that they are in desperate need for a team and they have been praying for help. They run a homeless shelter and need helping hands moving buildings and are in a time crunch. They are in Penang, Malaysia.
We have been staying at a hostel here and we will leave to go to a Penang in a few days to begin working alongside them.
So for now we are blessed with time to cast our vision for the month, process and wrap up last month’s trek, continue sharing testimonies, dive deeper in bible study and be open and interruptible to how God can work through us while we are waiting to go to Penang.
In the waiting something really cool happened today! So our squad leader Johan and I were walking back to our hostel and we noticed a man sitting on the street and he had a sore on his stomach he was observing. It’s hard to describe, because in no way was this me, I was set on going back to the hostel but I just felt a huge pull/conviction that I needed to turn around. In that moment I could’ve either ignored that feeling and continued walking or turn around and go talk to him. Of course there were a lot of questions in my head like does he speak English? Am I making up this feeling? There were so many unknowns. I’m learning that in these moments I have to just do it. I need to say yes especially when I don’t know what is going to happen, because that’s when God can and does show up.
So Johan and I turned around and went back to the man.
Turns out he speaks English/ Mandarin/ Malay and likes to mix them all up. 🙂 Luckily Johan knew some Mandarin and could communicate somewhat. His name was Ho. We discovered that he had three medications he was out of (one was for high cholesterol, one was for inflammation, and one was for for high blood pressure) and he also had an empty inhaler. We asked him how we could help and we were able to take his prescription down the street and God paved the way because between the two pharmacies we went to we were able to get all of his medications without any trouble and affordably. We also got him two big waters and bandaids for his stomach. The cost came to a total of $116 Malaysian Ringgits which is equivalent to $ 29.10 USD. We went back to Ho and were so grateful to tell him we got everything he needed and he had about a 20+ day supply of all of his medications. He was so grateful and we were able to spend more time sitting with him on the sidewalk and listening.
He shared about how he was 62 years old. He has a 10 year old son. His wife was deported, lives in Thailand, and he hasn’t seen her in two years. He also shared about how there was a young girl he met earlier who tried to pay for his medication but he told her to save her money because she was going to school. He also tried to give us his sandwich because he couldn’t eat it because he only had a few teeth, and he also tried to share the water we gave him with us. As the conversation progressed we asked if we could pray for him. He said yes without hesitation and so we sat on sidewalk holding hands with him and prayed. We asked him if He knew Jesus and He said excitedly YES, Yes! He shared that he was baptized when he was 20 years old and that he goes to church on Saturday and Sunday (sounded like there may be food, etc. for the homeless). It was so uplifting and encouraging that he knew Jesus and that we got to meet him today!
If we would’ve kept walking and didn’t turn around we never would’ve met Ho. It’s so beautiful how God truly blesses situations and encounters when we choose yes instead of no.
Different memories came to mind after this encounter. The night before after he shared his testimony with us my teammate Preston shared what was on His heart which was that just because we are waiting to leave on Saturday to doesn’t mean that God can’t and won’t use us right where we are. He encouraged us to have open hearts and hands with the people we encounter because He knew God wanted to use us.
Also, Johan and I shared with each other about how sometimes when it appears that a need is so large (like the line of homeless men sitting on the sidewalk a few feet from Po) that it’s easy to feel inadequate and powerless and have the “if I can’t help them all then what’s the point?” mentality and choose to feel defeated and not do anything. The beautiful thing though is that we are called to love those in our path and don’t need to be everyone’s savior because they already have one. We sometimes carry burdens we were never meant to carry.
The other memory that came to mind was an excerpt from Katie’s book Kisses From Katie about a girl straight out of high school from the US who feels called to Uganda and goes to serve. Here it is:
“Sometimes working in a Third World Country makes me feel like I am emptying the ocean with an eyedropper. And just when I have about half a cup full of water it rains: more orphaned children from the north migrate to where I live, more abandoned and dead babies are found, more people are infected with HIV. It is enough to discourage even the most passionate and enthusiastic person……love is the reason I just keep filling up my little eyedropper, keep filling it up and emptying my ocean one drop at a time. I’m not here to eliminate poverty, to eradicate disease, to put a stop to people abandoning babies. I’m just here to love.”
~Katie Davis
Just yesterday we read 1 Corinthians 13 which paints a pictures of how we are to love each other and reflect that’s exactly how Christ loves us.
I’m not writing this to show that I did something good and I hope that’s not how it comes across because none of this is about me. It’s about God and truthfully He did it all anyway! However, we are faced with situations where we have a choice to say yes to be a vessel for Him or no, not today. Which trust me, I’ve done too.
If anything I hope these words encourage you to do the things that scare you. To message the friend that’s on your heart. To hug the lady behind the cash register because she’s having a bad day. To sit and listen to the person who looks downcast and is hurting. It’s the small yes’s that can turn into something beautiful. It doesn’t have to be planned to show love to others, it’s in the waiting where it all counts. It’s in the little moments that are unexpected. Jesus’s love doesn’t have an on and off switch and ours shouldn’t either. Easier said than done but thankfully He will give us what we need when we seek Him.
Blessings,
Court
