The last two weeks in Malaysia were spent in Kuala Krai.
We partnered with Pastor Yesudason and his wife Theresa.
We had actually worked with Pastor Yesudason in Gua Musang to lay down the concrete slab on prayer mountain, so it was good to be familiar with him before switching towns.
The big project for us was more manual labor.
The main task was to complete the walls that you see in the back of the pillars.
What walls?
The ones between the pillars.
They're there, we just had to assemble them with some concrete.
So… we woke up many a mornin' to walk to the work site by 7am and work for a few hours and leave some time before noon when the sun becomes unbearable.
[Here's the sun mocking us through the cloud cover]
And so 6 of 8 of us worked on laying down mortar and brick.
Andrew was our cement mix master.
What did I get?…
God gave me a heaping pile of ***t.
DIRT 🙂
[you can also see how many walls were in need of assembling]
Yep.
I got shafted dirt.
In all honesty, as I said before, I don't like manual labor very much. As Jeremy would say, "It just doesn't fill up my love tank."
The first day or two, I did my best to keep the complaining to myself because… it's just not necessary.
And then I remembered…
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Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.
-Philippians 4:4
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Sure it's easy to rejoice when God gives you a little kid that smiles at you.
But when you are given the opportunity to do ministry by taking a hoe & shovel to a pile of dirt…
it just doesn't smile in the same way.
And thus, I sucked it up and did it anyway, but with a change of heart. Other World Race teams have come and set up the pillars so that we could build the walls; pastor showed us those pictures.
He also told us that the funds for the building aren't in…
?!
[Dat's cray cray]
We are building walls for a facility / ministry center that is currently no money to build. Pastor shared that we are building the walls for a fence around the facility that he is trusting that God will provide the money for.
Now that's putting your money where you mouth is.
No money for the building?
Just build the fence in the meantime.
There's some faith in action.
And as my perspective changed, my attitude changed…
And I leveled the dirt.
Like a boss.
But even in the dirt, God gave me little nuggets of beauty that kept me working with a joyful heart.
And the walls were finished off as well.
[And I just love this picture so much, I'm going to use it again]
And that concludes one project in Kuala Krai
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Extras:
Pastor's church is small and consists of maybe 8 believers. We went to worship and pray with them at the church. A few of us shared testimonies with them as well.
One day we got to lead a youth program at the Chinese church just below our living quarters.
So we smashed all their heads together to show them what was up.
Just kidding. We played some games with them after sharing a Bible story and singing a few songs with them.
As if Wade wasn't already tall…
We also led some activities in another village in an Indian community.
Kids would come from all over the neighborhood. Parents would come and we would also distribute cans of nutritional supplement powder for kids.
This is Mhusav. He likes me.
It was beautiful here too.
We went to a different Indian community across the Tako River to distribute more cans of the nutritional supplement powder.
Pastor visits this village on a monthly basis. There is not a single Christian here, but pastor comes and shares Christ with the families and his love for them.
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O look, a monkey!
We got the opportunity to visit this beautiful waterfall and go swimming. We may have also burried a Malay boy in the sand somewhere.
And that's all she wrote.
Malanistry. Done.
Asia. Done.
I am writing this in a McDonalds in Terangganu, Malaysia.
In just a few days, B-Squad is continent shifting to AFRICA.
Kenya, here we come!
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Love y'all.
Stay tuned.
– Dan²
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BONUS!
Congrats on reading this far.
Malanisty's Manliest Manly Man Moments…
We started the month off in Kuala Lampur and went to more malls than ever on the Race.
Stopping cement work to chase butterflies.
Watching Pocahontas before going to bed.
Watching A Walk to Remember after working on a brick wall.
Afternoon tea time on multiple occasions.
Getting my hair cut and styled in a salon.
Going to even more malls in Singapore.
Skin exfoliation with sand at the beach.
Listening to Justin Bieber while packing our packs, followed by Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA.
🙂
