So what have the team and I been doing this month in Malaysia, well I’ll tell ya. We’ve been selling bears. In Penang Adventist Hospital to be specific. It’s very true that you just never know what type of ministry you will be apart of on the world race. During orientation that first day at the hospital we met with Nancy, head of the development department, and watched a slide show presentation about fundraising at the hospital. We heard about all their campaigns like “Go Bald” where employees and anyone esle shave thier heads to raise money, but mainly we just listened to them talk about how well the previous world race teams fundraised and how especially one guy in particular was the master of all fundraising.
Ok so what we were fundraising for was the heart foundation fund. It cost 25,000 ringgit for a child to have heart surgery, they put our goal at 15,000 ringgit because we were only at the hospital for 10 days and graciously gave us prizes along the way. When we reached 5,000 ringgit we got a pizza party, and when we reached 15,000 ringgit we got a lunch buffet. Those were pretty much the best prizes that they could have given us considering that everything in the Adventist hospital was vegetarian and usually for lunch you would eat a pound of tofu.
Serenading the people while fundraising. With songs like Buy a bear save a life, and 10 Ringget can save a life, it was hard for people not to donate 😉
At first the cost of the bears (10 ringgit) and the cost of the heart surgeries were confusing to all of us, was that expensive, cheap? I mean what’s it like when someone gives 10 ringgit to buy a bear? Anyway here’s the break down.
25,000 ringgit (one heart surgery) = $8,064 USD
15,000 ringgit (our goal)= $4,838 USD
10 ringgit (one bear)= $3.25 USD
This really put it into perspective for me just how generous people in Penang were. I mean sometimes people would donate even when they couldn’t understand what we were saying bc of language, and then I had to remember that a little tiny keychain bear was $3 and I’m not sure if back home I would have bought that for 3$ or donated. Sometimes we would go up to hospital waiting rooms make our announcement and everyone in the waiting would open their wallets and donate. Of course we would get ignored and the occasional rude comment. We even developed a friendship with a nurse that couldn’t understand why anyone would willing fundraise for the hospital.
Here it is everyone, the thermometer sign I created for the fundraising. Basically in my mind this sign was a game changer and really boosted our efforts. haha but for real I was wicked excited about the sign.
This is a very typical scene at around 2 pm. Asking for donations is basically exhausting.
Later sitting down with Nancy one afternoon she was explaining to us how the development department’s heart is to raise enough money to help out needy patients and to provide hope and prayer to patients and the community. She said it takes a lot of work though and they are consistently thinking of new approaches to raise the funds. She said they pray all the time for assistance and help. She was thankful that we were that answered prayer this time. Seriously asking people for money all day is not the easiest and is extremely exhausting but it was exactly what we needed to do to help that community, and without knowing it at first we were so blessed to be an answered prayer to that department. We were able to form some awesome relationships with the employees at the hospital.
Lots of love. Elaina
