Here’s a summary of what we did this week in ministry here in Penang Malaysia.
Eden Handicapped Facility-We helped out by playing with kids, doing some yard work, and one of our teammates even did some staff training. The kids are happy and smiley. Kailyn was a little girl who couldn’t hear or speak, but she could express love. She liked to lean on me, play tea party, and even liked to dance.
I also met 15 year old Chee Keong. He is very small for his age and is confined to a wheelchair. He can barely speak, but he has a great sense of humor. He cannot feed himself. So, I was asked to feed him his snack one day. Instead of being concerned or embarassed that a stranger was feeding him, Chee Keong laughed and joked with me the whole time I fed him. He completely melted my heart.
Kawan Drop In Center-I got to spend a day in the kitchen prepping lunch with a cute Chinese woman who lives in Penang only 6 months out of the year. The rest of the time she spends in Canada where her kids live. During her 6 months in Penang, she comes in regularly to cook the lunch meal for 100 or so people at Kawan. As her sous chef this week, I was able to accompany her to the market. She told me how she shared the gospel in her native Hokkien language while she was picking out potatoes at the veggie stand. I love how she just incorporates that into her market visit. My team also spent some time doing Spring cleaning at Kawan and painted a small mural on the wall to help decorate the dining room where the guests have lunch each week.
Night outreach-We’ve attended two night outreaches with Kawan. The purpose is to build relationships with people on the streets. We come across homeless folks that we give some soup and bread to and invite them to Kawan. We come across women and men in the sex trade business and try to build relationships there, too. There is a 67 year old woman who has been a prostitute all her life that we’ve been talking to. She’s so cute, just like a grandma. This week, we asked her what we could pray for and she wanted us to pray for another job for her. That’s a whole story in itself, but you can say a prayer for Lisa if you think of it this week.
Finally, here’s the food highlights of this week. I think I’ve mentioned “Roti” a time or two in my Malaysia blogs, but I need to dedicate some more time to this delectable treat. Roti is a fresh made flat bread that is still in dough form when you order, meaning it’s super fresh. There are a ton of types but my favorites are these:
Roti Cania-this is the basic bread. It gets pressed and thrown around like a pizza dough, but they make the roti bread really thin. Then, they sort of wrap it up in layers like a bread/pastry hybrid. You dip it in a savory sauce and pay approximately 30 cents (USD) for one. This picture is the “roti master” making our order a couple days ago.
Next is the Roti Pisang. This is the basic roti with a sliced up banana and a little sweetened condensed milk cooked into it. Check out the picture:
Another type is Roti Jala-This one is made more like a funnel cake at the State Fair of Texas, but the output is the same bread like yummy-ness. Roti Jala is also dipped in delicious Indian curry sauces (or gravy).
The final roti in our lesson today is Roti Bom. This is a sweet or dessert roti and it is definitely the bomb! It’s a normal roti made with butter and sweetened condensed milk cooked into the middle. It sort of tastes like a fresh cinnamon roll without the cinnamon–and it’s flat. It’s very good and you should seek this out in your local community if there are any Indian restaurants…or maybe google a recipe and try it, because it’s delicious. Take a look:
That’s all for today. There’s too much to say about life and ministry here. What I’m so impressed with are all the locals that are serving with these ministries as volunteers. Without them and the full time, support raised missionaries there would be no ministry for us to come partner with.
