Creative Ministry, Colors, and Lion Dances, Oh My!…or Malaysia, You’ve Been Good to Me

Oh Malaysia, what to say about you?  You've been hard, but wonderful.  Stressful, but relaxing.  A long month, but gone by too fast.

I knew, coming into this month, that it was going to be cool.  6 years ago, God gave me a passion for Indian people and culture, and our first two routes with C Squad and F Squad included India, but L Squad did not.  After researching Malaysia, I learned that the country has three main people groups: Malay, Chinese, and Indian.  So, I was excited about what the month would hold.

We are living on a ministry base with another team, Sons and Daughters.  We've been taking part in five different ministries, so we got to choose which ministry we wanted to focus on. 

Josh, Angela, and Andrew have been working with a homeless ministry here in Georgetown, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  They help serve breakfast and lunch at the center, supervise the shower and sleeping facilities, and just make friends and be a light in an otherwise dark and difficult world to the homeless men and women.  Both of our teams also do homeless outreach on Wednesday nights.  Several groups go out on the streets and minister to those they meet, and invite them to the center for meals and rest, while an intercession group stays behind and prays.

Johnny, Tiffany, Brittany, and I have been working with LUMA (Lighting Up the Media Arts).  LUMA is an organization that seeks to bring artists and creatives together "in bringing their art to light and creating an avenue to spur them towards greater works and a greater contribution to society". 

We've had the amazing opportunity to take part in some of their projects.  Johnny has been helping to edit videos from their previous exhibition, Trails of Light.  I spent the first week and a half writing blurbs for an upcoming exhibition called Views From a Postcard.  It was so great to use my passion for writing for ministry, and to know that months after we have left Malaysia, my writing will still be making an impact in the creative community here.

After I finished working on the Postcards project, I joined Brittany and Tiffany on the HIP Project, a social media campaign.  LUMA is joining forces with Arts Ed, an organization in Penang that promotes Arts and Heritage education, to get the community, especially the younger generation, excited about heritage in Penang.  On Thursday and Saturday, we joined the LUMA staff on a heritage walk and went around the city, asking people what they love about Penang.  We had dry erase speech bubbles, and had fun taking photos, talking to people, and learning about all that Georgetown has to offer.

Working with a creative ministry this month has been a dream come true for me.  Over the last few months, I've realized that writing and photography are part of my Kingdom Dream.  God has gifted me with these talents and passions, and I know that I want to use them for the furthering of His Kingdom on Earth, by telling the stories of a ministry, and the people behind it.  LUMA has given me an opportunity to do that, and I have loved every second of it. 

It has been cool to see something like the HIP Project go from a concept, to something that is tangible, and that hundreds of people are now talking about, and to know that I was a part of the creative process of making that happen. 

I've also realized that my ministry can't be totally behind a computer screen.  I need to be with people-interacting with, hanging out, and loving on them.  I helped out one day at the homeless center, and it was like a breath of fresh air that I had forgotten I needed.  I need to see Jesus in the eyes of people.  I need to hear Him in their laughter, and to experience Him in the ways that they minister to me, not just me to them.

Malaysia, you've been great to me. 
You've been colorful. 
Beautiful. 
Hot. 
Eye-opening. 
Scary.
An answer to prayer.
Noisy.
The backdrop for the most incredible spiritual experience.
Amazing.
Life-changing.

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