Malaysia is a melting pot of Chinese, Malays, Indians and Burmese refugees. The country side is hilly, with over tons of trees and wildlife (or, so I am told). It was great to be able to see forests when we landed the plane in KL. This has been the first country where I looked at a menu and had no idea of what anything was. We have an Indian restaurant next door and of course nothing is in English. All I know is that Palang means banana, Telur=egg, Bawana=onion and teh is tea. Because there are many ethnicities here most people do speak really good English (at least the people we have met). I am extremely thankful for that!
There are several things that I have noticed about Malaysia: one is the hospitality that everyone shows. On the two hour plane ride to KL we were fed lunch for free-never happens. Everyone tends to bend to bend over backwards to make sure that we are ok. Our contact here has been amazing. For our first week we are living in port Klang in the first floor of a church. We have the whole church to ourselves and have been provided us with coffee, bread, butter and jam! Yesterday, we went to a pastors’ fellowship meeting where we worshipped with 7 or so local pastors and had a time of prayer. Afterwards, we went to “breakfast” with them at 11:30 where we had rotti (a crepe type bread) with curry. At 11:30 we went to an old folk’s home and sang Christmas carols, played games and hung out with some of the ladies and talked. They fed us lunch at 1:30, only an hour after our breakfast. I must say, I feel very hobbitish here with all the meals that we have been getting. I immensely enjoyed my time at the home, but it was also very frustrating. I talked to one woman for about 30 minutes and I could not understand a word she said…I wanted to be able to communicate with her, but could not. I did end up making her cry (I am presuming over her family, as they were the topic of our conversation). As I said good-bye to her she kissed my cheek and told me “God bless you”. It was very touching, and I appreciated that. In the evening, we went to a families’ house for dinner and had a great time. The woman told us we could call her our Malaysian mommy and she took real good care of us. This is the first time that I have been in an actual house since I left home-it made me both sad to think of my home in MI but also happy to be around a loving family. We were told by our driver last night that we stink…perhaps not in so many words, but he gave Carly the impression that we did. We asked our Malaysian mommy if we did, and after smelling us she said “no”. I have a feeling that this won’t be the last time that we are told that, and considering we all just washed our clothes there isn’t much we can do about it.
The second thing that I have noticed is the people’s passion for God. You should hear them pray! It is very inspiring and exciting to see/hear the zeal that they have for God. It is something that we need to strive for in our everyday life. Our hosts last night lifted us up in prayer for our trip, safety, boldness, etc. I have not seen such passion in a very long time.
Today we went to a school that is run by some local churches that allow Burmese refugees to come and study. The government does not allow them in public schools, so most do not have an education. There are 20 year olds attending that have hardly had any schools. These children had such joy and an excitement about them. They are extremely beautiful and thankful. Not to pick favourites, but I think these have been my favourite children. I wish that I could spend more time with them, but we are moving onto Butterworth on Monday so I will not see them again. Six of us went to this school not knowing exactly what we were doing. It turns out they had an entire assembly just for us (with about 100 students). So, we pulled out a few songs that have become common on the race and started singing…or, perhaps, singing is not the right word…It was pretty painful to listen to and the children just laughed at us. It turns out it is not the best idea to send the 6 people on the team who cannot sing. Ahh well, they all had a good time and we managed to sing about 5 songs including Father Abraham, Our God is so Big, and a few others. We also pulled out our acting skills and did the story of the Good Samaritan…I think acting is more our forte, which will say a lot for me because I cannot act at all.
So far, this month has been my favourite. We will see if I will say this in two weeks when we head to Thailand. I appreciate the hospitality and friendliness that this country presents. It has come at a time where I really needed it as last month was difficult and pretty lonely.
Sorry if this is a scattered blog. I have been thinking of a lot of things I’ve wanted to write, but have not had the time to actually type it up. Of course now that I have the time, not much comes to mind!
Prayer Request:
Please keep my health in your prayers. Because of the random meal times and high carb meals my blood sugar has been pretty messed up and it concerns me. I know God has this in control, but I’d really appreciate your prayers.
