So I’ve basically been the worst about blogging since, well the beginning of the race. To catch everyone up a little bit I’m going to post several blogs over the next few days that recap a month each! 11 tidbits from Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam (the country I’m currently in).
So here are 11 tidbits from Malaysia (these tidbits will be funny stories, lessons learned or even little facts about where I was staying):
- Gua Musang is the name of the town we stayed in for the month, and I think it’s literally the hottest place on the face of the earth. We lived in a warehouse on the third floor of a building that didn’t have AC and only had two fans. HOT!!!!
- There was a chicken place across from our warehouse called MarryBrown. It was my safe haven. They had wifi, AC and 5 Riggett meals. MarryBrown 5ever.
- The Malaysian currency is called Riggett and when we were there the exchange rate was about 3.7 MR to 1 USD.
- One day we were finally able to leave Gua Musang for an adventure day, which was really just going to a different small town where another team was staying to have a day with some friends. When we were leaving I made the comment, “We’re finally leaving Gua Musang!!!” and as soon as I said that our driver hit a curb and dented his rim. It was like God was telling me to slow my roll.
- Malaysia was our first country in Southeast Asia and here they LOVE to drink to drinks that have different add-in our drinks of choice in Malaysia were Fruit Tree Apple Aloe. Apple Aloe was what saved us on hot days. It’s basically apple juice with little bits of aloe vera chunks (sounds weird, but it’s SO good)
- I’ve decided that someday I’ll be a stellar mom because this month we had to cook for ourselves so Nancy and I did meal plans and cooked most of the meals for everyone. If I can cook two meals a day for eight adults, I can do most things.
- When things are super slow the weird in people comes out. This month people were holding feet—interlocking toes like you would hands, we had fake pole vaulting competitions and made countless dance videos.
- Our contact equated Kelantan (the state that Gua Musang is in) to the Afghanistan of SE Asia. We had to speak in code and weren’t allowed to take our bibles outside of our (ware)home.
- The power of prayer is so so so real. This month we had a prayer board and really learned what an intentional prayer life looks like. Having so much down time really gave us time to pour into our prayer life and process all that happened in Nepal and India.
- This whole month I suffered from Phantom Earthquake Syndrome (I made up this term). About twice a day I would think that there would be an earthquake and there was no chance of that being the case. When I would lay down I would feel my heartbeat on the ground and shoot awake thinking it was an earthquake or if someone was walking really heavy across the room I would freak out. It was a stressful month.
- We were in Malaysia, which is an Islamic country, at the start of Ramadan. It made for an interesting few weeks because nothing would open until 4 or 5 in the afternoon and that made it hard to even go shopping.
Over all Malaysia was a month full of growth despite the very little ministry we did. I learned and grew a lot that month.
Stay tuned for my next few blogs about Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. 🙂
