Our ministry in Malaysia was both intercession and building a thrift store/school for Burmese refugees. We stayed with Penang House of Prayer and they hosted us sooo well. On fridays we would have four hour prayer and worship sessions and on Tuesdays we had seven hour prayer sessions.
During our time in PENHOP there was a devotional/worship time, a time to pray for areas with Muslims in Penang, Malaysia, a time to pray for certain tribes in rural villages needing revival, and there were times to pray over each other. It was powerful to see how much the Lord speaks and how much comes out of setting apart time specifically for Him. In this time I prayed for a deeper hunger for the Lord and I came out with a whole bunch of questions. I sat with most of these questions for a while and rather than giving the Lord my questions and leaving room for Him to speak I let the questions cloud my mind. For a time I found it difficult to worship or even pray because I was so concerned with the questions I had. To give you insight into what I was thinking, I had many questions on what I had just learned about intercessional prayer and I had been talking with some of my squad on what the bible says on free will. It took one of my male mentors talking to me to realize that I was letting questions get in the way of loving God. I was trying to strengthen my foundation with scripture but I had momentarily forgot about the real God who hears prayers and who loves me more than I could ever understand. What I came out of this time with was that there is always going to be things that I don’t understand because God is mysterious but He is also lovely. I can’t let questions drag me away from the things I know to be true. When I pray for wisdom and understanding the Lord won’t give me all of the knowledge in the universe but He will always seek and desire a relationship with me. Being taken care of by a Father who has my back and is willing to teach me what I am able to understand is comforting and way better than desperately wishing I could understand all the Lord does.
The Lord was working in me a ton while we spent one month in Malaysia and it was a great to work alongside my team while doing ministry. The thrift store I mentioned that we were working on was ordained in order to fund the school for Burmese refugees that was being built. Our host for Penang showed us to a gutted bank building with wires hanging everywhere and stained walls. We turned the building into a usable space by repainting, putting up some walls, rewiring the lights/fans and doing overall maintenance to the facilities. It was more work than we thought it was going to be but the strength of the Lord prevailed and we were proud with the results. This time of ministry was not only focused on the building but also on building relationships with some of the kids who would be attending the school. Their principal wanted them to be apart of the work that went into the school so we had the opportunity to make friends with a handful of them. My team made friends with two boys in particular because we spent the most time with them. They do not come from Christian households but they are able to learn about God from their awesome, prayer powerhouse teacher. A few of us on my team were able to teach them more english through reading the bible and speaking with them about who they want to be and who Jesus is. One of my favorite memories from Malaysia was when we had Thanksgiving and my team and our friends from the school went bowling together. It was a new experience for the boys and we had a great time.
Overall Malaysia was a really good experience. The Lord wanted it to be a time of learning as well as a time of strong communion with Him. I am glad that I was able to be a part of the community at PENHOP and take time to deepen my knowledge in the word. I am also very excited to see how the Lord will work in the lives of the refugee students.
