I have been in Malaysia for the last two weeks and I couldn’t be more happy and excited for the time that I will be spending here. I have a new team called Gihon Gems, it is an girls only team. Alexis my new team leader, she is incredible and super fun to be around; Alissa, she is always with a smile on her face which I love; Bri, she was the first person I met when I first got to the squad, and is an amazing friend; Kaycee, this girl has the biggest and the sweetest heart I know; and Megan, always with so much joy and I can always see Jesus in her. We share a house with another team, one of the girls in that team is Claire (soooo happy for having her in my life, God knows how much I love her, that is why He put us back together at least in the same house, hahahaha). Kaiden, Taylor, Will, Josh, Kenzie and Erin, they all are an incredible group of people.
We live in the Island of Penang, and I looooooove it here. The place is incredible and the people is even better. We have several different ministries; we help at a school for refugees, we volunteer at a coffee shop (the owners are from our church), we do street outreach with YWAM and my favorite the PenHop (Penang House of Prayer) we spend 7 hours just praying and reading our bibles, it’s the best.
In the refugee school we have been helping to organize and clean the classes, and also helping with some paper work before the new school year begins. I am going to be helping with the little ones, I had the chance to meet some of them last week, and let me tell you they are the cutest little kids ever, 90% of the time I had no idea of what they were saying but still they were super cute and were super excited to meet us. One thing about the school is that all the kids are Muslims, so we can’t talk about Jesus, I know God will be the one using our words ad our actions to show Himself to the children without us having to mention his name. There are also many cultural things that we need to learn to show them that we respect their believes and customes.
The coffee shop where we help is called Rejoice Café and the owners are a Christian couple. He is from Malay and she is American, we help them to do inventory, cleaning, making tea, and I had the chance to help her in the kitchen. They have a 3 month old baby boy that we also have to babysit, so if you know me you know I am super happy about that, help in the kitchen and help with the baby, and it is cool to know that we are helping this couple on their business, and we are able to bless them with our help.
One night of the week we do street outreach with YWAM, I really like this one because I get to do what I was doing in Guatemala, go to the streets and talk with homeless people, getting to know them and their stories is very cool, I have only done it once but I know that I am going to get to know more stories by the end of this 3 months, most of the homeless people are Muslims.
And last but not least is PenHop!!!!!! This is my favorite place, this is the place were I know God is going to growth me more and where I am going to get closer to Him. We go to the PenHop two times a week, one of these days we go for 7 hours; during the first 4 hours we do Bible studies as individuals, we pray, or do worship or anything that makes us connect with the Lord, and the other 3 hours we have worship and have intercesion for a specific topic and we get in small groups or as individuals. The second day we go from 8 p.m. to midnight to do worship and be in the presence of the Lord. This may not be a “ministry”, but if there was one thing that I wanted to get from this trip it was a better and deeper relationship with my Lord, and what better way to do that than being with Him for 7 hours. I know I can talk with him anywhere and at anytime, but sometimes we get lost in everything else that we have to do or we are super tired, so having a set time during the week that the only thing that I have to do is be with Him and talk with Him is just “the best thing that can happen to me.”
Our host is simply the BEST, Jessica has been a huge blessing for us. She connected us to all this incredible ministries. Jessica goes to the PenHop with us, and she and the rest of the people in PenHop has make us feel like home, they had made us part of their group and that’s amazing, I can’t tell you how many people I have met that make me feel like home.
God has blessed me with the best experience that I can have in this country and it is only the first week. New friends are the biggest blessing that God has given to me in this country. I cant wait to see what more He has for me and my team.
