Malaysian Jungle

Let me share with you a little about our Ministry thus far in Malaysia. We arrived in Kuala Lumpar on the first of April. We were blessed by a family that allowed us to use their home. Our first few days consisted of prayer walks, eating Malay, Indian, and Chinese food, and getting to know one of the local pastor’s, Martin and his family. We learned so much about the culture here and what God is doing in this country the first few days here. It was a great time for us to just hang with one another and get to know Jordan, our new team member. That’s right…there are now seven of us! Jordan is from California and brings so much to the team. We are all thrilled to have him! Feel free to check out his blog at www.jordandrake.theworldrace.org.

We were honored by being asked to prepare the Easter Sunday service. I felt like I was supposed to speak but I wasn’t sure if it was me just stepping up to be a leader or if it was God asking me to speak during the service. It wasn’t until Saturday (the day before) that I realized what an honor it was to speak on Easter Sunday. You see two Easter’s ago was a changing point in my life. It was the beginning of something new and something different. Once I remembered that time in my life my perspective changed. I knew that not only was I supposed to speak on Easter Sunday but I wanted to. I shared my testimony, I cried, but it felt so good. I knew that sharing more about how God changed my life would please HIM. We then had an amazing take home Malaysian lunch. We rested and then we met up with team Seven who was staying near by. We went out for Easter dinner. It was an awesome Easter in Malaysia.

Monday night we boarded an 8 hour overnight train ride to Gua Musang. We exited the train as the sun was rising and waited for our contact to arrive to pick us up. Shortly, a small white van pulled up. Kumar, our contact has one of the best smiles. We instantly felt safe and at home. He drove us to his English teaching center where he teaches English to children as well as adults. He has been there for one year and has 16 students. We taught English classes while we were there as well as did outreach. I had never taught English before but I absolutely loved it! We tried to be creative – we did skits and even played Bananagrams with the students. : )

Friday afternoon, Kumar drove us to a village to visit and todo a church service. It had rained so we couldn’t make it up the hills to the village so we had to turn around. Kumar decided that he’d drive up the road to find somewhere to sleep for the night. He drove down a dirt road to a nice size hut in the middle of nowhere. I cannot even describe the night because it was an absolute delight. It was filled with simplicity but it was perfect. We sat on the front stoop, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to share with the family, watched a lightning storm in the distance, and saw lightning bugs!!! They were white and they flickered!! God just continues to show me how blessed and loved I am even in the smallest of things.

The next morning Kumar took us to Cameron Highlands. This may have been the most beautiful part of the world thus far on the race. It is a a tea farming community surrounded by rolling green hills and strawberry farms. It was absolutely breathtaking. We headed home that evening as the sun set and boarded our overnight train back to Kuala Lumpar.