As an exile and sojourner of this world, I am finding myself caught up between two worlds–between two kingdoms. With the shalom of the kingdom eclipsing the brokenness of this city, like a harvest moon. In my last blog, I mentioned that I am in Kuala Lumpur, working and living in a Foster Home for UNHCR Sri Lankan Refugees. Learning the lives of 12 boys, who either don't have a family to take care of them or their family cannot afford to take care of them and/or send them to school. The church we're working with, Rumah Shalom Tabernacle, has stepped in to take the orphans and refugees in, and to help provide an education which is a beautiful act of redemption.
As a team, we are split up this month, the 4 girls, Sam, Ashley, Josi, and Jess are living with the girls home and Garrett and I are living a few streets down in the boys home. The boys are incredibly studious and are filled with an unnatural amount of energy; I don't know how they maintain it! We spend our days with the boys in the morning; and then we work with a middle-aged-man named Joseph. Joseph has an incredible story, leaving the business world after hearing a call from the Lord to be a Pastor, so he works for the church, doing odd jobs in the day and then goes to College at night for Pastoral Ministry. Garrett and I help him with his work throughout the day and that looks like everything from, hoeing fields, painting, scrapping metal, and gardening; all different forms of restoration. We're planting banana trees and mango trees and other produce to create another source of income in the home. While working with my hands, I've had the privilege to contemplate and see transformation slowly take place. I am learning to embrace each moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness. To see God's presence in every little thing and letting that awareness shape what I do.
At 6pm we have free time, and so we meet up as a team in a field by the boys home and share about our days–about our frustrations and our joys. Be praying for humility and unity as a whole, for community is harder than it looks like on paper; especially when you're doing separate ministries. It's been a month of growth in intimacy, in which I am extremely thankful for! Many times, we opt to walk to a nearby market to converse over food–other than rice and fish heads–you think I'm kidding haha and when we're feeling extra fancy, we stop by the mall where there's a starbucks so I can write and connect to you and have a taste of home. (For those who live in Melbourne, nothing can take place of The Sun Shoppe, don't worry).
In the evening we hang out with the boys, help them with school work, share bible stories, teach english, and attempt to help them be children again. Many of them, it seems like, have lost their innocence due to this cold world. I've become close friends with a couple of the older guys who take care of the younger boys; their trust in the Father is beautiful and the kingdom is breaking forth in beautiful ways here.
However, I would be lying to leave you with just this.
This month has been difficult. I think the culmination of the last three months, the brokenness around me in Malaysia, in these boys, my community, and the brokenness that is in myself is adding up. Without the rhythm of prayer that I have and without listening to the voice that calls me the beloved, I don't know what I would do.
I think of one old Catholic activist I know of* who's been going for decades and decades. He's gone to jail, gone to protests, formed communities, done everything. One time somebody said, "Don't you look at all the pain and just get overwhelmed sometimes? How do you keep going?" And he said something beautiful: "Every morning I curl up in a little ball. I crawl into the lap of Jesus and hear him whisper how much he loves me."
That has been me in Malaysia. I am finding the deep treasure and joy in contemplation. Brother Lawrence, once said "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it." I'm experiencing it, and living vicariously through it.
Continue to pray for me, that I would continue to cling to the Father. That I would continue to pour out into these children, to show them the all-consuming love of their heavenly Father who has adopted them and lavished his agape love on them. I am praying for you, dear reader, that you would slow down, that you are given the eyes to see God's presence in every little thing and that you would allow that awareness to shape what you do in all areas.
I pray that we, the Church, would be awakened to the beauty of the redemptive message we've been entrusted with. Enlightened to the vocation we're called, as ministers of reconciliation. For us to drop the stones in our hand and to pick up the towel, following the humble way of Christ who is the servant of all. The Gospel of the Kingdom, that is within, as Jesus called it; where the first are last, the oppressed find relief, and where reconciliation, restoration, and redemption is at the pinnacle and embodied in the slaughtered lamb on the cross, is near. As sojourners between two worlds, let's usher in this kingdom with our love!
Love,
Michael
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*In Red Letter Revolution, a book that came out earlier this month by Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo, Shane shares this story near the end.
