I am currently on my way to Thailand! YAY, it’s July! Can’t believe time is passing this quickly. It’s kind of overwhelming to blog about Malaysia since… I haven’t wrote anything else about it.
BUT here it is.
I will break it down as much as I can.
Malaysia was different.
There were many many good days, but there were also many NOT so good days.
The heat drained my energy, the ministry was minimal, and there was not much to do in Gua Musang (or at least I thought).
Before going to Gua Musang we had a much needed debrief in Pangkor Island, Malaysia. Pangkor was FILLED with endless beach time and rest. I went jet-skiing, scootering, kayaking, banana boating, island hoping, and snorkeling. I took multiple naps on the beach, had several cups of fresh fruit drinks, and floated around the Indian ocean practically every chance I got. I even saw those fishes that light up in the ocean at night! SO AWESOME. Basically that + Megan, our counselor for the week, was perfect. God was healing many people spiritually, emotionally, and physically. We were reminded of the goodness of God & how traumatic experiences can be redeemed.
We arrived in Gua Musang on the 31st of May. Let me tell you, being in charge of 8 peoples travel itinerary was not easy. Bus after bus, we got to GM at around 2am completely confused out of our minds. We were dropped off at a gas station not really sure if it was where we were suppose to get off. After waiting nearly 30 minutes we had our taxi driver pick us up and we finally arrived at KJ Center.
We walked into a building filled with piles and piles of clothing, random kitchen equipment, and other items. We were told that most of the things were for the flood victims of Gua Musang. The town was hit by a heavy rain that wiped out many houses back in December. After a short run through of what we will be doing we quickly found places to sleep and called it a night. The following couple of days were mainly done in our building. Reorganizing all the clothes and the equipment, cleaning the center, painting, more organizing, and tiding up to make it feel like home.
One of our main ministries this month was teaching English to cute little Chinese & Indian children. You guys, the children of Malaysia are going to take over the world. These 5-15 year olds learn at least 4 languages before they are 10. Through English classes we were able to create relationships and pray over them.
Before I go more into detail of the different kinds of ministry we did, I have to tell you a little bit more about Gua Musang. GM is a little town that is in the Kelatan region. Which means they are ruled with Islamic influence. Practically 90% of the people that lived in GM are Malay, which means they are Muslim. One of the locals put it this way… “that although you are in Malaysia, this is the closest to Afghanistan and Pakistan you’ll get” due to the heavy influence of Islam. Thus, we were recommended not to share the gospel with the Malays… basically unless we wanted to be kicked out or wanted to go to jail. The only groups of people that we were able to openly share the gospel with were the Indian-Malays, that were mainly Hindu, and the Chinese-Malays, that were Buddhist. When we received this information we were so confused. Why would we be in a place where we weren’t allowed to share the gospel? That’s why we are on this mission trip. What is the point in just being nice and loving when we can’t tell them why we are doing the things we are doing? But I quickly realized that we are here to serve the missionaries and churches that were going to be stationed their for a longer term. With their long term visions and goals, we were merely being a part of what they were doing for the kingdom. With that perspective, my teammates and I did what we could to serve our hosts in the best way possible. If that meant only working with that 10% of Chinese & Indian Malaysians, then that was what we were going to do.
Although we weren’t able to openly share the gospel with the Malay’s we did make many friends that were Muslim. One thing that my team loved to do was go to 7/11 to get some delicious fruit tree drinks to cool us down and go to Mamak family restaurant to get Roti Bomb. Naturally, after seeing the same workers every day, we became friends with them. It was such a cool experience getting to know the locals and walking around having people honk or wave at us. (Small towns are awesome!) We also got to know many other people around town, whether it was at the grocery store, cafes, or restaurant, we did our best to love on the people of the community in any way possible.
Some of our other ministries consisted of church encouragement in the Chinese American church, the Thamil church, as well as some of the churches in the jungle. Each week we were going to the churches to share our testimonies and messages in order to encourage them. The churches in Gua Musang are small. Each service that we attended to had no less than 15 people in each service. Each time I attended a service, I was humbled over and over again at the pastors faithfulness in serving the community. Most of the pastors come from big cities or towns, yet they choose to serve the faithful 10 people each and every week. They pray fervently and are clearly filled with the Spirit. It was awesome to attend different services, singing in different languages. I even got to play the drums during a worship session! (Yup, I’ve never learned… LOL, that’s another story.)
We also met a friend from World Vision who was such a huge blessing in many ways. He not only took us to the caves, but gave us countless opportunities to hang out with the children in the jungle as well as create relationships with the few people he met in GM. We were able to pack care packages for the people who were effected by the flood, and got to see the impact he was making through world vision by helping the people of the jungle find different ways of getting fresh water.
Like my previous post stated, there were many moments where I had a difficult time due to the lack of energy. Sometimes I literally felt like the sun was sucking out my soul, but I look back at this month with such joy and peace. Although now I realize that there was much much more that we could’ve done on our down time, I am thankful for the rest that I had and the knowledge that was attained through those moments. I can tell that Jesus is doing crazy things in GM. That He is handpicking people to be the light and salt to the town. That a revival will soon come. That instead of waking up to the prayer calls of the Moscs, more churches will be planted, people will come to know the true God of the universe, and a change will come. I am eternally grateful that I was able to spend a month in GM to partake and see the kingdom coming to GM.
