This month has been by far the busiest month of the world race for me. I know I still have 7 more countries to go, but I’m finding it hard to believe that we could have a busier month than this. I’m not complaining at all because I love staying busy… it’s just I have not even had a chance to write/post blogs. My pictures just went up on facebook last week. So, here is one of my two blogs from Malaysia (the other I wrote in the jungle village). After reading this, you will probably understand why I have not posted any blogs yet. 🙂 This will probably be a little long since it’s a months worth of blogs in one so bear with me!
Kuala Lumpur is one of those cities you just fall in love with the minute you step into it. It has all of the cool characteristics of a big city, mixed with the Malay culture. We are staying right smack in the middle of the city, too. It has been fun learning all of the public transportation options and all of the cool things to see here.
Now for our ministry. When we arrived, we were greeted by our contacts who immediately sat us down and told us what we would be doing this month. We were so excited to find out how organized our contacts were… I mean, they had our entire schedule planned out for the next 3 weeks! Once we got to know our contacts, we found out that they are a couple who has been hosting World Race teams for years. It didn’t take too long to figure out how much time and energy this amazing couple puts in to their ministry and into the teams that come here. Not only do they fill our schedule with amazing ministry opportunities, but they encourage us daily and have random Bible training and ministry meetings (not to mention they are such COOL people… so down to earth and FUNNY!)
Our main ministry this month was working in Burmese Refugee schools. We worked with 3 different schools here in KL. The first school we volunteered at was also a church and was fairly new so we actually got to help paint the whole thing and set up the desks that were donated! The pastor of this church is such an amazing guy. He works tirelessly for these children and this community. I learned some interesting things by talking to him. These kids hold a special place in my heart and here is why: In Burma, where they are from, there is basically a genocide going on. There is pretty much a civil war happening, and many of the victims include the minority groups in Burma. I had no idea this was even going on…. These children had to flee with their families for their lives. It is quite interesting and extremely sad to hear some of the stories. So, since they lived every day in fear in their home country, they never attended school. It just wasn’t an option for them. Now they are here in Malaysia, living in government housing, just trying to fly under the radar and live in peace. So, some pastors and people living here have decided to step in and build some schools for these children. Their ages range from 3 to 13, but they are all starting at the same place in school. They have only basic school supplies, a few pencils and one notebook. For lunch they have rice, and usually the amount is limited. The teachers who teach at this school are volunteers.
This really hit home to me because when I taught the past few years, my students had endless supplies, tons of books, computers, you name it. The love of Jesus just flowed out of these teachers and pastors onto these kids. They are not in this for the money, they are in it because they are following what God told them to do. They are not worried about storing up their treasures here, they are storing their treasures in heaven. Considering what they’ve been through, these kids have such wonderful attitudes. It is so evident that they have Christ in their hearts and lives because even though there is so much struggle, they have such a peace and hope that only comes from God.
The other 2 schools are very similar to the first one. One is in a small apartment at a local Burmese Refugee housing community. There are about 40 kids crammed into one room for school. They don’t have any school supplies. They’re ages are 3 to 13. This is their first experience with school.
Other than the school ministry, we took a weekend trip out into the ‘jungle’ town called Slim River where we partnered with a local pastor and traveled around to 6 different churches to preach sermons and do some children’s ministry. I wrote a separate blog about this weekend. We visited an orphanage, where I fell in love with all of the kids. We sang songs, gave them hair cuts and just loved on them! We also worked with 2 different prostitute ministries ( I won’t name them). We got a chance to just talk to the women, hear their stories as they made jewelry, and we even went into the bars and talked to them. Another part of ministry this month was working in the restaurant that our contacts own. This was so much fun! Authentic Malay food, and such awesome staff.. we will never forget this experience. It has been wonderful getting to know everyone here and seeing how God is working in their lives. It has been amazing to know that we have blessed our contacts this months and touched lives in this city.
I have so many pictures from this month that I think instead of trying to upload them onto here, I am just going to make a slideshow… so enjoy!
