What happened in Malaysia!?
I LOVED Malaysia. I knew it was going to be good the moment we boarded the bus that picked us up at the airport in Kuala Lumpur. It smelled like incense, had the brightest upholstery I’ve ever seen, stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling and little bobble headed horses glued to the dashboard. And you should have seen the moustache on the driver. It was all spectacular.
It only got better when we arrived at the Catholic run St. Joseph’s Home. There are about 40 kids who live there during the school year and they grew on me quickly.
They had pretty structured days, time for homework, duties (chores), play and a short prayer time before bed. We fit ourselves into their schedule. We helped with homework, taught them songs, joined game time and added a short discussion about what prayer is and can be to their regular prayer time.
Some of the highlights:
I had the opportunity to sit down with one of the teenage girls and tell her that contrary to what she believes, Jesus cries when she cries and that He’s not impatiently waiting for her to start smiling again. I also was able to tell her some things I needed to hear when I was her age. She heard me which is, of course, not always the case with teenagers.
One of the older boys is a very obvious evangelist. He told me that he talks to everyone about Jesus and that some of the kids don’t like him because of it. I got the chance to encourage him in his passion for sharing Christ and let him know that it’s a gift from the Lord and it has a purpose even when he feels alone in it.
One more cool thing we got to do was bridge the gap that exists for some of the kids between religion and a relationship with God. We added about 20 minutes to their regular prayer time every night (still only a total of about 25-30 minutes) and split the kids into groups to read a short scripture and discuss what prayer is and can be.
In the course of teaching the kids about the difference between rules (religion) and relationship, we also had the responsibility and honor to practice what we were preaching. That means working at maintaining a healthy community within the team. Because if we fake it, if we tell the kids that love is work and it’s messy, but it’s worth it, if we tell them that there’s space to mess up and responsibility to forgive and see beyond yourself because that’s what God asks us to do, but we can’t walk that out in our own lives, what’s the point? So this last month was work too. Not just because a healthy trusting environment is something we all want, but because it’s what we want for the people we come in contact with as well.
Now we’re in Thailand and the work continues.
If you’re praying for me, pray that we all continue to put in that work and that we take the opportunities we’re given to show Christ to those around us.
Thank you! Until next time!
