I made it to Malaysia!
Wow, so much has happened. We flew across the world and had a 40-hour travel day but we did in fact make it! It has been around two weeks since I have been here in Malaysia and I am so beyond grateful to be here. Our living situation is nothing like any of us expected. We are in a small church with two levels. The first level is the sanctuary and where we all sleep. All 34 of us lay our sleeping mats down and sleep on the floor all cuddled together. THANK GOODNESS there is AC in the room where we sleep, the average temperature here is 90 and it gets toasty. We then have an upstairs where we eat and hang out, get ready, shower, etc… We have toast with either Nutella, peanut butter, or jam for breakfast, every morning. Lunch and dinner are almost always fried rice, chicken, and eggs.
It’s been a struggle to eat healthy and to keep our energy up. I did go to the grocery store and bought some oatmeal, granola, and multivitamins which is helping me feel better and more energized in the morning. It also doesn’t help that there are coffee shops and cafes everywhere. One US dollar is 4.2 ringgits, so you usually can get a sweet treat and coffee for like 4$ US! I am a spender and everything is so cheap so it’s not helping haha.
Here it is very late nights and starting pretty late most days. Most of the people in Malaysia stay up till 2 am or 3 am (which is normal) and they take naps during the day. There is scheduled nap time for us which is 2-4 which is AMAZING. During nap time you can go out and Grab somewhere, their version of Uber, and get coffee or go to the mall. The mall is super fun as well, there are so many cute shops with the cutest things. ANYWAYS let’s get into the ministry part.
Monday through Wednesday there is a school at the church and we teach our kids English! We all got paired up with a kid on the first day and it’s been amazing. My girl is such a good learner and speaks pretty good English already so we are getting into some math. We get them 9-12 and we play games as well and it’s been so fun. There is also a free English program at night sometimes so our teams have been taking turns going to that. The church service is every Friday and it’s been amazing to hear the congregation worship and preach in a different language. It goes to show there is no language barrier for preaching and sharing the word. Worship is also so cool to listen to, they do these tambourine dances to the music, and it’s so beautiful.
Our hosts are so amazing. They always make sure we have everything we need and they are so so generous.
The pastor is Pastor Thomas AKA PT. He is so wise and it’s been so cool to hear what he has learned. He had a bible study and he talked to us about the parable of the ten silver coins. If you don’t know It is where a lady has ten silver coins and she loses one. She is in great worry and looks all over for it, she finds and rejoices greatly and throws a huge party. PT asks us, “Why does she rejoice so much over one simple coin?” We are all stumped because we never really thought about it. He then tells us you need to look into the culture at the time, it is so important. Back then when a woman was to be married she was given ten silver coins on a chain for her hair it take care of. If she has all ten by the wedding it shows she is a responsible and good wife. SO when she lost one that is why she was so distraught and when she found it they had the wedding! It just made me so much more excited to dive into the bible because there is so much more meaning than what is just said on the page.
So to wrap things up, Our living situations are not what we expected but praise the lord because our squad has been praying for unity, and it is hard to not become united where we are haha. Ministry has been so amazing and eye-opening, and THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN ABOUT GOD, the coffee here is amazing. Here is a little shoutout to Moma (Mom and I always got coffee together at home), whenever I get coffee I think of you and I miss you ♡
Thank you Lord for leading me here and help me to keep all my focus on you, AMEN.
