Malaysia is crazy guys!
Our schedule has been simple Mondays through Wednesdays. We teach some Muslim kids from Burma to learn English and maths. Maths you say? Yes this country has learned the English of the little island and yet sadly don’t say bo oh wo ah… I am teaching an awesome kid who on this blog I shall call him Nate. Nate is an awesome kid and sadly I only have only a few days to teach him. He learned large number subtraction immediately once I explained it to him. That same day we started multiplication and by Wednesday he had written the entire multiplication table. School is fun! Not learning but putting problems on Nate’s lap and watching him solve them. Nearing the end of our time he has learned the basics of long division and I just bought him a nice new book as we are nearing the end of his old one. I pray that he will be able to go to college or school in America and that a nice Christian family can continue showing God’s love to him as he stays with them to complete his studies.
The other kids of course are plenty nice too and I have been over to their village on two separate occasions. The village as described by Carter is “like platform 9 ¾ because, like, get this, the entrance is just this unassuming hole in the trees on the side of the road.” This hole on the wooded roadside leads to a dirt path laying parallel to the road. There are three layers to the village. Nearest to the road are the crop plots filled with papaya, eggplant and beans followed by the dirt road with houses crowned with corrugated metal on the side opposite of the plots. Flowing behind the houses is the river. All of this is about 60 ft in depth while the road is about 300 meters so it is a rather thin sort of village. The majority of the time is spent in and in front of the quaint but privileged home of the local imam who happens to be the father of “Sarah” who is the oldest at school. Conveniently this house is the first one you lay eyes on and because it’s the entrance also has the most amount of open space. General merriment including soccer and fireworks takes place here and with the help of the MVP 17 year old “yosef”, Caleb and Brandon we narrowly triumphed.
The people of the village are incredibly good hosts even if they aren’t the house making our meal, “Sarah’s” family did that, they will still offer drinks or fruit. This was slightly foreign to me because it was something from every house and for no particular reason other than the fact that there were guests in the house. The excess of hospitality made me kind of sorry to go to other houses because I felt I was taking too much. Also fireworks go boom and I swear upon that rock over by your feet that you already hate that no explosive fireworks were thrown at people.
Now we also went to Penang on one of our ATL (Ask The Lord) days and boy was that fun Carter and Jestus were the guys that went with me. We saw monkeys and I even gave its piece of fruit back! The top of the highest peak on that island was a sight to behold. And in the foggy clouds of the peak, it felt like looking through the holes, seeing the city below, that I was in heaven looking down on earth. The beach was awesome too and most locals swam in their jeans or full clothes. White people were also not very common and many people wanted to take pictures with us. I had a coconut while sitting in the waves and thinking back I could not tell you which was more beautiful. On a sadder note we had 2 jellyfish casualties and they had to go to the hospital. Leaving and coming from Penang we took a big suspension bridge and I’d call the city a whitewashed San Francisco.
Now I would like to impart upon you some few verses in each blog and perhaps a few words. Tonight I would like to tell you about John 1:48 which reached deep in a time of need all the way back at training camp. ‘“How do you know about me?” Nathaniel asked. Jesus replied “I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.”’ (NLT) God sees us and that’s a truth we all need to know. And I leave you with that
Apologies for being late to post. I have been quite distracted with many interruptions and intrigues. Thank you for reading and ladies and gentlemen, God bless.
