(Update from first week in Malaysia! Sorry for the late post)
After 53 hours of travelling, we made it to Malaysia! I am so happy to be here, in a beautiful town with amazing people. We arrived last Thursday and although I’ve only been here a week, Malaysia has already exceeded all my expectations and is looking like it could be the favourite country!
We started travelling on Tuesday with a 7 hour bus ride to the airport. Then we wandered around the Johannesburg airport for about 5 hours (not complaining, it was great, we got ice cream and met a missionary from Zambia who was so kind) Then we got on an 8 hour flight. We landed in Dubai and had about an hour and a half to get through security and make it to our next flight. (With 34 people getting through the airport is not always easy but we managed to get there with time to spare) We then got on another 8 hour flight before finally arriving in Singapore where we spent the night before saying goodbye to half our squad. We said goodbye to “see you in 2 months” and parted ways. The Doves and Rivers (my team) got on a bus to Malaysia and Steadfast, Jubilee, and F4 took a boat to Indonesia. We had to take two buses to get to our town in Malaysia, and I was told it would take about 6 hours. It in fact did not only take 6 hours but about 14 hours. So when we finally arrived we were all exhausted.
We are staying upstairs at a church, where we have a small kitchen, dinning table and 2 rooms. We sleep on the floor, but there is air conditioning in the rooms so we are not complaining at all! I love sharing a room with my team again, we haven’t shared a room since Guatemala and I’ve missed it.
Ministry is amazing! We help out with 2 different schools, one has about 45 kids and the other has 9, so only 3 of us go with the smaller school. I am one of those 3 and I love it. The kids are so kind and they love playing games. The school is a school for refugee because in Malaysia refugees aren’t allowed to attend any government school, so unless they have money for a private school they have no option to go to school. The school was specifically designed to teach kids English because many of these refugees will eventually immigrate to English speaking countries. Our group mostly just assists the teachers and plays games with them on their breaks to build relationship and make school more enjoyable for them. The school is also a Christian school so the kids do devotionals every morning and learn about the bible. It’s so nice being able to talk about Jesus with the kids and encourage the teachers in their faith.
The school day is from 9am to 4pm and then we come home, rest in the amazing AC, eat dinner and then most nights we have night ministry. We have church Sunday and Friday nights, worship night Thursday night and we go to house visits Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I love home visits! We split into groups of about 4 and go with one of our ministry hosts to a home in the community. The culture is so hospitable and kind. We are instantly welcomed into their home and we just get to talk with them, share scripture and pray for them. They are so appreciative and we’ve already been able to build so many amazing friendships and hear amazing testimonies and one group was able to share the gospel and see a woman get saved! God is doing amazing things in Malaysia and I am so grateful I am able to be here.
Thank you for supporting me and for all your prayers. Please continue to pray for our team and for the Indonesia team as well! Specific prayer requests would be that God would open doors for us to share the gospel. Because it is legal to share the gospel with Muslims, we have to be careful with how and when we approach the subject, so prayers that God would miraculously open doors!
