We have made it to Africa, the last leg of the race. Kind of crazy to think that the race is almost over... well 4 months left... but compared to the 11 I had 7 months ago, that is nothing. Anyway, here is a short video made by the BEAUTIFUL Taralah about our journey here! I hope you enjoy!
This month I built some amazing relationships with a variety of different people. So I decided to write a blog about some of the amazing people I met in Malaysia.
The first person I would like to make known is Brother Mark. He asked me not to post his picture on the internet so I will respect that request. But let me paint a picture for you. My computer art doesn't do justice, so imagine a 6'4'' white male, bald, tattoos on his hands and around his neck. He is pretty thick, could have been in a biker gang at one point, now put him in an orange monk outfit. Definitely someone you aren't going to forget.
I met Brother Mark while working at the front desk at Kawan. He came in and sat down and said that he just had a minute so he just wanted to, "plant a seed". Then he just started to talk about being Buddhist. Never have I ever heard of an evangelizing Buddhist before. But he was telling us all about seeking knowledge and what it meant to him. I didn't agree with a lot of things that Brother Mark said, but I did agree with one thing. You really should know what you believe. You can't just take literature, lets say the Bible, and say, "This is truth because 'so-and-so' told me it was truth." I believe that it is important for us to know that the Bible is true because it is true, because we did our own research about the Bible. I have to confess, I'm guilty of just hearing things and believing them to be truth. I'm not saying that you need to question everything that we hear and I'm not saying that the Bible is wrong. All I'm saying is that it is important to know what you believe.
I continued to have run-ins with Brother Mark and every time he would shake my hand (If you don't know, Monks aren't supposed to touch women, but brother Mark claims that the monks don't even know their own doctrine because monks can) and ask me my name. I'll never forget Brother Mark, he reminded me that it is important to know what we believe.
Channele serving coffee at Kawan
Trevor was the next face I met here in Malaysia. Trevor was from the UK and began traveling when he found out that his ex-wife was having an affair and wanted a divorce. He was so angry and decided if he didn't leave the country he would kill his wife and her new found love. So he began traveling and for the next 6 years went around the world. Now things are good with his ex-wife, but he continues to travel. One thing that I loved about Trevor were his stories. He had crazy stories about getting into trouble with the Law and the different places he has been. He had a care-free life and he appeared to love it. But when it came down to it, he was getting tired of traveling, he felt like there was something missing in his life. (JESUS!) So we talked about this void in his life. Trevor talks a lot so it is hard to tell him what you believe or think, however I got to ask questions that got him thinking for sure. I loved the encounters that we had over the course of the month, so if you could, keep him in your prayers.
One of the wonderful faces at Kawan
Mr. Collins... One of the most interesting characters that I've met on the race. I met him a few days after he found out that his wife had passed away. There is a lot that he shared with me that I'm not sure I should write on the internet for his sake, but I loved my encounter with him. He was very angry with the Lord for taking his wife from him. He was accusing the Lord left and right. He admitted that he was a christian at one time, but he was just angry. Mr. Collins, like Trevor, had a lot to say and wasn't too interested in hearing your opinion. However I was able to sneak in a few questions. There was one question that I asked that I didn't expect to throw him through a loop, but did. The question was, "do you feel like you loved your wife more than you loved God?" He looked at me like I just slapped his face with a dead fish. It hurt, but it was mostly shock. After about a minute of him thinking, he said, "yes, yes I did" and then he went off another tangent. Mr. Collins was very lost, he was hurt and was looking at everything in the wrong light. But I think that we have to look at our own lives and see if there are things that we love more than God. If there are idols in our lives that take priority over the God we serve. People, money, our job, sleep, food... many different things can become idols. Maybe we need a dead fish slapped across our face to remind us that we don't always make the Lord our number one. There are so many other people that I've met in Malaysia, Anthony, the Samosa man, Getzy, Gloria, Uncle Peter... all wonderful relationships. But these three were three special faces from Kawan that the Lord blessed me with.
***I haven't been blogging lately and I apologize. I can make up excuses, but truth be told, I just haven't made it a priority and I'm sorry about that. So here I am trying to catch up on my blogs.***
If I could describe Malaysia, it would be the America of the East. It is a mix of cultures from around Asia. The three main cultures are Indian, Malay, and Chinese. Malaysia became so diverse because of the East Indian Trading Company. (Pirates of the Caribbean?) China and India would use Malaysia as a port for their trade and many stayed in the country. Now today it is a mix of culture from the Middle East, to India, to China, to Europeans, people from all over the world. The only difference is America is more of a melting pot and Malaysia is more of a quilt. They tend to stay to their culture group, though there are some mixes.
This past month I found myself in Little India, a small pocket in George town, where I fell in love with the people and the culture. I don't know what it is about Malaysia that is so magical... Maybe it is the mix of Muslims and Indians walking down the street... two things that the Lord has broken my heart for. I also found myself with an amazing group of girls for 'womanistry'. I love our boys, but it was nice to spend a month with just girls.
So what did we do last month?
We spent the first half of the month at Kawan. A homeless relief center. This is a center where people can come and receive breakfast and lunch three days a week. There is also an area where they can lay down and rest and shower. Being homeless and begging is illegal in Malaysia. There is a high employment rate in Malaysia so there aren't many people looking for jobs. However, for the people who have addictions and don't have the mental capability to hold a job, it is harder to find and maintain a job. So many people who came into Kawan really needed love. One of my favorite places that we worked.
We also worked at a home for the blind helping in anyway that we could. Being at the home for the blind was a very different experience for me. We got to explore a toy room where they do early intervention for kids. I didn't even think about trying to balance without sight. Learning to walk without being able to see where you are going is a new concept I never thought about.
The second half of the month we found ourselves at Penang Adventist Hospital where we were fundraising for heart surgeries. Last year this hospital raised enough money for 50 free surgeries. Raising money wasn't my 'ideal' ministry however, it was awesome to be a blessing to the Hospital. Our team did make friends with the staff and some of the patients there. We got to pray for patients and people waiting for their loved ones. I actually got a lot more out of it than I expected. In the end we raised over $3,000 USD in 6 days!
We did a lot of other odd jobs like painting, helping at the Kawan shop, helping at a Resurrection Sunday festival, and other things. It was a great month with a great group of girls. I definitely can see myself coming back here.
Last month I was in Vietnam. I must confess, I did not make blogging a priority. There are many reasons behind this, but the main reason is that Vietnam is a closed country. We are allowed to be Christians in Vietnam, but we are not allowed to share the gospel. For a foreigner, it isn't so bad because we just get deported, for a local, the punishment is a more sever. Not wanting to get deported, we had to go a round about way of doing "M", or ministry.
So, what did we do?
MANY things... We visited: pagodas
orphanages
a home for blind people
youth groups
a theology class
a home for men struggling with addictions
a home for unwed mothers and their babies
a school
parks to meet the locals
coffee shops to talk with students
We went to these places to create a window of opportunity with people. To share the love of God with them.
Here is an example, I was looking around in a shop where I couldn't afford anything and one of the employee's asked me where I was from, what I was doing here. Our standard answer is, "We are volunteers from the US". She seemed interested but it wasn't a good time to talk so we met up for coffee later that week. We met and she got to ask questions about what I was doing, why I was doing it, what was my inspiration? And it was so good. We didn't meet again after that, but I got to plant a seed of Jesus in her heart.
There were many other things that we got to do, so here is a video of things that we did. (thank you Chrissy Robertson for putting this video together!)
I'm going to start a Reverse World Race
Bucket List. This will be a list of really cool things that I've
gotten to do, that I never expected to do. I mean if I'm going to do
all of these crazy things, I might as well cross them off my bucket
list, right?
One thing that I'm adding to that list is naming a baby that wasn't mine.
One of the villages that we go to is a
dump community. This community lives near a dump where they dig through
trash to make a living. They file through all of the garbage, find
copper, cans, or other types of metal and sell it to different vendors
who come by. Their rent is only $5 a month, but even that is hard for
them to pay.
Picture taken by Laura Gamble at the Dump Village
One day we were blessed to go to this village and our teams began
talking with the people and building relationships. I was talking to
this young woman who had an adorable baby girl who was about 6 months
old. My friend Laura and I asked her the name of her baby and were
shocked when they did have a name. We asked her why and the mother just
shrugged and told us to name her baby.
I've never been asked to name a baby on the spot before, so Laura and I
started to think of powerful women of the Bible who we could name this
child after. We thought of Lydia, Ester, but the mom didn't like the
names. I then thought of David's wife Abigail, who was very beautiful
and wise. We asked the mom if she liked it and at first she said that
it was too long, but Laura and I told her that she could call her Abi
for short. The mom smiled and said okay.
Did I just name a child? Yes I did.
Picture by Laura Gamble of Abi and her mother.
Here is where God through me a curve ball, this has been a hard month
spiritually because of all of the things going on around us, however the
Lord has been teaching me and our entire team about finding joy.
Abigail means : source of joy. I'm a full believer of names being
prophetic. So our prayer for Abi is that she is going to be a source of
joy for her people here in Cambodia, and will make a difference in her
community.
Cambodia. When I first entered this country I was excited. I saw so much life. People running here and there. "Tuk Tuk Lady?" "$10! Good price for you! Okay, $9" "What about this one? Same, same, but different!" So much fun, so full of life! I loved the art, the language, the script... BEAUTIFUL! But once I left the beauty of Angkor Wat, it is a whole new world.
The first thing that I saw that really broke my heart was the killing fields. I wrote that in my last blog, you can read it if you like. The second thing that I encountered was seeing 2 young Khmer girls with a white man.
I was not the first to see it. I saw people from our group off to one corner talking. I joined the circle. We were outside a mall and inside we could see a white man, in his late 60's with two Khmer girls, one was about 11 and the other 15. They gave the appearance that they were happy, but we, and everyone around, knew something wasn't right.
The oldest one came outside and sat down on a bench and one the girls from team went over and talked to her. What our team member found out was that she and this man had been friends for 6 or 7 years. They were from a different province and were just visiting the city. Her English was perfect, but our team member told us that she looked terrified. We didn't get to talk long because the man and the other child were coming out of the ice cream shop. Then, we watched them walk away.
What do you do in that situation? It is so delicate... what we say and do could make the situation worse for the girls. My mind was racing and I went home and processed. This was my first encounter with one of the biggest problems around the world, sex trafficking. I have to admit, I wasn't entirely prepared for the encounter. I wasn't expecting to see it in broad daylight at the local mall. So my team and I began to fast and pray for the girls and sex trafficking. During out time of prayer, the Lord reminded me, "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." In this moment, it was the hardest thing for me to do. How can I pray for this man? Not just this one man, but everyone sucked into this sick, twisted world of sex trafficking?
Prayer is powerful. It is our communication to the Lord. It has the power to bring His Kingdom to earth. It is a very humbling experience praying for those you do not like or those who are doing things that are harming others. But the Lord has been teaching me a lot through it. These men that I've been called to pray for. They are still His children. He loves them. They are just caught up in sin. So we need to pray that they will see the light.
The more I see the world, the smaller I feel. Yes, I know how cliche that sounds. But seriously, I feel like I've been living in the American bubble. I "know" that genocide happens, I "know" that there are starving people all over the world, and I "know" that I'm SO blessed living in America... but do I really KNOW?
As a part of our ministry, our contact asked us to go to one of the killing fields nearby. This memorial site is the largest out of over 300 killing fields in Cambodia. If you are like me, I wasn't really sure about the history of the killing fields. I mean, it was before I was born, right?
In Cambodia, there was a ruler named Pol Pot. He and the Khmer Rouge, the military, wanted to take over Cambodia and start, "fresh". So, what they did was they decided that they needed to kill the educated, the ones that could overtake Pol Pot and his plans. So, if you had any kind of education, wore glasses, or anything of that sort, you were a target. How do you dispose of people, cheaply, and effectively. One way was to starve them and work them to death. Another way was the killing fields.
Toward the beginning of the killing fields, trucks with about 60-70 people each would arrive two or three times a week, toward the end, it was 2 or 3 a day. People would be brought here to be murdered. They were told that they were being relocated, or getting a new house, but really they were being sentenced to death. If you want to know more about the killing fields you can go to this website:
For me, no website could ever compare to actually being there. To hear the stories of the survivors and to see the ones that didn't. I can't describe to you in one blog what I saw... how I felt... but I can give you a few big ones.
1. The graves. They were just holes in the ground, open wounds, where people were killed and thrown in. Now these deaths weren't a gun shot to the head, gas chambers, or even hangings. These people were hit with hammers, decapitated with garden hoes, beaten, raped, killed with the branches of trees, anything cheep, anything they could find.
2. The bones and clothes. At this particular site, there were over 8,886 bodies found in 86 graves. The bones and clothes are on display to see. There were also bones and clothing coming up from the ground from the graves that haven't been excavated. I was walking along the path and there was teeth, human teeth, coming out of the ground. Every few months people come around and pick up the bones and clothes that come up, but they keep coming up. That place is very unsettled. There is also a large building where there are thousands of human skulls and bones on display to remember the 6 million Khmer people that died.
3. The killing tree. This was the hardest thing for me to see. There is a huge tree next to one of the mass graves. This particular grave was filled with women and children... most of the women didn't have clothes on. This tree was given its name because of the hundreds of children killed on this tree. Khmer Rouge soldiers would pick children up by their legs and smash them against the tree until they were dead. Then, they would throw the kids into the ditch with their mothers. I couldn't look at the tree without feeling sick to my stomach. How has this been hidden from me for so long? How could I have not known? How could the world not know? These killings went on for almost 4 years... But it didn't stop there. The Khmer Rouge was still had a seat in the United Nations, even when they had fled office and it hasn't been until this decade that people are being put on trial for what happened a little over 30 years ago...
Screams of mothers, children, fathers, brothers, teachers, actors, drown out by speakers playing national tunes...
When we first arrived here we were able to work along slide of a Youth with a Mission, YWAM, team. They were from the school of evangelism, so to put it simply, they were in Phitsanulok to evangelize to the people. A great way to go into the nations and spread the gospel. One way that they would evangelize is that they would go to a park, preform a skit, explain the skit, and then give an opportunity for the people to sit with them, ask questions about the skit and what they just heard. On days that we didn't work together, they would come back and share amazing stories such as how four people got saved that day. WHAT! AMAZING! I want to be apart of change in someones life. So I was determined to share the gospel with someone this month.
One day while we were hanging out with the break dancers I got an opportunity to talk to a young girl named Jom-Jam. We started talking and I saw that she had an interesting necklace on. I asked her about it and she said that it was an amulet from a witch doctor. Our translator suggested that we go to the side to talk about it. Apparently when she was young, a demon possessed her body and her family took her to a witch doctor. The which doctor cast it out and gave her the amulet to protect her from ever having that happen again. That was a huge door for me to talk to her about the love of Jesus and a different kind of protection. So I did. I started to share about the gospel and she was surprisingly interested. I then asked her if she wanted this different kind of protection. One that didn't need an amulet, but simply the name of Jesus. To my delight, she said, "yes"! I was thrilled! So I told her about prayer and how to talk to her new Father. We talk and I was blessed to lead her through the prayer. I was so happy and excited to help lead this girl to the Lord!
A few days later we came back to the break dancers and Jom-Jam was there. Our translator got to talk with her and I realized that she was wearing her amulet again. Later that night I found out that she had talked to her parents and they had convinced her that she was Buddhist and not Christian. She needed the amulet to keep her safe. My heart broke.
But I thought... If she... what?
I was confused and didn't understand. Then I remembered something someone once told me. A person needs to hear the gospel, on average, seven times before they accept it into their hearts. I may not always be seven, but I could be one, six, three, or a five. I'm still a number in their life. I believe that I was one or two in Jom-Jam's life. I believe that the Lord is not done with her life, I was still blessed to be apart of her getting closer to the Lord. I'm not happy about what happened, but all I can do is pray for her and trust the the Lord loves her more than I do and will keep pursuing her like he does me.
There are different ways to preach the gospel. Not everyone will accept the Lord by seeing a skit. Some will, others won't. By investing time into the b-boys we were able to share what we believe with them. They were able to see how we live our lives and the joy we have serving the Lord. Through that, two of the boys, Heart and Most, decided that they wanted to accept the Lord into their hearts! I may not have personally spoken to those boys about the Lord, but they knew my beliefs and our teams lives were an example to them. Our team was a six or seven for those boys... and how awesome it is to be apart of the Lord and the work He is doing in Northern Thailand.
Never in my wildest dreams did I see myself dancing at a break dance competition where break dancers from all over Thailand would gather to compete. Well, I'm adding it to the bucket list just so I can cross it off.
How did I get sucked into this crazy competition? Well, part of our ministry this month was witnessing to break dancers. Every night, these youth come together to dance in Phitsanulok. Every night that our team went we would see new faces. Some of the break dancers were experienced and others were just learning. It was really fun to see the more experienced dancers help the ones that were just learning. Among the newbies, was our team, including myself. When the locals break dance, it looks so easy. It isn't easy, that is for sure.
Before you can get to the flips and spins, you learn a lot of foot work. Sounds easy, looks easy, but for the coordinately challenged, it isn't so simple. So we would practice and practice. There was one dance that our team saw and fell in love with it. We asked Heart, the leader of the crew, to teach us how to do the dance. To my surprise, he agreed. The first move was easy, moving the arms. Then we moved to arms and feet and it got harder. But every night we came back, we would practice and practice. Then we were asked to be apart of their dance for the competition on Sunday... WHAT?! They trusted us white people from America to dance? So of course we said yes. When we came back, Heart made us practice over and over, even when we wanted to sit and watch the b-boys dance. I'm happy to say that we aren't that bad anymore. We dance together and on beat. Not bad for having no coordination.
Spending time with these boys has been a huge blessing. Seeing their love and dedication for what they do has really inspired my walk with the Lord. If we take the things that we love the most and put that time and dedication into our walk with the Lord, how different would our walk be? A theme for my race has been pursuing the Lord with my whole heart and with everything I am. It isn't what my flesh naturally gravitates toward, but when I do pursue after Him, I feel more and more in love with Him.
I'm not sure what it was about Thailand that captivated my heart. I had never been there, but I wanted to go. Now, I'm here. Thailand isn't like any other place I've visited. Central America wasn't too bad. I knew some Spanish from High School, I had been to Mexico before and kind of knew the culture, but Asia is a whole new ball game. Not only do I not know the language, I couldn't even spell out words for you. While in Central America, everyone is about hugs and no sense of personal space; here it is no hugging or even touching the opposite sex.
Even though it is different... I love it. The ministry that we are at this month is so much fun. Every night we are going out and hanging out with skaters and break dancers. We are simply building community with them and telling them about the best part of our lives... some may call it evangelism. But these groups of people are amazing. I especially love the break dancers. They are patiently teaching us... (we aren't gringos anymore) Americans how to break dance. I'll be honest, I'm terrible. I can do this kick thing, but I look like I'm river dancing. Haha, but their passion for what they do is beautiful. Ever night these kids do something that they love, something that gives them freedom from the oppression at home and I get to be apart of it. I'm not sure where this ministry is going to go, but I'm excited to see what God has planned!
Our break dancing crew!
A statue of the King of Thailand where we got to pray for the governement.
