Beginning of Malaysia Ministry

Malaysia ministry has started and a lot of stuff has happened. Stuff includes location, ministry, and fun. Let’s talk about all of that stuff.  

On the whole, I’d say I like the Thailand location more than the Malaysia location. In Thailand we were in a city, so you could get to things very easily. Malaysia we are in a neighborhood, with the nearest stores 20 minutes away. Rain happens every day, whereas in Thailand it only rained twice in two months. I’m pretty sure that’s a seasonal thing, but the rain has made Malaysia more humid than Thailand. Combined with longer walks, the humidity has made Aaron more sweaty. There are also wild animals afoot, such as monkeys, dogs, and goats. People said the locals won’t talk to you, but that information is not true. One time I was running for fun and a local asked what’s wrong with me. Another local was pretty hyped I was running though.  

Ministry has a wide variety of opportunities. First we teach English to refugee kids. Hopefully they are picking things up.  But I don’t think most are based upon an exam we had. One strategy that I thought was slick was some boys weren’t paying attention to me and were playing tic tac toe so I used that to teach the tenses. Blank tic tac toe board “they will play tic tac toe”; Middle of game “they are playing tic tac toe”; Complete game “they have played tic tac toe”. One time I told the kids to get their notebooks and one said he didn’t have one, when it was already out. There might be a language barrier with that, such as notebook meaning laptop as one of my teammates suggested, but it’s also possible the kids don’t want to be at school. Which is fair because these kids went through a lot. 

We also do house visits with a range of believers and non-believers. I’m getting to use a bit of my Bible reading and analysis to have sermons at the ready so that’s been fun. One of my sermons was about Christ being a light and reflecting the light of Christ. The girls from the other squad gave us cards they made before meeting us and part of the note was about light. Pretty cool I know. I’ve also played off of other people’s sermons on the spot which has been a blast. Lots of idols around here even in supposedly Christian houses. 

We also do kids ministry, so I’ve also had to teach Bible stories to children. That’s an entirely different approach, so ministry has been a lot of fun to be doing all of those Bible teachings at the same time. We also get to have a lot of fun with the kids. One of my teammates is 6’5, so we did David and Goliath with one of the kids being David. 

We also painted a house. There was less water in the paint, so we really didn’t get paint man part two: Papa Smurf edition. The color was a nice sky blue, kinda like an Animal Crossing house I remember from my childhood actually. 

For fun, we went to the beach, ignored some warnings about jellyfish then got stung. In particular, four people did, including me. Two of our girls used it as an opportunity to evangelize to some foreigners by warning them about the jellyfish first to start the conversation. It’s cool God used the stinging as an opportunity because street opportunities are scenarios we are going to have to be very careful about. I actually had a similar warning to someone that turned into a conversation, but the person was a local so I was a lot more on my guard than the girls were. Some of my squamates have managed to make friends with some of the locals though. 

We also went on a banana boat and tubed. Both very fun, though that was the first time for neither. They say the banana boat was supposed to be more kiddy but that seemed like a lie to get us to pay for the more expensive tubing. The banana boat felt like a rodeo. 

We went mountain hiking when it was raining. I was pretty angry at first, but the trail only had a few bad muddy spots, we got a potential ministry opportunity out of the experience, a fun swing, and there was an incredible rainbow that we saw all of. Sometimes you gotta walk in the mud and pouring rain to see the rainbow at the top of the mountain. 

Our team also bowled. That was probably the first time I had bowled in over half of my life, so you can anticipate how that went. The numbers that I got were very interesting though, despite being very low. 53 was my football number, and 40 is a significant number in the Bible. 

We have a lot of ideas for ministry so we will see what actually materializes. Until next time!