The more I think about Malaysia, the more I realize what a wonderful country it actually is!
Many a Global team has left their footprints on the culture-rich soil of Malaysia, but for some reason there is little mention about their times here. Furthermore, I realized that there is still a bit of a lack in solid contacts anywhere in the country.
So, Malaysia isn’t really on any list when it comes to island-nations and we didn’t really intend on spending time here except for our transits through the airport onboard all the cheap Air Asia flights. In a sense, Kuala Lumpur airport became a second home to our team, without us ever really wandering into the city and beyond.
As it goes with most Global Challenge journeys, the unexpected came knocking on our door and our plans were changed for us in a matter of moments. Due to the ongoing unrest in Papua New Guinea, our team had to spend longer time in Indonesia. The only problem with this little change in plan was that we could only be in Indonesia a total of 30 days at a time. We were told that Indonesian tourist visas are non-extendable (which we only found out months later to be untrue) and that we had to leave the country for about 2 weeks and then re-enter the country on a brand new tourist visa. We were faced with a dilemma and a decision. Where will we go to that is within the tight boundaries of our budget, is easily accessible and an island? An Internet search told us that the answer to this question is the island of Penang which forms part of greater Malaysia. We were off...
Since we would have spent these 2 weeks on a boat to and from Papua New Guinea, we did not have any money in our budget for our food, lodging or transport once we arrived in Penang. But like the intrepid Global Challengers that we are, we went in faith. We took a bus from the airport to the centre of Georgetown (the capital) and packed our bags on the sidewalk. As we were forming into little groups 2 to go out and scout for somewhere to sleep, a miracle happened!
friendly man with a head covered in flame red hair approached our team and asked if we needed any help. Instinctively we told the man that we would be fine and that we were just on our way to go and look for some accommodation. When he asked us what kind of group we were, we did something that we usually would never do in an Islamic country...we told him that we are a group of Christian missionaries. “Well, have you guys ever heard of an organisation called Youth With a Mission?” the man replied. And so started what would be the most wonderful and unimaginable 2 weeks on the island of Penang.
5 minutes after having nowhere to go, we were in a renovated shop house serving food to poor people from the streets. Now, you tell me that that isn’t God’s doing! After lunch we met the people in charge of the street feedings. Kawan (which means ‘friend’ in Bahasa Malayu) is a sub-ministry of YWAM and they care for the poor and destitute in the streets of Georgetown. They were also the ones who provided us with accommodation for our stay.
When we entered Penang we had no contacts, nowhere to go and nothing to do. At the end of our 2 weeks we were able to say that we volunteered at the local hospital 5 times, helped out a coffee shop, helped out at thrift store/second-hand shop, served food to the poor, spent time with the prostitutes in the streets, provided showers for the poor, attended numerous church services and worship sessions, prayed, fasted, sang, saw, experienced, laughed, cleaned the YWAM office, helped with youth programmes, baptized, enjoyed, ate, celebrated birthdays, washed kitchens and dishes, did street evangelism, prayer walked, prayed for people, prayed for Malaysia, broke strongholds, anointed, worshipped, trusted and had the best French fries in the whole universe!
Glory to our awesome Father!
