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| Bigger than two football fields longhouse. |
Before I speak of this journey I'll give a little explanation of how we got to go to East Malaysia.
As I was applying for YWAM in Wollongong, I saw a video of two of the leaders, Dave and Donna. When I was accepted, for whatever reason I knew they'd be going with us on Outreach, however when I got to Wollongong I discouraged that idea, thinking they had other responsibilities at the base which would completely prevent them from going on an outreach. They hadn't been on one in years, so that brought the chances down quite a lot. As it was nearing the day we were finding out where we would go, speaking with other students, many of them had the same feeling that Dave and Donna would be coming with. They don't split married couples, so we knew we'd all be going as one team (it would have really disappointed us if that wasn't the case, as we had all become quite close with one another). And as everyone knows, we came altogether, Dave and Donna as a couple of the leaders. They also didn't know why they had come.
God had been speaking to a couple of people about Him providing money to them to be able to allow us to have an experience that had never happened in the history of Wollongong, YWAM during the lecture faze.
During the last month of our outreach, someone spoke over one of our leaders mentioning Brunei. He's very specific in saying we need to look into what he's said and ask for clarification ourselves. One of the students got something about Brunei as well. During this point, it was revealed that the people, Puspa and Peter, whom we were living with had lived in East Malaysia years ago and had a passion to return. All these pieces connected. The money came forth, allow us to finically go on the trip. Dave and Donna are on the Eldership in Wollongong, so they had a pull in that area, and our team, along with the family, through God, were able to make this great opportunity a reality.
So we set off to Sarawak, Malaysia.
Monday late we arrived in Miri. It’s bout an hours drive to where we were staying specifically. Our team had been told that we were staying in a church. I set my expectations to the lowest. I’d be sleeping on a dirt floor, no air condition and if there was a fan it would only be one. All of us sleeping in one room, with bugs crawling all over me and bug spray wouldn’t work. I’d wake up looking like I had chicken pox and a pool of sweat under me. There would be bucket showers outside, squaties and no toilet paper.
This church was a house church. Underneath is where they had church, while the pastor and his family lived upstairs. They gave us a room. Girls slept in the room, the guys slept in the living room. It wasn’t dirt and we had at least foam to sleep on. There was a fan in each room. Bugs didn’t crawl all over us, it cooled off at night so we didn’t wake up in a pool of sweat.
When we arrived the house was full. Though it was nearly midnight they gave us some food, Milo (tis this hot chocolate like drink. It’s brown, sweet and can be hot, cold, blended or iced), and tea.
Finally at about 1:00am, people cleared out and we went to bed.
That night we had church and were told dinner would be provided. That is concerning for a small place because they could be feeding us anything, things they like and are used to but, we aren’t. Fortunately the worst that was there was chicken feet. That’s gross. There was something that looked like a cow vomited or the grass that’s been cut after it rains, but that tasted fine.
The service was long, but good. Lennart, Jonathan and I spoke again and did the Everything skit. Again, there was a call for prayer. The entire church came up, some who wanted healing and some who just wanted to be prayed for. One thing that will remain with me is seeing someone pushing all the children to the front of the church to be prayed for. One girl I asked what she wanted prayer for and she said "Fear of God". She was no older than 10. I pray for the best for her. Incredible someone so young would ask for that.
After we went over to a soup kitchen for a few hours, which turned out to be a sort of school. Communication is very difficult here. They thought we knew what the place was and thought we had a plan of what to do, which we didn’t so everyone kinda stressed out. They just needed some cleaning and gardening done, which with 13+ people took only about an hour.
That night we went to a long house. It’s literally a very long house with many families living in it. This particular one had 29 rooms. As more families are added, more rooms are added. When entering a long house you go in the middle, which the head person lives and the head person greet you first. Stepping through that door is just a very long hall, which is treated as the community room, really, with doors all in a line and more rooms beyond the doors. We again heard about possibly having dinner with them. That was even scarier because they do live out in the bush. Fortunately, God blessed us and we had pretty much exactly the same thing we had the night before, which was pretty great tasting stuff.
For the service Kayla spoke and we did the “If I Were Not Upon a Stage” skit. She did so well. Again, we had a prayer call, which I believe most of the people came forward.
Thursday we went to breakfast and straight after for the Brunei border. We had a very short time to be able to pray over the area. The guards let us further than what we had expected to be able to go, so that was pretty cool. We had some time for prayer before we had to be at our next event.
That night we went to another Long House, this one much poorer. It was over two football fields long, and unbelievably wide. It was two stories, and was raised off the ground. Again, we met in the middle and after we had finished what we had prepared, a few of us decided to walk to one end. It was so big that when we made it to the middle, in between of the middle and the end, we couldn't hear the group. Once we made it to the very end we couldn't see the other end of the this house. Incredible. For our service several people of the team shared, and again another call for prayer.
Friday we left early for our flight to Kuala Lumpur. We arrived late to one of the nicest hostels. PODs. The staff are fantastic and the place is amazing. Internet, breakfast, showers, running toilets, tv, hangout room. It's like a hotel, except you might be bunking with strangers.
When we arrived to PODs, Kayla discovered quickly she lost her passport. Scary because we left Sunday. Flying. Immediately, calls started being made to the airport and bus drivers. After hours of suspense, the bus driver called us saying someone had found it. His shift ended at 3:00am, at which point someone could meet him to get it back. Incredible how God can do things like that for us. A miracle.
Saturday we got to wander around KL as tourists and see the twin towers. Twas an alright day.
Sunday we went to the church Peter was a pastor of, those many years ago. Dave spoke that morning after we sung a couple of Malaysian songs we had learned and done a skit. We stayed for an incredible potluck lunch before returning the PODs to pick up our bags to go back to the airport and return to Penang.
Thus concludes a brief overview of the supernatural week away from Georgetown.
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