“O taste and see that the Lord is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. O fear the Lord, you His saints, for to those who fear Him, there is no want.”
Hello, friend! My squad spent the last 1 ½ months in Malaysia, and wow, did we see the goodness and relentless love of the Lord time and time again! There is truly so much that I could share with you from our time in Malaysia but I will do my best to summarize!
Over that 1 ½ month period, we were all-squad, meaning that all 16 of us got to live together in a church in Sungai Petani and do ministry as a squad! What a sweet blessing from the Lord that turned out to be! It was so amazing to have an opportunity to get to know the other 10 people on my squad better that I did not have a chance to serve with in Thailand!
It has been so neat to witness the unique reflections of Jesus in the men and women He has called here that I have the privilege of being on a squad with!
My heart is truly overcome with gratitude as I reflect on the past month and a half!
What an honor it is to live this life serving Jesus!
~
Our ministry in Malaysia was focused primarily on kids. Monday through Thursday, my squad taught English to refugee children from Myanmar for the first half of the day. In the evening, we had the privilege of doing house visits, attending our host’s church, and serving at church plants/house churches.
On Wednesdays and Thursdays, our teams would rotate serving at a cafe and working with adults with Down syndrome! During that time, I was able to paint a mural with my good friend Ava!
On Fridays, my squad would participate in a program called Boy’s Brigade that was essentially run like a combination of Boy Scouts and VBS!
Overall, our experience teaching English in Malaysia was quite different to our experience in Thailand. In Malaysia, because the refugee children are not citizens, they are not allowed to attend Malaysian public schools. The only education these children will receive is through a little school run through our host’s church, Bethel Assembly, which we had the honor of being a part of.
In Malaysia, it is also illegal to be missionaries and share the gospel to Muslims. The refugee children that we were teaching were all Muslim. As I’m sure you can imagine, this presented a unique dilemma for my squad and also became something that we had to be increasingly cautious of as the Malaysia police visited the school, and at one point the church we were living at.
Even though we were not able to initiate conversations with the children about Jesus, we were able to show them Him through our actions and words! And because of the love that we carried and showed, doors were opened and sweet conversations had!
The children that we taught (60 total) were of all different ages and levels of English and were divided into two classrooms. My squad (and the Gap Year squad that was in Malaysia serving at the same time as us) was divided in half and split between the two classes. My team, AMALA, was placed with the younger group of students.
Our time spent teaching the refugee children holds a special place in my heart. I will forever cherish their tender hugs, bright smiles, excitement to learn, curiosity over my curly hair, eagerness to love and be loved, and sweet voices calling “Teacher Onah!”
From the moment I first walked into the classroom, the Lord really just impressed a deep love for these students upon my heart and an ache for them to know Him. Our days with them were often chaotic, loud, and exhausting, and the language barrier made it difficult for us to understand each other but even so, there was such an overflow of joy and love that persisted throughout the weeks.
During the 5 weeks that we taught, we were able to see so much growth and fruit in our students! Kids who previously could understand very little of our lessons and conversations with them began to be able to complete the worksheets and follow directions! Praise God! It was so precious to see their eyes light up and their excitement to grow and learn as they began to understand more and more!
~
While we were in Malaysia, we had the opportunity to do house visits.
House visits were essentially the unique opportunity for a small team to visit the home of a family or individual who was connected to someone from our host’s church. They could be believers or they could be unbelievers.
The first house visit that I did was with Alex and Ava alongside a couple from our host’s church, Daniel and Sarah. We had absolutely no information before we entered the house and were unsure of what we were walking into.
Once we got in and sat down in the living room, it was very evident that the woman we were meeting with, Parameesh, was ill. Later, we discovered that she had cancer and that she was Hindu.
Daniel, after sharing a little of her background with us, suggested that we share a story from the Bible with her or a testimony. Immediately, when he said that the story of the woman who had bled for 12 years and reached out to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe came to mind (Matthew 9:18-35). But I wasn’t sure if that was from the Lord for us to share or if I just thought of it because she was ill so I decided to take some time to pray into it and seek the Lord.
While I was doing that, Alex shared a testimony of healing and the miraculous ability of the God that we serve, and then the three of us tag teamed sharing the Gospel with her.
After we were finished with that, we still felt like there was something more that the Lord wanted us to do. Alex began to flip through her Bible, and since the urge to share the story of the woman who touched His hem was still pressing on my heart, I brought it up! It turns out that Alex was looking for that exact story as it had been weighed on her heart too when Daniel had suggested sharing a story, which was the confirmation that we both needed! (On the way home, we later found out that the Lord had also weighed that same story on Daniel’s heart as well!)
While we were sharing that story, it was evident that He was moving her heart! Before sharing this story, Parameesh was pretty indifferent. But the more we shared about the woman who touched the hem, we could see a spark of hope enter her.
After we finished discussing this story with her, we laid hands and prayed over her and wow, was the Spirit moving! His presence was so heavy and the words that were spoken over her were full of authority and power as His presence rested upon us. Bold words of healing, of love, and strength. After the prayer, there was something visibly different about her. We could see that her heart had been moved by the Lord and had been softened. Praise God!
After that prayer, Parameesh began to open up to us more about her struggles with cancer and how she has encountered the Lord through it. It was so powerful to hear how the Lord had been pursuing her long before He sent us! Before we left that night, she shared that she would like to attend church and that she hoped to see us again!
2 weeks later, the Lord answered that desire of hers (and our prayers) and we saw her at church!!
Not only did we see her and get to talk to her, but that very same night, she gave her life to Christ!! Praise God!!!
I am so grateful and honored to not only have been able to be a part of planting the seed, but to have been able to witness such an incredible moment of harvest and freedom!
What a beautiful and joyous moment and such an answered prayer!
God is so good!!
~
Church in Malaysia was absolutely incredible and unlike anything I have experienced back stateside!
Bethel Assembly is an Indian church and their services were on Friday nights from around 7:30 p.m to 11 p.m. and mostly in the language of Tamil. They were kind enough to translate some of the messages for us but their zeal for the Lord spoke on its own, no translation needed! This church is truly one that is sold out for Jesus, radically so, and it pours out of them in overflow in all that they do!
The way that they pursue the Lord with reckless abandon was beautiful to witness and touched my heart deeply.
Bethel Assembly is vibrantly alive and on fire for the Kingdom in a way that I have never experienced in an American church.
An example of this was when my squad had the privilege of attending their combined service for Good Friday and Easter and it turned out to be 5 hours long (it ended at 1:00 in the morning)!!! Quite honestly, it was absolutely amazing and I enjoyed every minute of it!! Not once during that 5 hour span did I see anything other than hunger to worship, to dwell, and to receive the Word of God in the church body!! Praise God!!!
Another instance that shows their hunger for the Lord is that leading up to Pentecost, Bethel Assembly is doing a church service every night for 50 days! It was so amazing to see every single person pressing in, day after day, and hour after hour! Their desire to dwell with the Lord and hunger for more that they exhibited every single time we were around them was truly contagious!! Bethel Assembly is 100% a church after the Lord’s heart!
~
A couple of weeks after we first arrived to Malaysia, we hiked up a mountain in the rain to catch the sunrise. While we were doing so, we ran into a English teacher from a Malaysian public school and were able to talk with him and share why we were in Malaysia while we were hiking.
A couple of weeks later, he contacted us about a group from our squad and K-squad visiting the school.
Myself and four others from my squad and five from K-squad were the first ever World Race team in Malaysia to enter into a public school!!
This was truly a door that only the Lord could have opened!
The teacher was aware of the reason we were in Malaysia and still, he found a way to invite us into a school that is primarily Muslim to share and talk to the students! Only God could orchestrate an opportunity like that!
When we got to the assembly, there were 180 students gathered. All 10 of us were assigned a group of a little over 20 high school students.
The group that happened to come to me were all 17 years old and in their last year of high school. At first, it was a little awkward and clumsy as I tried to get the students to practice their English with me. But after about 10 minutes, they gained confidence and I started getting bombarded with questions!! Something that I originally had been so nervous for turned out to be such a sweet and joyous time as I got to hear their hearts and share mine!
As we were asked not to specifically talk about Christianity or Jesus, I had to get creative at times to figure out how to share without actually saying specific details! BUT, I was able to share some and I’m praying that seeds were planted on good soil! And a lot of the students asked for my social media so my hope is that the Lord will use my page to plant more seeds!!
Because of how well our time went there, that school AND several other public schools who heard about what we did, want to invite more World Race teams back in the future!!! Praise God!!!
What an opportunity for the Kingdom!!
What we thought was just a chance encounter with a man on a mountain turned out to be so much more! God is so good and can truly do so much more than we could ever ask, think, or imagine!!
~
My squad arrived in the Philippines on May 16th! I hope to share more soon about what ministry will look like for us and about our new teams and roles!
If you would like to pray, here are some prayer points:
- For our squad and teams to continue to be able to cultivate a community that is hungry to dwell in His presence and filled with radical love;
- For an outpouring of boldness and courage to say yes;
- For the churches in Malaysia to become a beacon of hope and love that those in their communities would be drawn to;
- For good seeds to fall in fertile soil in those we are led to;
- For God to continue to open doors and move in miraculous ways in the public schools of Malaysia;
- For all of Malaysia to receive salvation;
- For Parameesh’s test results to come back cancer free and for the rest of her family to also receive salvation;
- For the students at Bethel Assembly refugee school and their families to encounter Jesus and receive salvation; and
- Over the ministry we will do in the Philippines.
God bless!!
Joyfully His,
Areonah
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