Mission: Malaysia

When we first arrived in Kuala Lumpur, we were met at the train station by Brother Stephen. Stephen greeted us warmly and immediately insisted on buying lunch for us, hosting us at his house, and helping us plan trips to various attractions. Once he got us to his house, his wife Eileen set to work getting us the best accomdations in the house. She gave us her all. Brother Stephen drove us to see the Aggies For Christ at the youth camp after he found out my brother was there, and later that day drove us to his home province of Melaka to give us a tour. Stephen and Eileen took us to see monkeys and fireflies and to get a traditional Chinese dinner. All the while they insisted on serving us in every way. After a couple of days of this kind of service, you could imagine what happened to us. We began feeling guilty. We were costing Stephen and Eileen a lot of money and effort, and we could probably see most of these sites on our own. We had the money and the ability to travel by ourselves, so I told Stephen and Eileen that we were very appreciative of their help, but we hated to be troubling them. At this, Stephen's face glowed. As Brad would later say, the care and concern in Stephen's eyes are evidence that he has been deeply rescued and lives life by the power of the Holy Spirit. "You are not troubling us. You are our family. I want to be like the New Testament Christians in Acts, where it says they shared everything they had. Everything we have is yours," Stephen said. Immediately I understood. Stephen and Eileen had experienced Grace and they wanted to share it with us. Our role was to accept their hospitality and by our actions and humility to show them grace as well. We would repay them by showing others the same grace they showed us.

Throughout our stay, we have run into several special people like Stephen and Eileen. While visiting Singapore this weekend, we were taken in by the Pasir Pajang church as if we were their own. At first their acts of kindness towards us seemed too outlandish for us to accept, but we saw Christ in their acts of mercy and understood how important it was to accept and enjoy their fellowship.

As I've been processing these thoughts the past couple of days, it has reminded me so much of our relationship to God. God lavishes all kinds of undeserved spiritual gifts upon us, but how hard it often is for us to accept them! Sometimes we feel too guilty to accept them and other times we would rather do things our own way, but God longs to fellowship with us. When we experience this kind of grace from Him, how could we help but lavish it on those around us?

I think the thing that has amazed me most about the church here is how well they understand grace, and how well they show it. But then again, grace often flourishes under fire and in many ways the church here is under fire, being a small and sometimes persecuted minority. God is flourishing His small, but faithful remnant here in Malaysia.

Today we did a lot of planning and had a long meeting with our lead host, Ravi. We will hold our information meeting tomorrow. There are presently 148 people scheduled to come to the info meeting, but we only have 65-ish slots! Please pray that God will work in this situation, that He would send us the readers that are most ready to hear the Word, and that we will be able to handle the students who are turned down with grace.

posted by crittermer @ 6:17 PM