Coming home...really??

Hello!!

I am writing this blog on a different half of the world than others past. Yes, I am back in the States!

For those who have been praying for me and supporting me, I can't thank you enough for doing what I cannot do for myself. This trip has done a roundhouse kick to my perspective of the global body of Christ...Ah but I digress.

The end of the trip was absolutely stupendous! After leaving Pay Fong, which was hard for all of us, we spent some time as a team processing the experiences we had been through. We played badminton with some friends of ours, and it was really fun and extremely challenging. Friday night, we got to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in real time since Melaka is in the same time zone as Bejiing. If you missed it, well you missed out, 'cause it was pretty dang incredible. During the procession, we cheered hard for Malaysia and harder for the good 'ole USA.

We had a lot of fun on Saturday getting to hang out with a bunch of our good friends over food and Taboo. Starting to say goodbye was no fun, but had to happen... Sunday we led worship for the last time in Melaka, and the service was great. All of the adults in the church that had helped and encouraged us were there, and we were able to spend some time with them too.

That night, we had a "last meal" and got to pray with all our friends. It was definitely bittersweet, because these were our brothers and sisters. I dearly love them now, and miss them very much. Be praying for the student movement in Malaysia; they are the ones fighting the good fight in a place so much harder than the States. We have no idea how good we have it here...

Monday, we drove up to Kuala Lumpur and met with a good friend of ours for lunch. Then we got on the plane and peaced out of Malaysia...

After 20+ hours of flights, here I am in fabulous Kentucky. Like I said before, thanks for praying for me if you did.

As I started thinking about songs to describe this trip, lots came to mind, but this one struck a chord with me about all those we left behind that still are seeking for truth and who need the Love we've got in our lives. It's by a group called Run Kid Run, and the song's called "Captives Come Home". Check out this link if you want to listen. The lyrics are below:

"Now you're lost but found,

The sinking sand has pulled you in and brought you down.

Struggle that's beyond yourself,

Don't you know you gotta get up, get up and find a way back home...

So hold on tight, let's go,

And leave behind false sense of hope.

Where creeping shadows call your name...

As I'm waiting for the world to end,

I'm clinging on to oxygen,

I'm pulling captives by the hand,

Come home, come home

Come home...

Words come and go,

But how will your actions unfold?

Your character will be shown when lights go down now

Creeping shadows call your name (creeping shadows),

Posession is their claim,

Now turn it around, turn it around...

As I'm waiting for the world to end

I'm clinging on to oxygen

I'm pulling captives by the hand

Come home, come home

The world is falling faster

Falling so take this step and leap

To bring you over from the other side

I'm waiting for the world to end

I'm clinging on to oxygen

Pulling captives by the hand

Come home, come home

There's something inside that box you close

That only opens when your life explodes

On the other side, come home

Explodes, on the other side, come home,

Come home

Come home

Come home

Come home

COME HOME..."

Peace,

Ross

31 and counting...get excited

Wow, what a week and a half...
I could finish this post right now with this statement: God is really, really, really, really, big!

But I figure you probably want to know what happened over here, so here it goes:

Last Thursday, we left the school for the bus station and met our good friend Job. He's pretty much the coolest guy in Melaka and our resident bassist! So we got on a bus and headed to Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of Malaysia. Once we arrived, we went to our hotel, the Sun Inn, which was directly next to the Sunway Mall. This thing was HUGE! Maybe one of the biggest malls I've ever been in, aside from Suntec City in Singapore. We decided to go out and see the city, so Job took us through the train station. We stopped and got off in Petaling, which turns out to be like ghetto-ville. So we got back on the train and went to Petaling Street, which was an outdoor knock-off market. Lots of real-fake Rolexs, shoes, sunglasses, etc. After that little adventure, we went to KLCC, the mall under the Twin Towers. We hung out there for a little while and then made our way back to Sun Inn for some food. The public transport was a lot of fun and very efficient. KL is such a sprawled out city, and it was cool to see all parts of it.

Friday, we met with David and Beau, who were leading worship at the student conference we were going to be playing at. It's been so cool to see how God has used relationships established years ago to bring about this one weekend. The conference went great! The speaker, Clayton, was really cool, and getting to play with David and Beau was a lot of fun. And better than that, 31 students put their faith in Jesus on Saturday night!! That was so freaking awesome.

Sunday was cool too! We led worship at a church in KL, and then we headed back to the Sunway mall to get ready for Passion. That's right, the Passion movement is on a world tour and made a stop in KL Sunday night! The night was incredible, with Chris Tomlin and Charlie Hall leading worship and Louie Giglio giving a short message. Getting to worship with 3,000+ other Christians from all over Malaysia and the world was absolutely nuts!! God is doing huge, big big things in this country.



Probably another post to follow very soon, since Thursday was our last day at Pay Fong...
Til then, peace and love for you!

- Ross

A good weekend + new pictures!

Hey y'all!

I hope you are doing well, wherever in the world you are. These past few days have been pretty rockin'. Last Friday, we got to attend the launch celebration of a united effort of Malaysian churches to fast and pray for their country for 40 days. It was pretty awesome, because the service was held in English, Bahasa, Chinese, and Tamil at differing times. During a lot of the songs we sang, I had no idea what I was saying, but I knew it was glorifying God.

The people here have an earnest, sincere desire to see their families, co-workers, and fellow citizens come to know Jesus and His love. That was really impacted me; it made me think about my habits at home and if I really have been desiring to see those in my city come to know Christ.

Saturday, I went out for a walking adventure, and I stumbled upon the 100th anniversary of a Tamil-speaking church! That was a really cool experience to see the legacy that God had established in that place. Even though I couldn't understand almost anything, I could see joy and gratitude in the congregation's faces as they sang.

So yeah, it's been cool to see that not only has God been here for a long, long time; He's doing new and fresh things in the life of the Malaysian church. Be praying for the pastors and leaders here, that they would have wisdom and discernment for the future. And also pray for the fellowships throughout Malaysia, that they would have compassion and boldness to love those around them even if it may be difficult.

As the title suggested, there are a bunch of new pictures in the Malaysia album on my Picasa page, so feel free to check them out. One of these days, I'll put in some captions to give them all some context and give you some understanding about them! Okay til next time, peace and love!

- Ross

A Day in the Life (Part 1): Where I Live

Hello everybody,
Sorry again for long delays, but I thought I could give you a better idea about what my day-to-day life is like here in Malaysia through photos, so here is where I live!

This is the front of our school, Pay Fong High School.

Once you go past the office, it opens up to the main part of the campus, with a basketball court in the middle.

This is the canteen, where we hang out with students and eat meals. The floors above it are the hostel rooms, where we stay.

Where the bridge connects on that third floor is the door to Omar's and my room.

Ah, home sweet home. Our converted storage room...lol

We have our own shower in the room, which is really nice!

Looks like a broken down fridge right?

Wrong! It works very well, and we've filled it up with mangosteen and rambutan! Tasty!

And here is where we sleep and chill out. (Note the mosquito nets; yes they are that bad.)

More tours to come! Until next time, peace and love y'all!

- Ross

You're the God of this city...

Hello and sorry for the long delay!

All is well now that our team is here in Malaysia. We have been at a private high school teaching English for about a week and a half now. God has been so good here. It's incredible just how big and powerful He is! Omar and I live in a converted large storage closet with beds in one of the side rooms. After a little cleaning and rearranging, our room is actually pretty comfortable, and hopefully I'll get some pics of it soon. I call it the "room of God's provision," because every time we need something we end up finding it somewhere in the room!

The girls are staying in rooms with some of the female students, so they get to interact with them a lot more than we do with the guys. They have some incredible stories about their time in their rooms, so check out their blogs for more.

Our classes are going really well. I'm teaching conversational English with April to classes of all levels. We actually got to teach some senior classes this week, which was a lot of fun. Josie and I got them to translate their school, state, and national songs from Chinese into English. Then I taught them LSU's alma mater, complete with a loud "Forever LSU!!" at the end!

We're also getting opportunities to play music in our town, which is a big surprise for me. Compared to Bangalore, where we were playing about 1-2 shows a day, I figured we weren't going to have very many chances to use our musical skills, but God has proved me wrong over and over and over again.

For instance, last week the principal of the school approached us Tuesday morning and said there would be an assembly on Wednesday that we were invited to play at. We later found out the assembly was pretty much all on us, so we came up with a one-hour set list for the gathering. As all 2,500 students and staff came pouring in to the huge auditorium, I began to get really excited. This was an incredible opportunity to just be ourselves and love God in front of the entire school. So we started with the "Happy Song," which was very well received, especially the "I want to shout it out" part. We threw in some mainstream songs that we felt still had redemptive qualities, but we ended the set with "My Chains are Gone".

We're finding more and more believers at our school, and we're trying to figure out a way to have them gather together in fellowship without making it really obvious. A lot of the sponsors of the school are taoist, so I'm still not sure how it's all going to work out. But God's got a plan, and it will come to pass in His time.

We're interacting heavily with one local church through their worship team and their youth group. The youth group is really small, and in Malaysia it's viewed as a "sunset" ministry. No one wants to take charge and lead it, so as a result the group suffers. We're hoping that we can be a catalyst for change and growth as this church goes through a time of new leadership and vision. The pastor here is almost brand new in the church, so be praying that he will have wisdom and courage to lead this church. We're also attending a campus ministry at one of the local universities. It's so cool to see Christian students come together to worship and love God as one body, especially in a place where they are a small minority.

Alright that's all for now. So yeah I'm loving Malaysia a lot! I might just stay here...just kidding! Thanks for the prayers and emails; they are what get me through from day to day.

Peace and love!
Ross

Playing catch-up...

Sorry for the delay on an update, it's been pretty busy in Bangalore the past few days. Since I last wrote, we've had a bunch of shows and made a lot of new friends.

Thursday, we played at the Red Shift Cafe, which was a lot of fun. We opened for a P.O.D. cover band called Transit Point. Every time we play, we either meet new people or catch up with friends from other shows. It was no different on Thursday, and I had some really great conversations with a number of Indian musicians.

On Friday we were back at the Unwind Center (same place as Capstone on Tuesday) for the GAP show. We were the second of four bands including a big group from West Africa, a progressive rock band, and a hardcore metal band called Crucifix Guide! I got to hang out with a bunch of the west Africans, since we had both played at Alliance Francaise the previous weekend. Hopefully, we'll get to go to their home on Tuesday to hang out some more. At some point Friday night I got really sick, but I'm feeling much much better now.

The rest of the team went to a children's home Saturday morning, and I felt rested up enough to meet them that night for our show at the YWAM Junction. I was just a great time of worship with about 60+ believers, which was so cool.

Sunday was long...but good. We led worship at a small Methodist church in the morning, which was pretty interesting. We got eat lunch at a resturaunt on the top of a building. Such good food! We went to a Starbucks-ish coffee shop in the afternoon to play a mainstream set, but somehow a power cord for our sound board got lost. So we did some acoustic stuff and just had fun jamming. That night we went to a really big Methodist church to lead worship. We didn't know it at the time, but most of the worship set got recorded! Hopefully we'll have some time to edit it and get a better sound other than the raw recording.

So we've only got one more show tonight, and then it's mostly hangout time til we leave Bangalore. It's crazy to think we've only got 3 days left here. It's been a pretty awesome time here, and it gets me excited for KL. If you've got questions, comments, news, insights, etc. feel free to email me! It's always fun to get mail in my inbox. I'm going to put some fresh photos in my album so check the link sometime today.

Okay peace,
रोस (Ross)

Capstone!

Hello!
So last night, the team and I went to a cool musicians' gathering called Capstone. There were tons of very talented musicians, and everybody got to play a little bit. April and I did a couple songs, Ted did a few, and some other bands did several songs. Overall, it was a very fun day, since we also got to go downtown with some of our new friends for coffee. Thanks for all your prayers and support. We continue to see God working in Bangalore.

Much love,
Ross

Pictures!

Ok I've got a picture album up on Picasa!
Here's the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/rossyoung55

Let me know if there are any problems with the links or pictures!

Peace,
Ross

Enter the Rock Priest...

So sorry about the delay in updates and details. We've been without internet the past few days!

Anyway, our main music contact here is Paul (aka the Rock Priest). He's totally cool and has taken us to some really cool places so far. The first show he got us was Saturday around noon our time at a coffee shop called Coffee Day. It was a really really small crowd, but it was a good starting place for the team. Speaking of the team, I should probably introduce everyone so you know who the heck I'm talking about! :)

(from left to right: Amber, April, Josie, me, Wes, Ted, and Omar)

We're known in the music scene as De La Paz, which means "Of the Peace" in Spanish (it's Omar's second last name!). Our second show was at the Alliance Francaise's Fete de la Musique, which was basically a music festival at a French-speaking school in Bangalore. We had a great time there and got to meet a ton of cool people. Last night, we went back to the Alliance Francaise to hang out and hear some more music, and randomly this 10-person drum circle formed up in the middle of an atrium! I got to jam out with some awesome Indian percussionists and a sweet electric guitarist. Hopefully I'll get to hang out with some of them later this week and get to know them a little better.

Oh and don't even get me started about the food here, 'cause it's so freakin sweet! If you like Cajun hot then you'd probably like Indian hot, 'cause they're pretty close. Lots of chicken, lots of bread, lots of curry! Sweet lime soda is a gift from God and should definitely come to the States as soon as possible. Tea is great here too! Ok time to get some lunch on my day off!

PEACE

Hitting the ground running

Hello all,

So, after almost two full days of flights and layovers, the team and I made it safely to our flat in Bangalore. To get there, we had to connect through Delhi International, which was quite an experience to say the least. After discovering that our flight to Bangalore was in a separate airport, we booked a couple taxis and headed in that direction. Then we got on a plane and headed for Bangalore. We met up with Tom, our Bangalore contact who took us to our flat outside of town. Then we ordered Pizza Hut (lol) and went to bed. So ended our first day/night in Bangalore. More to come soon!

Peace,
Ross

Getting ready to peace out

So here I am in the middle of a small town in Kentucky, getting trained and prepared for leaving for our fun trip to India and SE Asia. My group is so incredible, and I know that our being here is totally ordained by God.
It's been an intense couple of days here, but they have been exactly what I've needed in my life. I've been challenged, equipped, deepened, and humbled in so many ways.
We head out to Nashville tomorrow for final training and preparation, and then we fly out on Tuesday afternoon to L.A.X. Looking forward to what we're going to get to do tomorrow.

Okay, that's all for now; stay posted! ;)

_Ross_