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