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