Thirsty People...

A few English speaking people have been passed onto us recently.

One young Indian woman we visited came running up to the gate, so excited to see us...yes she was waiting for us to call. We weren't too sure what to expect...but she made it quite obvious that she wanted to study. A study was started, the following week she was so happy to have her first bible, she now prepares for her studies by looking up each scriptures and making a note of the page number so she can find it faster in our study....

After a week or two we were sent a request for a bible study slip from the branch...Frank recognised the name...it was our new study! In the week or so between her first visit and our following her up, she must have sent away the coupon for a study...no wonder she was ready to study the bible when we turned up at her door! Will keep that one and give it back as a memento when she gets baptised :)

Today she was even more happy to receive the new revised edition of the NWT...with all the extra features and the simpler English she was so happy...although the page numbers are a little different to the old one so threw out her preparation...but never to mind :-)



ANOTHER passed on call to us in the English cong, a foreign worker from Pakistan. Speaks English but reads Urdu...after printing out KN38 in Urdu to bring him, today we called...although he was working, his 3 flat mates also Pakistani Christians (only 7% of the country they tell us) they sat us down and ran off and brought out their bibles in Urdu and English. They were so so happy to read the kingdom news no.38 in their mother tongue. 

One of them seems to have read the Greatest Man book in Pakistan. Which is quite amazing seeing that the ratio of witnesses to population is over 200,000 to 1!

 We went thru some of KN38 together and their appreciation for us visiting them and speaking about the scriptures with them was clear. Life here isn't the easiest, they work hard, 6-7 days a week, with a tough boss, and their families are back in Pakistan where they live in fear of the Taliban. 
It was so surreal to be sitting with these men who's stories we'd seen played out on TV many times.
To speak about the bible made them so happy. But today they could see that Jehovah really is the God of all comfort.

Next week when we bring back the BH book for them they want us to stay for dinner with them. I wonder if it will be our first eating with our hand experience!

Tea and Spirituality...

After a great afternoon with a couple from the Chinese cong, handing some calls over to them, we took their advice and decided to visit a new "western" cafe down the road from us. Western food is notoriously awful here...it's all deep fried and normally out of a packet so to hear of a non halal (hello bacon) GOOD western cafe, we decided to check it out straight away.

Next door to said cafe a traditional looking Chinese tea shop caught my eye so I stepped in to compare some prices....we kind of ended up sitting down and trying a couple if Chinese teas Puer and Oolong and learning a bit about the difference in using proper clay teapots and cups. (All with the help of google translate as their English is limited and our Chinese is non existing)

The shop owner also owns the adjoining fashion shop and the young shop assistant joins in our little tea lesson...helping with a few English words here and there...of course they are very interested about these foreigners and what we are doing in the country. We find out that the young high school student shop assistant is from a christian family but hasn't been to church for years. She was happy to see the questions on the truth tract, and wanted to know the question about where are the dead and was very surprised to hear the bibles answer as she thought heaven as most do. From what we could understand she reads the bible because she is scared of ghosts and was able to understand the bibles view of what ghosts really are very quickly.

She's keen for us to bring back our Chinese speaking friends so she can learn more and take up our offer of a bible course :-) Although being in her last year of school, working in the shop after school then having tuition at 10pm...she feels she can fit it in!
 So some more time with the Chinese cong is on the cards.

So dinner was quite late that night...but yes is was great western food, probably the best we've had since we've been here...so more than one reason to return...

Studies first study

I have a Study with a half Tamil half eastern Malaysia high school student.
Here it's not unusual for youngsters to discuss religion at school. It's almost strange not to have religion here. Obviously she has been talking to friends at school about what she learns in her studies.
One of her friends  who is a Christian has many questions and would like to study with us too.
After speaking to this girl on the phone I realise that Chinese is her best language, so I arrange a missionary sister in the Chinese cong to come with me, my study accompanies us as well seeing this is the first time we will meet and the young girl it turns out was quite nervous to be talking to "white guys".
On the day it turns out that another missionary sister from another Chinese cong is with her as well, so all 5 of us are sitting around the coffee table for the girls first study...mostly in Chinese but partly in English too. She chooses the chapter on "where are the dead", which is a very popular topic with the Chinese community, and proceeds to tell us how she believes in heaven and hell and that the priest has told her to she prays for her grandfather who has passed away, so that he can go to heaven...
It's not til paragraph 5 that the scriptures come out...

“Eccl. 9:5 For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all”

After a few leading questions, emphasising the meaning...You could see the penny drop...her face was stunned and then confused "why did the teacher at church not teach me this then?"

She truly believes that the bible is the word of God, and reading it from her own bible astounded her.
This opened up a million new questions...what about ghosts...what about people who say they are talking to the dead...?
We also looked at what happened to Adam when he died..."so we just go back to the dirt lah" was her response. It was in the bible so it must be true...

She said she felt "disappointed" maybe half that she'd been lied to and that she wont be in heaven with her grandpa....(did i mention half the study was in chinese so most of the study I guessed what they were saying by the hand gestures....G for gestures sisters!)
We were then able to give her a glimpse of the hope in the bible tho, so it ended on a good note.

Afterwards my study said how she was so happy to experience her first study that was not her own, she'd often though about preaching herself one day and was amazed how energised she felt!
The next few days at school her friend told her how much she enjoyed the study and is looking forward to her next one.

Unfortunately I probably won't be going very often but it was nice to be a part of the planting :) and to see someone accept the truth so readily was really memorable!

Welcome to our Malaysian Diaries!

It's a new service year and we are about to complete our first year in Malaysia! Time has really flown. And what a year it's  been! So many amazing experiences! This year I thought it would be a good idea to write some of those great experiences down 1) so that we don't forget them and 2) to be able to share them with family and friends. And maybe even convince a few people to join us??

Thanks for joining us on our little adventure...and believe me...each day when you leave the house it's bound to be a bit of an adventure...

Xx Naomi