back at home...

After a 27 hour door to door trip (and 40 hours without sleep) I am back at home... the flight was ok, I slept a little bit here and there... I'm too tired to do a proper post now, just sticking some photos I took in Perth on saturday night... but in the next couple of days i'll get on here and review and sum up the summer...



thank you anyone who has been reading for your interest and thank you especially to those of you who have been praying for me this summer...



i'd also like to thank all of my friends in malaysia, i now have my photo album again so i have your email addresses so i'll try to get in touch with you soon, love you all... thank you...

post mission apathy...

sorry for the wait... been finding it hard to get on and write on here... don't let the title of this post fool you, i've been having a really good time here with jonny in australia... we went to a place called margaret river for a long weekend and had a great time there seeing a bit more of australia... here is what we did:



on thursday when we arrived we braved the wind and rain and went down to the beach for a swim and jonny did a little bit of surfing, but the waves weren't the right type so he couldn't catch any



on friday we went on a bushtucker winery tour... we went to three different wineries and sampled their wines... we had lunch at one of them and tried some bushtucker... including a grub which i ate... after lunch we went to the cheese factory the chocolate company and a brewery... we managed to exercise some self control at the wineries and the brewery but i'm not sure if the same could be said for the cheese factory and chocolate company... all in all it was a really nice day



on saturday i hired a surf board and wetsuit and we went to the beach for the day... we both got pretty battered by the waves (you learn very quickly to have some respect for the ocean) but we also both had a few moments of success... i managed to catch quite a few waves and even stood up for a small number of them...



on sunday we hired some scooters/mopeds/motos... and drove about all over the area to see various different things... we stopped off at an aboriginal settlement to learn how to throw spears and boomerangs... we found ourselves once again at the chocolate company... we went to maragaret river town, to a couple of beaches and by the time we got to the famous caves there they were closed so we went for a little drive through the forest...



on monday morning jonny braved the stormy weather to do some more surfing and i stayed in the hostel and watched rambo with a guy from manchester called sam... we got the bus back and are now in perth once again...



now to the main point of my post: "post mission apathy"

since arriving in australia i've been finding it difficult to spend time with God, that is through reading the bible and prayer, praising and worshipping Him through listeningto/playing music or just by the way i live my life... so i've been finding this hard...

last night we went to hear Don Carson talk from Revelation 12 (click here) and also on the parable of the weeds - Matthew 13 v 24-30 (click here) it was a bit of a frightening talk - he talked about how, for the Christian, optimism is naive (that is the condition of the world - physical and political - isn't going to get any better) and pessimism is atheistic (there is no place for cynicism in the Christian mind) ... leaving us wondering what we should be thinking, the world is moving towards an end and we can be neither optimistic that it might no happen, nor pessimistic, feeling that there's no hope...

God is in control, He know's what is going on... Carson talked about how we need to be aware of the spiritual battle going on... that Satan and his angels have been defeated and kicked out of heaven, and whilst he knows his time is short, satan is displaying his fury against the Christians on the earth... doing this in obvious ways (the persecuted church in china and the middle east) and subtle, deceptive ways (false teachings and post modernism in the west) the 20th century was the bloodiest ever witnessed and there's no reason at the moment to believe that the 21st won't be worse... he brought our attention to the parable of the weeds... God lets both the weeds and the good crop GROW, ready to be sorted when it comes to the harvest... when taking a serious look at it its not hard to see that the world we live in reflects the world that is predicted by the bible about 2000 years ago...

What are we to do then in this seemingly dire situation? 1. we overcome satan by the basis of the blood of the lamb. 2. we overcome him by bearing good witness to who Jesus is again and again and again and finally 3. we overcome him the simple willingness to die for Jesus, as Carson said, what can the devil do to the Chtistian who's not afraid of death? Kill him?!

Anyway, all this hepled me realise why i had been feeling so apathetic, I had such a purpose in Malaysia, I knew why I was there, what i was meant to be doing (loosely) and everyday counted... since arriving in australia I had been kidding myself that I no longer had this purpose... but I'm fairly sure that when Jesus gives us the great commission (click here) He's not only talking about when we're on short term mission trips to a far off land... life is our mission trip, please pray for continued devotion to Jesus, and passion for evangelism even though my time in malaysia is over... in four days my mission trip is headin back to England...

hello from australia...

Only seven people I think requested that I keep blogging here, but I thought i'd do it anyway (although not that often as jonny pays for internet as it is used) as I've become accustomed to it...



Having a great time, very different to Malaysia, very Western... we've been eating a lot, but thankfully doing a fair bit of sport (swimming and tennis)....



We went to a big park in the city today called king's park, which was very nice... it was myself, jonny, and jenny (another leicester friend doing the same thing as jonny)...



We're going away for 5 days to Margaret River which is to the south for a long weekend of lazing on the beach, surfing, wine tasting and bush adventures...



Photos below are of the chapel in the college here, first one is a big of an exposure experiment by myself, and underneath that is how it actually looks...



normal view...

time to go...

I've just finished packing and I leave for the airport in about an hour... had a really amazing time here... I went to the mosque in Shah Alam this morning, which is the biggest mosque in malaysia... it was very peaceful (probably because I was one of a small handful of people in the massive building...)



I've had three people tell me that they wish me to keep blogging for the next two weeks in australia, however i'm not entirely convinced that this is a high enough number... leave a comment if you want me to... if i get up to 10 i'll definately do it :-)



Just enough time to say that i love Malaysia and will hopefully come back some time... (I tried to work out last night if i can save enough in the next year (without having to get a job!!) to come back next summer... but sadly I don't think i can... maybe i'll have to seek paid employment...

farewell...

At alpha last night we had my farewell party... similar to Todd's last week... it was a very nice and memorable occaision... although it has made me begin to realise that I am actually going somewhere... which, when i think about it, makes me feel a little sad... not so much because I' m leaving... as I've left places before and I know its not the end of the world... I'm also heading down to australia for two weeks to see jonny, which I'm very excited about... but sad more so because I feel like I may never see my Malaysian friends again... as i said last night the guys in this house have been like my family for the last six weeks, and its not nice to leave family... the reason for the photo (mr bean's teddy bear) is because this is my farewell gift from Bih Kai and the other guys... Malaysia is absolutely crazy about mr Bean (in fact when Dave Irvine was here they all thought he looked like mr Bean..!) and as a result i've really enjoyed re-living childhood memories of watching mr bean at my grandparents house whenever my sister and I went to visit them...

Among the things I will miss about Malaysia are... Todd... the crazy little bucket shower thingy! If you don't know what I'm talking about you can read about it in an earlier post ("the most unusual shower and breakfast").... the collectivist culture (a refreshing change from the individualistic west)... the guys in the house (who like i said have been my family here)
... my student friends... Keng Yin (and her passion for giving and serving)

All this being said, despite the fact my bags are already packed, I still have a couple of (busy) days left so I might find the time to post again before I go... also... my mum has asked me to keep blogging in Australia... I'm not sure whether or not I will, it depends on my public... If you wish me to do so, please leave a comment to tell me you do....

final week...

I'm halfway through my final week... with only four days to go (busy days though which is good)... I'm going to work my way backwards to bring you up to date...

...so today (wednesday) Chuen Hoe and I have just got back from having lunch with Siaw Chian and Ching Siew in campus (in the Science faculty cafe - which i hadn't eaten at before - good stuff). It was a fun lunch as we ate slowly and chatted lots... we talked about some of the stuff we went over last night in English Class and we talked about why we like to study our respective degrees (Ching Siew and Siaw Chian - chemistry, Chuen Hoe - Engineering, Myself - psychology)... I'm glad Chuen Hoe came with me as it would have been a little strange meeting people on my own without Todd I think...

Earlier today kelvin and I marvelled at Psalm 73 (possibly my favourite... click here) and how relevant it is to our lives... verse 28 is actually going to be our vision verse in Leicester Uni Christian Uni until next easter... we also talked about different issues and temptations that we face as students in our differing countries... I told Kelvin that the writer (a guy called Asaph) goes through three different thought processes in the pslam - envy, bitterness and thankfulness... After reading through it Kelvin corrected me and informed me that there area actually five - envy, bitterness, acknowledgement of guilt, thankfulness and desire to tell others... all in all a good study :-)



Last night I had my last English class (but not the last english class, Keng Yin has found someone to teach after i leave... Praise God for this as we weren't sure what was going to happen) and although I had to lead it alone (as Todd has gone) and although it was a little frightening... it went really well, we had 15 people including myself and had some really good conversations... I invited everyone along to alpha on thursday, please pray that they would come...



So my time in Redang... redang is a paradise island, and in the opinions of a lot of people I've spoken to, the most beautiful island in Malaysia... we (me and JR) arrived at about 11 o'clock on Sunday morning, and all of the tiredness of the sleepless night on the bus was forgotten as we both got very excited to see the white sand and turquoise water... we checked in and went for a swim... then got ready for our first snorkelling trip (as it was a package deal there were organised trips)... so we went to a place on the boat and as there were so many people (95% of wholm were Chinese and were wearing life jackets as they were not so confident on their swimming) we headed away from the group and swam out to sea a little bit... the coral itself was fairly amazing and there were so many fish, far more exciting than any i've seen when I've been snorkelling or scuba diving anywhere else... but the first really exciting moment happened when a shark swam underneath us... not sure whether to feel excited or scared we both kind of shrieked and smiled at each other... it was about maybe 3 or 4 ft long and not very far away (we'd been told that the sharks there were relatively harmless so we followed it for a while before it got away from us)... we swam further out and saw loads of clown fish swimming in and out of the anenemies... some of them were frightened of us and some came out to meet us and even nipped out hands with their little mouths... JR and I somehow got separated on our way back to the boat and we each swam different things... he saw another shark, this time quite a bit bigger than the previous one... and I was swimming along and saw something and thought "wow, that's a big fish" I then realised it was a turtle so I swam quickly to catch up with it, swam along with it underneath me for a while and then realised i was heading out to sea, so i let it go and returned to the boat... I realised back at the boat that we'd both swum about a mile and a half... which was good as i've not had any excercise since they stopped letting us use the gym for badminton a few weeks ago...



When we got back I went for another swim around the "house reef" and saw plenty more sharks, these ones were a lots smaller though (about 2ft)... not surprisingly at the end of my swim i was pretty tired... in the evening we had a massage, which was actually pretty brutal, but afterwards i was so relaxed I went back to our room and fell straight to sleep (even though it was about 10) so it did its job.. I also slept through my alarm so I failed to get up to watch the sunrise at 6... I was up at 8 though and we went for some scuba diving... JR did a discovery course and because I'd done it before I did a refresher (effectively the same thing, except JR was looked after constantly by his "buddy" who controlled his boyancy etc. whereas I was free to swim alone and my buddy just swam about 3 metres behind me... it was really nice and relaxing and we saw more sharks and clown fish amongst other things... as soon as we finished we had to get our kit off (scuba kit that is...) and join the second snorkelling trip to the marine park... where we were each given a loaf of bread to feed the fish with... it was amazing as they were not shy at all, and we swam about constantly with hundreds of fish accompanying us waiting for some food... they ate from our hands allowing us to stroke their sides as they ate... which was pretty cool... there was also a missive eel about 8ft long which came up to see us... was a little scary but i gave it a stroke as well... when we got back we checked out and I walked around the beach taking some photos... then fell asleep in a hammock for an hour or so and then it was time to leave...

todd has gone...

Todd left this morning... which means i'm here alone... it has been amazing opportunity to serve here alongside him and we both fully believe that God had it all under control as we've got along so well... I could have been here with anyone in the world and we could've experienced all kinds of problems... but there were none :-) praise God for that!

We've had another answer to prayer in that I really wanted to visit the east coast of malaysia before i left, and it was looking like if i wanted to do that i would have to go in the last week and cancel the english class and the alpha course... which was beginning to pose a bit of a moral dilemna... thankfully God has found a way and JR and I are setting off on an overnight bus tonight to spend two days at the Redang Island beach resort (search online if you want to see what its like) before getting another overnight bus back on monday night, leaving plenty of time to rest and prepare for English class on tuesday evening...



Big blessings on Thursday night (and Tuesday actually) as attendance was really quite high at alpha, we split into two large groups after the video and were able to have interesting discussion about why Jesus had to die...

Please pray for:

• alpha and english class next week
• a safe journey home for Todd
• a safe and enjoyable time for me and JR at the east coast
• two girls (ching siew and siaw chian) who we bought bilingual bibles for yesterday
• continued bible study with kelvin and chuen hoe even though todd has gone