Merry Malaysian Christmas Everyone!

My time here in Malaysia has been slipping through my fingers. I can’t believe that five weeks have already passed, and now I’m looking at less than three weeks till I head off to Guatemala.

To flash back on these last few weeks, we’ve been in a huge Christmas celebration season. The weeks leading up to Christmas we had a lot of practices and preparation, and then this last week and a half we’ve been caroling every night, went to an international school and did a Christmas program, attended a Chinese church and performed/spoke in front of their congregation, and had a huge Christmas Eve service with the church that’s hosting us. We’ve also still been doing our normal ministry activities like the school, bakery, evangelism, etc. So these past weeks have been pretty exhausting!

The caroling was so fun. Hard to get up for ministry the next day when you got barely any sleep the night before, but so worth it with all the people we met and prayed over. My guess would be we went to over 50 homes! Our Christmas Eve service was also so much fun, in the way that they celebrate it similarly to New Year’s, doing a countdown to Christmas. During the service, we performed a traditional Indian dance, did a nativity skit, and sang many Christmas songs for the church! We also had to get more formal traditional Indian outfits for the service, so I got my very own saree!

The Lord protected me so much in giving me a grateful heart to be able to have such a unique and special Christmas this year. Christmas Day was so fun and I couldn’t have been more thankful to have spent it with my squadmates. We had a slow morning, and my squad leader surprised us with videos from home. We also did a huge Secret Santa with everyone in our squad, my team and I saw a movie, we did Christmas karaoke, played white elephant, and had Christmas dinner with a girl from our church and her Hindu family. Then, I got to end the night with a call with my family!

A little update on things with my trip! I wanted to let you all know my fourth country was changed do to a financial decision made by AIM staff and I’ll now be going to Eswatini, Malaysia, Guatemala, and… HONDURAS!!!

Also, this Christmas I got the most special gift of being FULLY FUNDED. I couldn’t be more grateful. I don’t think you all understand how much that means to me. That you all would make this trip a reality for me. Not it even being for me, but for the Lord’s plan over my life. My call. Even though this trip has been hard for so many different reasons, I couldn’t picture myself anywhere else than right here. It might not be where I would have chosen to be if I had the wheel, but it’s where I am. And I wouldn’t change a thing about it. I’ve never been so full of joy or encouragement then being on this trip. I can’t even describe the feeling of looking at yourself a few months ago and comparing it to who you are now, and not recognizing who you used to be. And praise Jesus because I’ve never been so fulfilled then these last four months. Things that I thought were “who I was” have been uprooted and burned. Things I thought I could never let go of, God has given me freedom in. He has broken me down and built me back up. Thinking about the impact of this trip, I’m just so grateful. Every hard yes, every step of obedience, surrender, it’s never been more worth it.

Thank you for the step of obedience and surrender you took to help make this trip happen for me. To let God use you to send me out. Because I know this is just the beginning of what He’s going to do through my life. And it’s because of what He did in yours that He’s able to do it in mine. So again I say, Thank you!

Go check out my photocircle page to see all my Christmas Adventures! https://join.photocircleapp.com/4WBHQQ344T