Malaysia update 3

Hey!!

I'm sorry this email is sooooo late!  I've been drafting it for about three weeks, but I'm just now finishing - I'm
sorry!!

Malaysia is probably one of the only Asian countries where it's possible to forget you're in a foreign country for a
while.  Often the palm trees, massive malls, and beaches look more like L.A.  The East really does meet the West in
Malaysia.  The culture may be one of our biggest assets in ministry.  We're meeting college students and making
relationships with them as our main ministry and the cultural understanding between us really helps to bridge the
gap.  We have many of the same kinds of struggles and obstacles in our lives and we even speak the same language,
so God has cleared many paths to relationship here.

On the other hand, the culture is different enough to let me analyze my own from an outsider's perspective.  The Western
mindset of self-sufficiency and individualism is a bigger obstacle to my faith than I thought it was.  God has shown
me how I so often put much more faith in myself and my own efforts than Him.  And I certainly don't trust the body of
Christ the way I should.  The disunity I've experienced in past mission experiences and that I've fought against this
summer is largely a result of this distrust.  In my selfishness, I've focused so strongly on my personality and
how it clashes with others' that I've taken my eyes off of His personality.  Hebrews says our God is a consuming fire,
but this doesn't call me to lose my individuality and be a tract-distribution zombie.  I think it's more like being
consumed with Him and seeking to fit into His plan any way I can instead of trying to squeeze Him in on the margins of
what is actually my plan.  Sounds simple, but it's never simple with God.

Two words keep reappearing this summer: gospel and community.  The weak perception I have had of the gospel has
been obliterated this summer.  The Lord continues to show me the vast expanse of the Good News He has brought to us in
Jesus.  I have treated the gospel like little more than a doorway - albeit, a very important doorway - for outsiders
to be introduced to Jesus' sacrifice for our sins.  It's that and so much more, though!  It is the POWER OF GOD for
the salvation of those who believe (Romans 1:16).  That's huge.  And it's not something that's easy to fit into tracts
or 2-minute testimonies.  It is a lifetime of obedience and pursuing holiness.  God is challenging us to step it up!  It
won't do anymore for me to lazily fumble through a Christianity of convenience.  One of the main things I've
learned in Malaysia is to be intentional about community and relationships.  Necessary in that process is allowing the
Lord to interrupt me.  As always, the best laid plans have gone up in smoke this summer, but God has worked in every
situation to lead us to great conversations with people and opportunities to share the gospel.  I'm still making sense
of most of the things that have happened this summer, so I'll definitely have much more to share once I'm home. 
Thank you for being in prayer for our team this summer!  It has made all the difference!

Love,
Leah

Malaysia update 2

Hello everyone!!

It's week 3 in Malaysia! We've been busy lately with Frisbee, English classes and chat clubs, and building the relationships we've begun here. Some more college students have started coming to the student center where we're working and some have questions about our faith, so pray that in the coming weeks we can effectively share the truth with all our friends here.

Beau Bristow, a musician from Nashville, TN, just came to Penang earlier this week to give two free concerts. Our team worked with him to make contacts at those concerts and we had an after-party where students came to hang out with
Beau and be introduced to the student center. We're hoping some of the conversations Beau had with students about his journey through life will lead to sharing the truth with them.

Another university here is starting classes again in July, so there will be many more students in Penang shortly!! Some of these already attend the student center. This university is closer to our student center, so it may be easier for us to get to the campus, but our supervisors say the administration is very strict and has repeatedly kicked them off campus, so pray that the students we already have contact with there will be able to help us meet new students and involve them in the student center.

Thank you for all of your support and your prayers!
Leah

Malaysia update!!

Hey everybody!!

It's week three and we've made a bunch of contacts here at the college that we see throughout the week! There are pictures on Facebook of some of the stuff we've done here and you should be able to click on the title ("Malaysia update!!") to see those.



I'm going to post the previous email I sent in case you haven't seen it yet:

Man! We have been way busy!! We've made a bunch of new friends in Penang and we're spending a lot of time with them. My team is Margaret, my friend from school, and a brother and sister, Paul and Libby, from Louisiana. During the week we play ultimate frisbee four times and we're starting two English clubs on one of the college campuses this Thursday. Other than that, we're building relationships with students from all over the place - S. Korea, Japan, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Iran, Nigeria, and Sudan. Malaysia and its people are really diverse. We've visited mosques, temples, museums, and markets (where I bought pork in Mandarin!!) and I've eaten food from Thailand, India, China, and Japan. Margaret and I are making southern food (or the best we can manage in Malaysia) this Saturday for a bunch of friends, so that should be fun! We're also planning a cookout and a movie night for a bunch of folks in our apartment (which is actually nicer than my apartment!). The coolest thing, however, is that we're going to a prom! The engineering school at a college here is having their prom July 3 and we've weaseled our way into it!! It's going to be hilarious, I'm sure!

So, we're staying busy and trying to move our relationships into talk about spiritual matters. (Sorry I can't say more about this, but security is pretty tight.) I miss you all and thank you for your prayers!!

I'm leaving today!

Hi everyone!
I'm leaving for Malaysia this afternoon! I won't be able to communicate via email until around June 8, so perhaps I'll have more to tell you all about what I'm doing by then. Thanks to everyone for their support and especially for all your prayers!

Leah

Malaysia!

I'm going to Malaysia this summer!! Just found out last week and I'm pretty pumped. Check the blog this summer for updates!

Headed Home

Hello everybody,

All the Nehemiah Teams have begun the debriefing process today. We also bid farewell to our Filipino teammates this morning after a night of celebration, prayer and fellowship with them in Cebu City. Sally and Jetter were more faithful and encouraging teammates than anyone could ask for. Our team treasures their friendships and greatly desires to continue to be a part of God's plan for their lives in the future. We sent them off with our prayers and encouragement and great confidence that they will make huge impacts for the Kingdom.


This will probably be my last update while I'm in the Philippines because we leave Wednesday morning. Your prayers have made all the difference this summer and have never ceased to encourage our team. It is more than a blessing to have your support and I pray God has led you to a better understanding of His love this summer, too.

I'm excited to get back and share the stories of God's grace in Camotes very soon!! Thanks again!

Love,
Leah

Refocused

Hello everyone,

Thank you very much for your prayers up to this point! I can see how God is going ahead of us and moving in the Holy Spirit to draw people to Himself and it is a humbling thing to participate in the work of the Lord here in Camotes.

I apologize for the lack of updates. We’ve been much busier than expected and, to be honest, I’ve been a bit out of sorts lately. I came to the Philippines with preconceived notions of how this mission trip would play out and even of the things I would learn from it. God, in His usual way, has greatly surpassed my expectations, though. I can honestly say that nothing about the way I live this life has not been touched by the way God has moved in the past weeks. God has brought me to grips with the reality of His love and, ironically, what true love is – more than what we teach in seminars, it is “the art of losing myself in bringing Him praise.” I believe it is Max Lucado who says that the problem with a living sacrifice is that it keeps crawling off the altar. Dying to myself and letting Jesus Christ live through me is indescribably hard. It means counting myself a stranger here on the earth, both in West Point, MS, and San Francisco, Camotes. It means casting my strengths, weaknesses, fears and victories on the altar and realizing that they are useless to me in my own power. Gladly, it also means taking them up again and watching them become more than I could ever imagine in God’s power.

One of the first Bible studies I led here I began with 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 – “And now I will show you the best way of all. I may speak in different languages of people or even angels. But if I do not have love, I am only a noisy bell or a crashing cymbal. I may have the gift of prophecy. I may understand all the secret things of God and have all knowledge, and I may have faith so great I can move mountains. But even with all these things, if I do not have love, then I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and I may even give my body as an offering to be burned. But I gain nothing if I do not have love.” God has used every Bible study I’ve led here to teach me something. In fact, it seems that I’m always the one who needs the lesson most. My team teaches True Love Waits seminars in local high schools and 1 Corinthians 13, as the renowned “Love Chapter,” has been our main Scripture reference. I’ve read it more times than I can count in teaching high school students and yet managed to miss what God was teaching me with it. A lack of enthusiasm for the work here and the conviction that my ministry was not what it should be led me to ask God how I had gone wrong even when our team has seen a fair amount of success in establishing Bible studies and seeing people come to Christ. The verses above were once again brought to my attention and I found myself guilty of being a noisy bell, a crashing cymbal, and a loveless laborer in the field of lost souls. As the verses affirm, I found myself with nothing when I was attempting to the do the work of the Lord in my own power. It was quite strange to feel so far from God while on the mission field.

God brought a song to mind in the midst of this turmoil by a band called Starfield that’s called, “Reign In Us.” Some of the lyrics are below:

Lord Jesus, come lead us

We're desperate for Your touch

O Great and Mighty One, with one desire we come

That You would reign, that You would reign in us

We're offering up our lives - a living sacrifice...

We cry out for Your love to refine us

Cry out for Your love to define us

Cry out for Your mercy to keep us blameless until You return

The Lord Jesus must reign supreme in our hearts if we are ever to be used as a blessing to His people. We must forsake all else in the pursuit of the desires of HIS heart if our lives are ever to count for anything. God, He reminded me, has loved me in a most amazing way and the love of God is something that flies in the face of human logic. Because this is true, there is no possible way to love people like God loves people without the help of God. In short, I am learning to lean on God for all things, to pray with expectancy, to love with His peculiar sort of fierceness and abandon, and to consider this life worth nothing unless it's spent testifying to the gospel of God's grace.

I'd like to leave you with some lyrics to one more song ("Shadowfeet" by Brooke Fraser):

I am changing

Less and less asleep

Made of different stuff than when I began...

I appreciate your continued prayers and I'd ask you to pray for the following individuals by name in the next few weeks:

Neda (church member whose neighbors are new believers)

Jacinto, Junlo, Jenny, Dinit, Reggie, and Linette (new believers among whom we are trying to establish on-going Bible studies)

Joey (a man who is truly thirsty for the truth and who has asked that we come speak to him about salvation!! Please pray for the Holy Spirit to draw Joey to God!)

Arnel, Alvin, and Reynold (young men in the church with great leadership potential among their peers)