An entire EPIC week!

My first thought about the blog today was, "It's been probably two or three days since I blogged, perhaps I should update things." Well, it has been an entire 7 days since my last update!!! This week will hopefully allow more regular updates, especially with the hotel having free wi-fi and an internet lounge all set up :-)

Monday we started our CI in Penang, Malaysia. We set up in the morning and that evening we opened the 2010 Penang CI with a bang, getting the teams all good to go for the week. All the other days revolved around getting ready for CI, teaching CI, trying to find time to sleep, and talking to my team leader (also my roomate last week). Victor Peh has been awesome to room with, and his spiritual insights were both motivating and inspiring!!! We had a great time sharing a space last week, and spent several nights staying up very late, discussing life purposes and goals and the things of God. It was truly one of my favorite things about this trip so far.

Throughout the week we tried to go do different special things, like visiting an orphanage in Penang. That was quite the experience. Let me explain exactly why...

Some of our kids came from this poor part of town called "Rifle Range." It is the poorest, dirtiest, most dingy part of the entire island. The neat part about visiting this orphanage was that two of the children on my team were from the Rifle Range, and I saw them at the orphanage. The team joined the kids for an awesome time of playing, singing, jumping around, a skit, and a prayer (but we were not allowed to say anything about Jesus - you can be put in jail for trying to witness to Muslims in Malaysia, and it was an Islamic institution I believe). Showing Christ's love to the children and staff was so enjoyable!

Our team this last week was interesting. Our kids were terribly quiet - I am looking forward to taming children who are wild, especially after two weeks of calm kids! :-D near the end of the week the kids started to be a little more out-going, and for part of the last night and the entire last day we combined our team with another. The kids drew off of each others' energy and both teams benefitted from the combination!!!

On Thursday morning, our team sat down to have a serious talk. The original plan was to go on a scavenger/treasure hunt all over Penang, but as we gathered together, the entire team agreed to spend time with God instead of enjoying a treasure hunt. So we all walked to the beach and spent time along the boardwalk, each of us getting into God's Word and spending time in prayer. After that, several of our team members opened up, and ever since then our team has been so much closer.

Another cool thing was our Friday, our day off for the week :-) Taking a brand new bus to the world's only museum and preserve for live butterflies, we spent the entire day touring, shopping and enjoying the culture and sights of Penang. It was totally awesome!!! We first stopped at this place called "Sam's Batik House" and there I did a lot of shopping. (Just wait until you hear of how hard I bartered!). There was one shirt I wanted to get that had an original price of $120 RM. But that is wayyyy too much to pay for ONE piece of clothing! That translates to about $35 in US currency. By the time I finished, the price was $65 RM and I had a very nice shirt :-)

From there we went to the Museum and Live Preserve place (not sure of the name), and saw all the butterflies, reptiles and bugs that they had there. It was top of the line and very beautiful. After about an hour and a half we left there and drove further up the coast to a place where we spent the afternoon taking pictures on the beach, eating and walking around town. When we first arrived, it started to rain! :-/ But soon it was over and we were able to continue enjoying our time there :-) There was this really creepy guy who ran the watersports there, and he was making eyes at all the girls. Needless to say, us guys were watching him pretty good. But when the group huddled up on the beach and everyone was together.... I collected shells.

That was such a fun day... I really enjoyed spending time with the team, shopping in the different towns (we drove so much that I have no clue where all we went), and having a day to relax. I did miss Victor being there though - he stayed back at the hotel to pray and seek God, to make sure that he was doing everything he could to lead our team the way God wants him to. What an example of Christ-like love and dedication to excellence!!! I cannot say enough good about our incredible team leaders, Victor and Eunice Peh. They are totally on fire for God, completely dedicated to HIS work, and they lead with a contagious zeal. It is truly an honor to serve under and with them. They call themselves "willing rascals!" :-D

Something you learn over here is culturally polite traditions. For example, eat EVERYTHING on your plate. The most difficult thing I've eaten so far was not just bad-looking, but it smelled bad too. It was a plate with rice, vegatables, and chicken joints. Not like a leg or a meatless wing, but joints! They tasted and smelled like mud from a barnyard. Disgusting. But hey, its protein and I got it down :-)
Another great food we tried this last week was a fruit called "Durian." It tastes like a rotten sweet onion, and the smell is even worse. Oh, and guess what... Penang is having a DURIAN FESTIVAL!!!! apparently, its a local delicacy. I'd take it over the chicken ;-)

On Saturday we had the a few skits, and those were very enjoyable! The first one was the story of Esther, and I got to be Haman. :-) With the black marker on my face, glasses, and a deep scary voice (the girls on the team were freaked out), it went well and I had lots of fun with that role! :-D The second skit was where Victor and I showed the kids how it is important to be a real Christian on the inside and on the outside, and when we ate the "mud" from the inside of the cantelopes, they truly flipped out :-) Totally awesome.

The most wearing and difficult part of Saturday was right before we were supposed to go to Parent Presentation. There is this one boy named Benjamin, and he threw an absolute tantrum before we were supposed to go upstairs. So much so, that I volunteered to stay back with him while everyone else went to show off the week's work to the parents. Well. It was an experience :-) He bit, kicked, flailed, screamed, cried, twisted, writhed, threw my glasses on the floor, spit up phlegm several times, and by the time 50 mintutes went by, I was dripping sweat. I am pretty sure that the spit on my face was not mine either.. lol! Finally, his team leader came back from the Parent Presentation, and I was able to have a few moments of respite before the final skits.

Today, we left the hotel at 6 am, and drove to the airport. We flew to Singapore this morning and spent the afternoon resting and then went to church this evening.

Another thing - on Saturday, we had these black things in our rice... it was Chinese fungus. But I'm not sick though, so its all good. :-) Also, after the CI was over and things were cleaned up, we were taken to a 5 star club where we had a buffet dinner with lasagna, lamb, salad (something we don't see much of over here, if ever), a large fruit bar, and desserts like bread pudding and flan. Incredible. and after we finished eating, we all went to the beach (right outside the back door of this place) and waded in the waves! I caught a crab and picked it up... and grabbed his leg with my teeth. Manly moment. *takes a bow* :-D :-D


So, those are my highlights from the last week! I look forward to letting you all know what God does in the days ahead :-) Keep praying that God prepares the hearts of the kids, but that He will also transform the hearts of our team members - its about the kids, but we want to experience change also! I hope none of us go home unchanged :-)

I'm a team leader with Marie Peh as my assistant - pray that we do well this week! :-)

Love you all!
Gladly serving Christ,
Lewis

Ice Kachung!

Today has been quite busy, as have the last several days. I am sorry I've been unable to post updates more recently than now, but it has finally become possible for me to make regular updates this week. :-)

We drove from KL to Penang on Sunday afternoon and went to a very nice Chinese restaurant Sunday night for dinner. I ordered some noodle stuff, but the funny thing is, they didn't bring my food until everyone else finished eating! :-D its ok though, because I was not hungry by the time I got it, and the flavor was quite heavy with soy (not quite my favorite just yet). That night we moved into our next hotel, the GoodHope Inn. It is great! kind of rustic, with a tannish orange color on the exterior walls, and decent rooms. The interesting thing about this place is that the bathroom multitasks - it contains the toilet, sink and shower in one little room :-) Kinda fun! I'm rooming with Victor Pey, our team leader, and he is awesome! We are really enjoying rooming together. We stayed up until 3:30 our first night rooming together, talking about spiritual things, solving the Rubix cube, listening to music and just enjoying hanging out :-)

Today I tried something called Durian and ice kachung. Durian is a spiky outside, pods on the inside, type of fruit... kinda tasted and smells like a rotting sweet onion. the Ice kachung was also very unique! It has shaved ice, topped with a red juice (don't have ANY idea what flavor it was), and creamed corn, black gelatin strips, and red kidney beans. Pretty good stuff :-) when we went to lunch, I bought a chicken and rice plate... when I tried that hot sauce... yeah. pretty much burned my mouth off at first contact :-) :-) awesome!!! :-D

Pray for the team, especially over the next few days. We are going to be using alot of energy, and its not through our strength that we can do anything, but only as God gives us help! He is the reason we are where we are, and its incredible to see Him at work. Keep the prayers coming!

Gladly serving Christ,
Lewis

Goodmorning Everyone!

It is about 12:30 am here in Kuala Lampur and today went very well! We got up this morning and met for breakfast downstairs before leaving for the orphanage. The orphanage is called "stepping stones,"

and it is an openly Christian institution for orphans and underprivileged children. When we got to the orphanage it was approximately 10:30 in the morning and the children were all smiling and very happy to see us. It was so wonderful to see where they live, and to interact with them. I packed my puppet, and the kids just loved it! they put their hands in his mouth, tugged on his hair, pulled on his sleeves and laughed like crazy while i made his head move around and opened and closed his mouth. Then our leaders, Victor and Eunice, led us all in a few songs and we played a couple of group games.

One thing that happened that was kinda scary was while we were singing "shout for joy, Hallelujah," Timmy jumped up (one of the actions in the song) and one of the fans caught his hand pretty good. He said it didn't hurt, but we got it under alcohol and antiseptic pretty quickly so it would be able to stay clean and heal. Immediately, we stopped everything and had a word of prayer for him, and then we started singing again!

The net thing on the agenda was a skit put on by 6 members of the team. It was called "Mrs. Hockenstock." Essentially, the teacher Mrs. Hockenstock, had a Very Very Very Special Book that nobody was allowed to touch until after recess. When the class was out to recess and the teacher was out of sight, one of the children came back into the class and looked in the book. THEN, one of the other kids came in and frightened the person looking at the book and they ripped it! then the rest of the skit revolves around the teacher asking who did it. One child said aliens tore the pages, one said that they did it (trying to be sacrificial and lie to protect someone else), another simply acted crazy and senseless and the last one simply cried (they were guilty :-) ). The moral of the story was to show that telling lies is wrong and that eventually your sins truly will "find you out!"

The CI tonight was wonderful as well! My team was very cooperative and we enjoyed a great game called "Wack-o!" We had all the children stand in a circle and one person in the middle was supposed to "whack" the person whose name was called with a magazine. But if the person whose name was called said someone else's name before the "monkey in the middle" hit them, then that would be the new target, and you continue until someone can't say another person's name fast enough. Our kids really enjoyed it and Liz did a great job of getting the kids to interact and talk with each other :-) I love having an assistant!

Praise God that both Rosalee and Priscilla are feeling somewhat better! Rosalee has been feeling a bit under the weather and stayed at the hotel to rest all day today, but Priscilla's voice is slowly coming back :-) We are glad that they are getting better, but please continue to keep them in your prayers.

A couple things to remember for the team as you pray:

1. That God will bless our efforts as we seek to glorify Him.

2. That we will keep up our energy for the children, especially as we anticipate the 8 hr day of CI on Saturday.

3. For the health of each team member. Not only is it difficult to stay healthy as we have so much to do, but we are around children and a lot of them. It is very easy to be exposed to a lot of sickness in a night.

4. That God prepares the way for the next CI!!! :-) We have so much to look forward to in the weeks and days ahead!

Thank you all for your continued prayer and support!

Love ya'll!

Gladly serving,

Lewis

Hi Everyone, My name is Lewis!

WOW!!! This trip is amazing!

God is great!

First off, I want to say that my team leaders, Victor and Eunice, are totally amazing. They are certainly a God-send and their expertise in what they do has helped the team feel equipped for the challenges and obstacles ahead. our team is totally drawing closer together each day and gaining new ground for God's kingdom!

Yesterday, we gathered for Teach training in the morning and had breakfast (yogurt cups and honey sticks, a little cups of juice) in Eunice's room. Then we all had devotions and prayed together before truly diving into the material of the day. After a couple hours we went to Subway (I know!!! Shocking that we got american fare! :-D ), and there I devoured 1.5 foot-long subs... I was slightly hungry - thinking is alot of work! Then we went back to the room for some additional training and they said that there was a test we needed to take...

1. this made me a little nervous. I forgot to study at lunch (remember the amount I ate? thats 18 inches of sandwich..)

2. I had no idea what the nature of the test was. It might be fill-in-the-bubbles. It might be multiple choice. It could be oral or freestyle or in Malaysian for all I knew.

It wasn't! They picked about 6 people to stand up in the middle of the room (I was one of them), and they had us close our eyes while they put little notes in our hands. I didn't realize why I was not given a note at first, then they said, "ok, this is an example of a group and Lewis is going to teach the lesson." :-D Cool!!!

So, we all sat down and got comfy, and someone mentioned I needed an assistant. (I got one, thank the Lord!) then they gave the word, "Go!!!" Things got intense fast. The kids started making noises, picking their noses, hitting each other, slapping each other, crying, turning around, moving, scratching, complaining... all at one time! I separated the most rowdy two first while the most needy ones went on a walk with my assistant (bathroom break i think), and I had the most active guy (we're talking a 6'2" kid who can't sit still) come and get in my lap and help hold my book for me. Then I pulled out a comb and asked "HEY!!! What do you use a comb for?!? Do you use it to brush your teeth?? Would you use it to eat with??" then, once I had the children's attention, I quickly tied this into the lesson about God's design for us and how the comb reflects how each person is made for a specific purpose designed by God. Fortunately, the test only lasted about 10-15 minutes, and I passed with flying colors according to the positive and encouraging feedback I received!

Last night's CI was pretty good also! We had 4 children, Rinnah, Yasha, Stephanie, and Samuelle. They were great :-) The funny thing was, instead of being the little dynamite sticks of energy I had trained for, they were the world's quietest and shy children... So that was tough! But tonight we got three more kids who were more outgoing and they changed the entire dynamic of the group and it went much better! :-) All in all, both nights went terrific!

Last night our story was about Abraham and Isaac and about how Abraham had to sacrifice Isaac on an alter, but God provided a ram instead, when He saw that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his ONLY and precious son for God. I played the part of Abraham and the kids really seemed to love the play! We had a great time and I ended up picking Jeremy up (Isaac in the story) and carrying him over my shoulder like a rag doll. good times!

Tonight we did eggs and dropped them onto the floor from a ladder, and then dropped one in a parachute to demostrate how authority only works when we are underneath of its protective canopy. It will not work to wrap ourselves inside of it, lay on top of it, land on it, go around it, but only when we are completely underneath our authority can God bless us and give us the things He has in store for us. Victor did an awesome job of telling that story and the kids received it very well!

The second story tonight was about the ten plagues in Egypt and the team did a wonderful job of telling the story! The markers drawn onto Connor's face were AWESOME and he looked super freaky :-D :-D WOO HOO team!!!! great job!

Last night we were served dinner before the CI, and there was rice, strips of chicken, nuts, a bit of fried egg, and little dried out fish that looked like someone's guppy. A great meal, and tonight's was wonderful also although it was different! We also enjoyed an Indian lunch today at a local restaurant, which was totally unique and delicious! :-)

Please keep praying that our CI's go well, and that we keep our energy up!!!

also, two of the girls on my team are sick - one with a virus, the other with a sore throat/cold. Please pray they are restored to full health asap!

We go to see an orphanage in the morning - I'll let you know how it goes :-)

Love you all!

Glad to serve,

Lewis

Hey everyone! It has truly been an incredible few days. I left my house early thursday morning and went to the airport. After my mother and I enjoyed a coffee together, I headed off for the gate, eager to board the plane to minneapolis and then on to Singapore! I gor through security just fine without any trouble at all, and things went rather smoothly. My flight left right on time and quickly I made a new friend on the plane by the name of Claire. I was not sure at first, but she seemed like a Christian girl. I askede where she was going, and shesaid, "on I'm going to singapore." whoa. Then I asked what she'd be doing there. "I'm teaching classes to kids actually, its for a missions trip." My mental jaw hit the floor at that point. How incredible that I would meet someone from my team on my FIRST flight! (I thought I'd not meet anyone until I got to asia, so this was a special blessing).

God blessed me with company at the very beginning of my travles, and I am certainly thankful for that. in Minneapolis I made some final phone calls before leaving the States, and soon Claire and I found Priscilla, Toby, Timmy, and Jeremy, other people who are on our SEA (SouthEast Asia) team. On our flight, they announced that a "cute girl" was looking for other people with the missions group "IBLP" and sure enough, a girl from Louisiana by the name of Tiffany found our group! The seven of us got to know each other - it was awesome to have so many people on the same flight, all of us going to the same place with the same mission!!!

Well, we still had not taken off at this point... Then we realized that our flight should already have left... *cough*. Like, a while ago... *cue wide-eyed obvious look*

A voice came over the intercom, "We are having difficulty with a repair to the aircraft, we expect that it will be another 15-20 minutes until things are fixed again. we apologize for the inconvenience."

No big deal! A lesson in patience, right? :-) 3 hours, many revised announcements, and a LOT of patience and growing in Jesus later, we taxied out to the runway and took off for Tokyo, Japan. Thats another thing - I thought I was going to fly by myself the entire way and ended up flying with 6 other people. And, I thought I'd be flying straight to Singapore from Minn. St Paul, but instead I had a layover in Japan. Here's the catch though - since our plane had taken so long to repair, we missed our connection in Japan to Singapore - the final flight of the night!!! After three hours of waiting and 11 hours of flying (14 hrs total in the plane), we arrived in Tokyo and started the ever so tedious process of going through customs, immigration, and finding the people who would give us hotel vouchers. For some reason I was not feeling well and I was actually in the washroom of the airplane when we touched down, simply because I was feeling terribly dizzy and out of sorts. Thankfully, God helped me to feel better later in the evening.

Within a couple crazy hours, we got to our very nice hotel in Tokyo and were able to SHOWER!!!

After sooo long, it was quite nice to get clean. I personally took 3 showers. Hot water never felt so good :-)

I have completely lost my concept of time... Buying a watch is quite high on my list of "things to buy" this week, haha! We all went to bed, but most of us did not sleep well due to the jet lag. Still, the hotel stay was a blessing because it got us away from the airplanes and airport, and supplied a much needed change of pace for everyone.

In the morning, we took the shuttle back to the airport (after 8 hrs of "downtime" from travel). It was quite the experience, searching for the right ticket counter, finding our way back to where we needed to be, wondering if we could make our flight in time! This flight was, by far, my favorite. Japan Airlines, you rock!!! The in-flight meal of rice and beef sauce, sushie (wasn't that bad by the way), cake, then the drinks (OJ, gren tea, etc) and the hot damp wash clothes that they brought around = AWESOME!!! Seriously, it was like flying business class :-) Maybe better. I loveed it! they had little tv's for every seat and it was just wonderful.

Well, we landed in Singapore after another 8 hours, and everyone was definitely starting to experience the fatigue from traveling so long with such little rest. We collected our baggage and met the contact people in Singapore. Then we raced to a food court, inhaaaaaled a quick meal, and raced to the bus station so that we could catch a bus to the budget airline company. Once we arrived there, everyone had to weigh their suitcases and carry-ons. I don't know how I was over, but I left my one pair of dress shoes, my hoodie and my one shirt in Singapore in order to be within the weight limites. So, after just a couple hours on the ground in Singapore, we hurried to the next gate to catch a flight to Malaysia! Wheww!!!

As it turns out, we had some spare time to kill before the flight. MY TEAM IS AWESOME!!! We split up into teams and played Guestures in the terminal while we waited for our 10:25 pm flight. The girels team won, but I must say that the guys did well and the girl's barely won ;-) I pulled out my puppet and we played with him a while. (he needs a name, suggestions anyone?) I carried him in my arms like a little child and some of the security guards thought he was a child! The looks on their faces were totally priceless when they gasped and realized it was a puppet :-)

Sitting on the floor at our gate, we told stories and passed the time as we waited for the plane to arrive. The sound of wheels rolling echoed down the hall, and what do you know, the same lady who weighed our luggage and carry-ons was rolling in the ticket kiosk! This was truly the "budget" with a capital "B" airlines. As it turned out, our plane did not arrive on time. But its ok! We only had a fourty-five minute flight from Singapore to Malaysia, and customs did not take long once we arrived. We drove to the Summit Hotel and everyone said goodnight and I found my room, clear up on the 15th floor. How awesome!!! You can see sooo many city lights from up here, its totally cool! :-)

They told me that my roomate, John, was quite difficult to wake up. I agree. :-) I beat the door and rang the bell for the better part of 15 minutes before I went back downstairs to the front desk and asked for an extra key to get into my room. I got to bed around 1:30 am (1:30 pm according to my body) and sleep was amazing. Kinda like passing out, I didn't even remember getting comfortable really, haha!

This morning (Sunday), we met in the lobby and after meeting our other teamates, we loaded into the bus and went to church. the service was wonderful and the sermon very insightful! The pastor preached from Phil. 3:1-21 and we must have sang 6-7 hymns throughout the course of the service. Afterwards, we got back into the bus and drove to an open air market where we enjoyed "typical cuisine." Wow. I have to mention this, I've been to other countries and tried different foods, but nothing compares to the food I've experienced here in Asia so far. It is just so unique and different from anything I've previously tasted or tried. the eating of shrimp and noodles with chopsticks, drinking from a bowl with floating pieces of coconut-flavored jello and hardboiled eggs (the drink was flavored sweet-like, I can't exactly plave the flavor though), it was all very new to me :-)
A great experience though! You just had to not think about the slight smell of sewage in the air and just have fun eating :-) At some point, another grill started up and the smell from it toned everything down and I was able to more fully focus on enjoying the new and adventurous dishes set before me!

After that we left the open air market, we came back to the hotel and rested/shopped/slept/cleaned up. Later we went to dinner at a cool cafe in the mall (which happened to be about 4 stories high and connected directly to our hotel!).

Now I'm in my room and having already re-organized my suitcase, figured out that half of my shirts do not have a collar (something that we need for dress code here), hung up clothes, looked over some study material, bought internet time from the hotel and generally tried to get things together for tomorrow, I am updating things and doing my best to wind down :-)

I love you all! Thank you for your prayers.

Here are a couple requests that I could especially use your assistance in covering THIS week!
1. That God will give each member of the team a passion to serve selflessly and completely.
2. Each of the team members is given emotional, spiritual, and physical strength for the work ahead.
3. That God will help us to effectively use our time as we prepare for the first session tomorrow night, and that He will guide us as we prepare our lessons.
4. I was made a team leader as of this afternoon and I need God's special guidance as I dig into the material and work on the lesson. I believe we have the kids for a total of 4 hours..
5. For me, that I will be open to what God wants me to learn, and that I will draw closer to Him each moment of the day.

:-) So far its been one epic trip! Thanks again for the prayers! I will do my best to update this blog as often as possible, but please understand that things come up (primary example - taking 3 days to get to Malaysia instead of 30 hours like I originally thought, lol!!!) :-)
See you all later!

Gladly serving,

Lewis

Hey everyone! I can't figure out how to copy and paste my HUGE posting from a text document to this for some odd reason... I am doing well and the trip has been wonderful so far! I really appreciate all the prayers :-) I will post an update (full length) as soon as possible!

Love you all!

Gladly serving,
Lewis

Tick Tock Goes the Clock

A few more hours and my trip to Asia will be underway!

At 6 am, Eastern Standard Time, I will be getting up, putting on my travel clothes and eating breakfast! Then my family will circle up and have a quick huddle and a word of prayer for me before I leave.

Then, at 7 o'clock, I will be pulling out of my driveway and headed to the Cincinnati airport so that I can start towards Southeast Asia! Once I reach the airport, the enjoyable routine of baggage-checking, ticket-printing, "please stand over in this little cubicle while we wand you down and ask you random questions," routine will begin! :-) Airports simply hum with energy, so this is quite enjoyable. Then I will kiss my mum goodbye and be on my way to Singapore!

Please continue to pray that God will provide the number of children needed for our seminars - He can work a miracle! Also, remember the other team members as they travel from all over the world to meet in Singapore.

I look forward to standing in line,

A smile on my face as I pass the time.

The chance to go and tell and see,

this is the time and the person is me.

Southeast Asia is where I will go,

The trip will be long, this you well know!

Pray for me often, and while I am there,

remember I love you way back over here!

:-)