Mission Trip log

My Team :)

Name Job
1. Pastor Thomas Barnabas (RGBC) (unknown) Team Leader
2. Benjamin Tan (RGBC) (Choleric-Melancoly) Asst. Team Leader
3. Aaron Heng (SIB Likas) (Phlegmetic-Sanguine) Treasurer
4. Bernice Heng (SIB Likas) (Choleric-Sanguine/Meloncoly) Prayer Coordinator
5. Daniel Mak (EPCC) (Phlegmatic-Choleric) Video Camera
6. Elfreda Floria Danny (SIB Kingfisher) (Meloncoly-Choleric) Medic
7. Juan Ling (Basil KK) (Sanguine-Phlegmetic) Time Keeper
8. Kevin Wong (SIB Likas) (Phlegmetic-Choleric) Equipment Manager
9. Li Mei (RGBC) (Sanguine-Phlegmetic) Camera
10. Matthew Lok (SIB Likas) (Meloncoly-Phlegmatic) Worship Director
11. Netheniel Austin Pong (SIB Kingfisher) (Phleg-Chol) Property Manager
12. Yi Lin (RGBC) (Sanguine-Phlegmatic) Secretary
as u can see, my team is very “colourful” u can bet that we had a blast with one another ;p

waddup ppl! i’m back from “the land below the wind”, SABAH. haha. i know….finally i managed to sit on a plane. and i got outta peninsula malaysia too… so thats 2 things i can cross off my “i have never….” list.
let me start by getting to the airport. i nearly got my team to be disqulified becos of the prob at tesco and the morning traffic of mondays. u know bayan lepas…. benjamin was like “hurry, we’re checking in already.” and i was like “i’m trying here!” sish………
so finaly i got to the airport. i quickly did the whole security thing and ran like mad to the counter. luckily pastor tom delayed time by checking in the others first. haha… after giving my ic, i was at rest….

sitting on a plane is fun. well for me its fun coz its my first time and jin keet was like, its ur first time?! haha. so the whole procedre of the safety thing, the lift off, the sound, the senery of penang from the top which btw looks alot like mini monopoly if u ask me, and the the view of the clouds in mid-air is so nice. after all, whats a lot to see in the air for 2 and a half hours?
we arrived 25 minutes earlier than expected. really, i tell u if there ever a thing called saman for flying too fast, air asia will kena so many times man. anyways, we got all our luggage in 15 mins. bernice got her floorball stick from the cabin crew coz it came out or smth i guess. then we “how how tang tang” went out of the terminal and into the airport arrival area.
the sabahans were greeted by their families and to take stuff that they needed for the mission trip. who would’nt after not seeing ur kid for 3 months? i realised that bernice and arron got alot from their dad. aaron looks like and talks like his dad while bernice gets her adventurous side from him. i guess when she’s quiet she becomes like her mom. matthew’s sis doesn;t really look like him. maybe if he took off the glasses. kevin’s parents were….. i dunno, his parents? juan borrowed the heng’s travel bag and dumped his whole luggage into it. haha. nat went home with his parents to return the textbooks he din returned so he wasent present for day 1 in mission trip. elfreda’s dad was waiting for her and he was the one who led us all to our first sabah food. we sat in a “van” persiaran and we went to a kopitiam in sabah.

we went to eat at a kopitiam where i had lemon chicken rice. basically its just fried chicken pieces with rice and lemon sauce poured all over it. its nice at first, but the sourness of the sauce just makes ur tongue go numb after a while. oh ya, did i mention the cost? 6 freakin 50! for a plate that the highest i wud pay is 5 bucks! well it is their signiture dish anyways so who am i to critize right? now i know penangnites tend to be a bit picky with their food when they go to other states.haha. bad penangnite. me.
after the whole big meal and mistaking elfreda’s mom for juan’s mom (they work at the same school! its an honest mistake!) and reuniting with the majority of elfreda’s family, we set off for our first village and church, SIB Manggeris 2.
the senery there compared with kk is totally different. i mean in kk right, looks like a mixture between batu ferringgi and penang town. the route there looks more like on the way to balik pulau if you take the paya terubong road. seriously, its all just trees.

we reached some huts, but we were wondering where the church was. some ladies came and helped us carry our bags but we were like, no its ok then we realised that the church was located on top of the hill! luckily its a small climb so we din die or anything… for a while i thought the whole all the stamina training we did in air itam dam and team building was gonna kick in but since it was just a few meters from where we were so what the heck la….
when we got there we were greeted by pengerusi raphael (i think). after introducing ourselves, we went to the church to do a raptai. looking at that place, the space was like one third of the rgbc sanctuary with no side doors. ps tom said to improvise coz we had to the the aceptance drama. after a slight rehersal, we went back to the house desinganated for us to stay to get ready. after changing, we went out and talked to the ppl that were arriving. appearantly they walked over a hill just to get here. thank God they were teenagers. if they were old ppl.... i dunno what to think. they said that this village has the most number of babi hutan but unfortuantely we din get to see one. although, we did get to see a baby asian sloth. kinda cute... well it has to be, considering all the girls were going "so cute!" at it. Someone rang the "bell", meaning the service has started.

and so the whole ministry went on. first the pengerusi intro us to the congregation (jemaah), ps tom took over and intro us to the ppl 1 by 1. we stood in one line, according to what we wud be doing next and the drama. worship was ok, except the part when we had to keep looking at the lyrics halfway coz some of us havent really memorized teh whole song. haha. pity the guys who had to hold the mahjong paper with lyrics coz they dun have ohp.
after worship we had testimony! elfreda did the salvation testimony. then we did the drama! since space was limited, we tried our best to stay in timing with the “made to love” song. anywho, we made it and testimony again, this time it was aaron who had to share how God had blessed (memberkati) him. then ps tom took over again and send all the little kids to our hse for children ministry. for more info on that, pls ask elfreda’s group coz it was her group that was in charge that day.
ps tom’s msg to the villagers was started off as funny. he used the malay Bible (Alkitab) to speak and the verse that he used was Ibrani fasal 5, ayat 13-14 which translates as Hebrews 5: 13-14. its about christians having to be mature and stop playing church with God. then he passed the time back to the pengerusi and he called for an alter call which every1 came out to be prayed for! we were all like, wow? so we went, guy to guy, girl to girl, and began to pray, all in bm. IN BM!!! i mean, i’m at the border of passing my bm in school and i had to pray in BM?! eh who cares? i just prayed anyways, as the Lord leads la. supprisingly the words came as simple as it was. God’s miracle, if u ask me.
after we were done, we all went to bathe at 10 something at night with no electricity. the bathroom was down at the slope, a zinc shack with running water (thank God) and that was it. 2 girls showed us the way and it was hillarious for them to see 4 city girls with no idea how to bathe together. it was funny i tell u.
no light. use torchlight. no soap. use other ppl one la. —this section is closed and classified and is stored in certain ppl’s minds only. no more writing abt it.—
ok…….. after we came out and yi lin falling down, we, the girls, sat in the house, waiting for the boys to bathe finish. man the stars there is uncountable. seriously, its like a star wallpaper. thats one thing sabah has against penang. sad. so there we were, sitting, talking, eating chipsmore.
ahh chipsmore…. nth like a nice cookie after ministry time. SYM 2010, remember, buy chipsmore for mission trip. its one thing u can look forward to if u want to munch. anyways, after talking and bernice trying to sleep, the guys came back and we had dinner and debrief. we talked about what we saw God work in and through us. we had to write those stuff down into the mission trip handbook. and so after that we went to bed. well technically, yi lin and i shared a room while bernice and elfreda slept in the other. the guys were all in the main room. and ps tom was snoring away 2 minutes after he opened his sleepin bag. i went to bed after reading jessica’s sms.
the next morning, we went to the bathroom. since it was a school day, we knew where we were going to bathe. after that we had our breakfast (can’t remember what it was) and we packed up everything. kevin, being the property manager, checked everything we had and distributed the stuff in the ministry box to all of us becoz we cant carry that long box everywhere we go. and so we played with some of the kids as we waited for lunch to be cooked. –skip to lunch time–
lunch was nice. the chicken, super good man. and bernice was like, i wan summore watermelons! since we suposed to take 2 rounds, i was happy. but pastor tom told us to take not so much coz we had to leave sum for the villagers to eat. it was the ibu-ibu of the village that cooked for us….
oh and did i mention? mr. netheniel left us at the airport to settle some stuff at school and so did not join us at the ministry. but, it was at lunch time that he came to the village to join us, with his dad, mom, and cousin and his aunt i think? anyway, he came back and we were all, austin! and our fellowship continued with matthew sketching a building and yi lin and elfreda playing games with the kids there. those of us who felt emo all of sudden went back to the house to sleep. soon every1 went to the house to sleep.
well, at least i wasent sleeping. the kids followed us into the house too so me being the then most energetic 1, entertained the kids while every1 else had their naps. i took the time to do what i planned to do b4 i came, learn the dusun language. the kids were a great help (and elfreda too) and soon i learned how to put sentences together. after that, our ride came and we all had to go.
the kids were playing something called tikus or something. its basically a game of tag but they dun mind playing it even how old they are. no wonder they’re so thin, they exersice everyday for fun! gone are those days for me…
and so we all gathered outside to pray for the pengerusi with benjamin closing. then we all said goodbye, gave our number to the kids, and we all took our stuff down to the suvournier shop at the bottom of the slope. some of them who were hungry for tea bought jagung that was bbqed. not bad if u ask me. tastes just like steamed ones. we joked with the kids and soon, our transport, a van and a kembara arrived. after ps tom arranged our bags, we left for village number 2.