and so with rain just stopping, we reached a kampung called Tagaroh. a lovely clearing for a village and a huge church if may add. we stopped in front of the church and ps tom came out. we came out as well and there were the pengerusi and some of the woman folk that came out to greet us. the ibu-ibu there came and shook our hands and greeted to us “sonung kesua bon!)
huh?
yeah…then they translate to us that that was dusun for good morning or good afternoon. oh… so we greet them back the same sentence but since they saw us having difficulty in pronouncing the words, they just switched to selamat petang to us. haha. pity us.
then ps tom told us why he’s so relaxed here. last year, the team came here to do the serengeti trek. so he’s feeling very at home at this place. we took our bags and went to the house for us which is just opposite the church. it was the same house they stayed in last year but with a few changes. they reno-ed the place to give it extra space. the bottom part of the house was covered up to become the living room while the outside was painted pink. it really did have a homey feel to it.
and so we went to another house to have tea. the house belonged to the former pastor of the church who moved to pastor another church. the pengerusi was elected just a month ago and it was proving a challenge to him considering he just had a baby 8 months ago. we chated for some time and got used to the place. the kitchen was big and the toilets were good enough for privacy. the girls talked with the mak cik mak cik and they showed diff types of vegetables and fruits. some of us even tried to cook the vege! we then requested to hang our clothes that we washed at the river at the previous church (did i mention that? washing clothes in the river was so fun!) and the pengerusi said that we could use to clothes line at 2 different houses. so the girls took the clothes line at the pastor’s house while the guys use the clothes line at another abandoned house and after hanging all our clothes, we went to the church to do a raptai.
wow. the church has a big space. the alter area is long and big, the stage is big, and by the looks of it, the whole santuary is big. they also have ohp so i was put in charge of it. the whole raptai was good and soon it was time to go and get ready. ps tom told us that the next village that we went to will require a 5 hour climb (oh man!) and also informed us that we also had to do a youth service for them as well. the pengerusi wanted us to specificaly address the issue of the youth there who go to town and get their faith shaken there. so we were required to share to them one by one on the pulpit.
who was not scared at that moment? no idea. coz that was what was going thru our head that time. 5 hours to think of something to say to a bunch of youth for 5 minutes. if stage fright din kill us then, maybe the whole what topic to say to them might. i was going nuts at that time. but that wasn’t the issue yet. we still only had less than an hour to change and get ready for dinner.
this is how the toilets were. four rooms. one bathroom for the guys and one for the girls. the other 2 were toilets for both gender. wow. who ever knew that bathing would take so long. espeacially with 8 guys waiting to use one bathroom. the girls were first to finish bathing (oh yeah!) and got started on putting on our makeup.
we went for dinner at 7pm. the food was nice and we had a nice chat with some of the youth there as well. some were working already while some was the same age as us. soon after eating we went for service. we had to use our torchlights coz it was really dark then.
when we were there, yi lin quickly drew devil motif for kevin’s eyes since he was playing the devil in the heart drama later. introducing him was a funny coz he look weird smiling in his makeup. service went by as usual and yi lin’s group was in charge of children ministry.
after service, we had the youth service. we played games with them while i met a new friend name Fet. she was one year younger than me and was pretty nervous about spm. we talked alot and got along pretty well if u ask me. then we prayed for all the youths and went back home. so we din do the sharing thing with them.
since the ibu-ibu had prepared us some supper, we got to eat doughnuts, some sort of really nice kuih and sago desert. really nice man… since some of the youth didn’t go home yet because the next day was a holiday, we invited them in as well. man did we chat. they came in and talked and we shared our experiences abt sym with them as well. pr tom showed them the sym video and some of them expressed interest to join next year. only thing holding them back was the cost of the whole 3 months. we all talked until 2.30 am and the youth went home. we had a mini debrief and soon we all went to bed.
the next day, we woke up at 8 am. after doing that we do every morning including having breakfast, we went downstairs when we were ready to have devotion. freda had already left for kk to recieve an award from her school (gratz girl!) and pr tom took juan to the hospital or klinik to see a doctor abt his nose. when i went down to the living room, aaron and some others were there already and was just relaxing for a while. aaron was playing the guitar and we had a fun time trying to translate “My Redeemer Lives” from english to BM. then bernice came down and we started devotion. after that we prayed for the previous village and this village as well. it was at the middle of prayer pr tomand juan came back and so they joined in as well.
let me tell u this, in all our prayer times, we never had such a frevernt prayer b4. everyone was passionate in their prayers and 2 ppl became so “high” on the Lord that all of us were suprised at their beheviour. we were all praying halfway when suddenly nat starting clapping his hands. kinda like auntie hannah when she prays. juan also prayed loudly that his words were not stuttering like usual. the power of God? i would say yes. God’s spirit moved.
after prayer, pr tom told us that the hike to the next village was cancelled as the road to that place had closed. both the hiking trail and road to that village had a prob coz it rained last night. so we were to skip to the next village. we all packed up our bags, had lunch and swept up the house.
the pengerusi came in a lorry. yup, that was our transport to the next kampung. it was a truck with a roof over the back, metal bars to keep u from falling out of the sides and a long bangku to sit. after praying for the pengerusi, pr tom arranged us all in a way that the bags is both on our laps and between our legs. then we all sat in it with some of the youth with us. we all waved goodbye to the ppl there and went happily on our way to kampung number 4.

yes it's me
5:30 PM