Mission Trip (part 9) (Kg Tallas)

we sat on the truck talking and laughing as usual. we went past some paddy fields and came across a SDA church that was having service. seems like we had to get the people before they did. the roads were also dusty as to the fact u can see the covering of dust on the cars that were parked along the road. some unpleasant words were writen there as well but i won’t eleborate more after travelling for quite a considerable distance and time, we realised that we were in a town. i was a bit happy to see something familiar after 6 days in the interior. we went on futher away from the town and were going past some land with alot of lalang. suddenly we were slowing down and we turned into a church. oh wow, i thought, what happened to the village? i read the sign in front of the church that said “SIB Pekan”. freda then told us that this was where she got hiro, her dog. we stopped in front of the church but only pr tom got down. appearently, our next transport was late so we stayed in the truck. aaron and nat were playing a game where each person took turns to say a really depressing story of their make believe girlfriends and see if they can keep a straight face the whole time. nat was the obvious winner coz he’s face never changed while aaron couldn’t stand it and laughed everytime he heard nat’s story and every time he told his own story. juan was asleep which was a miracle considering the loudness of the laughter that came from matt, aaron, kevin and me.

after waiting for around half an hour, another truck came. the people in there greeted us. so we took our bas and we went to…the back of the church. there was a building there and a lady who greeted us. she is Pastor Juilina or something like that..hehe.i can’t really remember. but she’s the youth and children’s pastor of the church in front and the building is an asrama for the kids who live in the kampungs and need a place to stay as their school is in town. shes the head of the whole asrama and according to freda, her eldest brother is also staying in the asrama coz its closer to the school where he works as a teacher. he just wasen’t there coz he goes home during the weekends.

we put all over stuff in a room that was stated “pelawat”. cool. i quickly change into my skirt and left my jeans on the bed and got outta there. it was a narrow passage way so if we nothing to do we were to stay outside the asrama. a dog came by and freda became super friendly with it. reason? that dog was hiro’s mother and another dog that soon came after was hiro’s brother. i forgot their names but who cares, right? well, freda cares but lets go on with the story.
we werent going to this church but another one in a kampung so we all climbed in to the new truck (this time with pr tom at the back with us) and we set off for a wonderful journey ahead. wheee…………………

……..ouch! woah! ah!!! i’m falling off! those were the screams and shouts of the poor 12 ppl who were sitting at the back of the truck. haha… we went by a lot of differnent terrain such as paddy fields and a lot of trees. the roads were so dusty that i tried to minimise as much talking as posible. the roads were almost like no ending, as bernice calls it. then we came to a hill. the slope was like more than 45 degrees that the driver changed the motor into a 4 wheel type. when we went up, you can feel the change in energy of the truck just go up. we passed by a lot of rubber trees and the road became rockier and rockier. we went up and down the whole time and we were all holding on to the railings for dear life coz we could fly out the back. it was like being pulled into a black hole at the same time we were having fun. espeacially with freda who couldn’t stop “melatar-ing” the whole journey there. we went by beautiful scenery along the hills. the roads was also super rocky to the fact that some parts of the road were actually rocks.

after travelling for an hour, we came by a clearing with a real-life buffalo in front of us! for me, it was a new experience because i have never seen a buffalo so up close before! i know, what’s so great about seeing a buffalo and yada yada… u kinda had to be in my shoes to know this feeling. we went in futher to see more houses, all of them on stilts. the driver parked the truck under the garage and we all pilled out. an old lady walked by us so yi lin and i said good morning to her but the lady seemed to be “scolding” us, i guess? we looked at each other confused until the driver told us that she was “off”. oh…. that makes sence.

we then procceded into a house right next to where we were and ushered into the living room. the kitchen was in another section of the house where all the ladies and kids were at. the living room was big. 2 single couches were at one end of the room while at the other was the double and triple couch. pr tom and i sat on the double couch while the other 3 girls sat on the triple couch. the guys sat on the floor next to the single couches and benjamin sat on one of the couches. matthew was practicing with the guitar together with kevin while everyone else rested and slept because we all didnt really have enough sleep. did i mention that it was a HOT day and there was no fan there. so u can imagine the heat and sweat that was coming down our necks, wave by wave. thank God that an occational breeze came by once in a while. hey, can’t blame for wanting to experience nature as it is. its like when u r in a “hot” situation, God comes in to refresh u so that u can face the troubles. i still believe the best way to experience God is by nature, not manmade stuff.

anyways, after waiting a while, an elderly man came in. he’s the man of the house so we went to greet him. he sat on one of the single couches and talked to us. turns out he has 5 or 7 sons (i can’t remember). the eldest is already a father and the youngest is still studying. his eldest son was sitting on the varendah outside, carrying his newborn child. so cute… we talked to the old man more and realised that he was the pengerusi of the church and the entire congregation consisted of his family members throughout the kampung. the pastor of the church then came to meet with us and suprise, suprise, he was our driver to this village. guess if u didnt have someone from the kampung to take u here, u wont be able to find it even until the next day. he had a friendly chat with us and invited us to have breakfast first.

man were we full after breakfast. i mean, who can take in more food after the eagle meat meal? not to mention that we were more tired than hungry so we just ate up. it was nice btw. the cili just made it even nicer. no wonder we were able to eat the second rounds. after breakfast, the bell rang for service. we went towards the church after putting on our shoes and yeah, remember tat i told u that i should have brought my flats? well this is the prob. becoz my stupid heels were 2 inches high and they were strapies, i took a long time to put on my shoes and was the last person of the group to reach anywhere. seriously, its not nice to bend down and fasten the buckle of ur shoe when u’re standing 2 feet in the air and on the edge of FALLING DOWN!! so anyway, we walked over to the church which was like just 3 metres away from the house we were at.

the church was like the houses around it except that it had a brass bell hanging in front of the doors and a sign above it that says SIB Tallas. it was all made by bamboo. we went up the steps (yeap, steps) into the sancutary. it was a really cute church as to the fact that it had wooden benches and a stage with the musical insturments. we were to do the acceptance drama but we were seriously drained out, as evident when we were doing practice. but we all prayed for strength and that we would be able to give our best during ministry.

it was a service of change for all of us as we usually did our service at night but becoz this was a morning sunday service, we all were abit more “hot” than usual. the guys were wearing their long sleveed shirts and tie while we the girls were covered neckto feet. well, freda and yi lin at least. bernice and i were only covered to our knees. doing the drama on heels wasent as bad as i thought. i didnt fall down or anything embarressing so it was a smooth show all the way. yi lin’s group was in charge of the childern’s ministry and it was their last time so pr tom told them to give away all their sweets so that we wouldn’t have to bring back to penang all of it. the congregation wasnt as much as the other villagers but i can tell they had a good time. they were mostly rubber tappers as seen from the number of tapped rubber trees near the village. pr tom’s jokes kept the old man laughing so much that he held his stomach. must be really funny to him i guess. i suppose after hearing pr tom’s jokes again and again made me “immune” to it so i just smiled everytime he made a joke. after service we all headed back to the house to rest.

we went back to the house to see the kids running around yi lin and aaron while holding their lion masks. some of the kids were really getting into the character of a lion that they were so cute roaring. i took some photos for memory sake and plus the little girl was so adorable. the eldest son of the old man then turned on the tv and put on a hillsong live album. i was like, yeah! hillsong! were all sitting at the same place as we first came with the exception that kevin had switched places with yi lin. she was on one of the single couches playing with the ids. everyone who needed the rest slept again. i wanted to, but with the song going on and the heat going on, i just couldn’t. so what i did was sing along softly along with the album. at that time, they also took out a stand fan so we wouldnt feel so hot so it was really kind of them to do so. we had lunch with them as well and the dishes were as good as the amount they served us. man it was so good that i didnt realise that breakfast had gone away so fast and we were really hungry! during lunch they changed the cd to one of a indonesian christian singer doing a large scale concert like hillsong. really good man i tell u….

soon, we had to leave because it was going to rain and with that kind of terrain we had to go on, it was advisiable that we go while its still dry. so we had a group photo with the old man’s family and we again, climbed into the truck in similar fasion. well, not really, the truck was backed to the steps so it was much easier to get into the truck. oh ya, we had an extra passenger with us! he was a 13 year old boy who needed to go to back to the asrama after his weekend back home. so he came with us in his school uniform and sat in the middle of the truck. it started to drizzle as we said goodbye to the people and off we went to the jungle of rubber trees.

the journey back was just eventful as getting there. we were going down slopes of rocks and the eldest son of the old man and his son (i think) followed the truck at the back with his motorbike. it was nessesary coz we needed his help to remove rocks that were blocking our path. halfway through the jungle, we stopped. we thought that the driver was gonna change the motor of truck but manatau we were actually changing drivers! we took this opportunity to take photos and videos for the final editing. it was fun making the truck shake as if we were travelling.

then the new driver came in a car with other people inside. pr tom shook hands with him and so the old driver stood at the edge of the truck as he was also going into town. pr tom decided that since he was already outside, he wanted to try doing what the old driver did. we then left after waving goodbye to the old man’s eldest son and parted ways at the juction. while we were travelling we stopped again on top of a hill in front of a giant rock. appearnently we were being given the opportunity to take pictures in front of the rock. we climbed out of the truck and climbed up the rock and posed for pictures. felt like on top of the world k... it was fun climbing up all the rocks in baju kurung and heels so the pictures looked really gaya man...hehe...we went on and on until we got back to the asrama. we were given time to relax all the way till dinner. so the girls took our bags and went to our room. there was a double decker bed as well as sleeping space on the floor so we were quite happy. ah…nth beats cleaning off all the dust than a nice bath….

during dinner, we were treated like vip’s by the students who were staying there as well as the pastor. the assistant head of the SIB pastors of kota marudu were also there as well as other AJKs. we sat outside due to the limited space of the dining hall but we had a great time as well. after giving as a brief history of SIB Pekan, pr tom introduced all of us to the people present and then we all had dinner. after dinner, freda’s brother came back so she was so excited to see him again. she went to find him in his rom while the rest of us minggled with teh students. i found bernice in our room doing stuff when she told me she had a splinter. thanks to that, i did my very first, on my own, no one there to bug me, “sugery”. haha… i used a needle and *i don’t u wanna know what i did, its quite taxing on the heart* and i got the splinter out! good thing bernice didnt scream or anything if not i’ll panic and end up poking her hand instead. her pain resistance, way off the chart. i think. haha.

i went out again to join the rest in talking to the students. nat was the main star as he constantly made the group laugh. if u wanna know what he did, don’t coz its quite contagious anyways, we all went to bed at 10 pm and had sweet dreams coz we

really

were

tired.


zzzzzzZZZZZ………..

yes it's me
2:01 AM