im finally back. it's been one long, tiring, enlightening, refreshing, draining, and definitely, once in a life time experience. i would say not only did we bless Hope Sibu and Hope Sarikei, they definitely blessed us in ways beyond measure as well.

it was an eye opener for me, and considering its my first official mission trip, and approved by both my parents. and it seems that i am the youngest among the whole team hope singapore.

as expected, the main obstacle for me was the communication barrier. it is certainly one thing to speak just fluent mandarin and another, to pray, share testimonies, teach, and to lead praise and worship in mandarin. and well guess what, i managed to do all that! it's certainly been quite an adventure i suppose. i never knew that the words of pastor thongchai from Hope Thailand, when he told me that i needed to buck up on my mandarin for that one day i would have to serve God in mandarin, and even share Christ, would come into play this soon.

at sibu we stayed at brother Charles' place, whom so happens to be the brother of Miss Malaysia 2004. haha real cool right? she looks so different lah, from the old and the recent pictures. oh well. anyway, he knows this real cool petrol station which is just next door to his house, and has his own eatery downstairs!! selling the bestest noodles(which i forgot the name), in the whole of sarawak. haha okay fallacy.

and at sarikei we stayed over at Hope Place, meaning the church itself. i must say both sibu and sarikei are filled with insects. quite expected for a developing place. sarikei was filled with those black tiny beetles which stinks real bad when u squish them. we kinda cleaned the whole place for them, and killed 4 cockroaches in the process. well it was clean enough to stay lah, just that its filled with beetles, even in the bathroom. we came to realise that sarikei is a place where Christianity isnt all that welcomed, which explains the numerous locks on the door of hope place. i wont say that its that bad to the extend that the people there resort to violence, but surely at times they do. i think on the second night there, some of the residence there came pounding real hard on our door. yeah. oh well. we are back in one piece.

its truely heartwarming, to see the hunger and desire of the people over in sibu and sarikei, and sense their great great level of faith and expectation. the expectation of something great from God. not only is it great to witness the people around the world serving God too, but to be there, right there with them, capturing their heartbeat for God, truely feels overwhelming. people who choose the gospel over the world. people who chose life over death. people who has the heart and desire to want to do great things for God.

our main purpose on this trip was to help build the church of Hope Sibu and Hope Sarikei. two places which is found in east malaysia, sarawak. i would say its rather undeveloped over there, as compared to singapore, and well, since the main source of income was more towards timber. we taught them as much as we could, and they asked and asked as much as they should. made quite a few good friends over there, who in a way or another impacted my life.

i shared with both churches on my own life testimony, and my own testimony on how to balance studies and ministry. it becomes all the more clear to me on why God granted me such good results. shared with them on how the cg is run in singapore, what to say, when to come in. basically it was along the line of teach and learn. but personally i learnt alot from them as well, like how they overcome persections and stuff.

and then there was this brother from Hope Sarikei, called Ah Hee, if i got it correct, was a living testimony of how God healed him from leukemia, and in the process, brought both his parents to Christ. it is certainly one thing to hear about such miracles, and another to witness one. great testimonies of miracles resulting from great faith.

i kinda lead praise and worship in mandarin too. its truely a very very new experience. well low and behold, its the first complete chinese song i sang in my entire life, apart from sch songs that is. and it was all gotten down on film, untill it was accidently deleted. oh and our bus to sarikei from sibu broke down too. haha lots of stuff happened man.

i got to ride on a scooter too! yeah and lots of stuff. oh well. i shall put up all the pictures when i get the complete set from the other peeps. well till then.