A New Church Home

I was 18 years old and a freshmen in college when I had the first experience of finding my own church and attending church without my family. Although, I didn’t have too much difficulty attending church on my own, there was something I quickly noticed was missing…. My mother’s wonderful and boisterous singing voice.

Something I took for granted growing up was my mom’s amazing and strong voice. I have always enjoyed singing in church and I think I have a fairly decent voice, but it was always comforting to be singing next to my mom. Initially I thought adjusting to the lack of my mom’s voice would not be too difficult. However, it turns out it was actually rather hard. Through out my college years it is something I got used to, but still always noticed was missing.

At the beginning of January, I began attending the BCCM Petagas church. The church service is all in Mandarin Chinese. This was something I was actually looking forward to. Yes, I don’t understand too much, but there is something to be said about experiencing a church service in a different language. You would actually be surprised at how much you can still understand and gather from it.

I have only attended the church two Sundays now but it is already beginning to feel like a home church to me. Surprised to hear this since the service is in Mandarin? The reason the church feels like home to me is because Teacher Wong (class CBlue teacher) has a beautiful and strong singing voice, just like my mom. She sits behind me and there have been a few times where I have actually thought it was my mom singing… you know, aside from the fact that she’s singing in Mandarin. This is also very helpful since I am just beginning to learn the songs. I can try to sing but still am over powered enough that if I completely botch a pronunciation, (which I’m sure I do at least 80% of the time) nobody will notice.

I feel like it is a real blessing to feel so at home in a church that could easily be quite foreign to me. I am really enjoying worshipping with the teachers from school and hope that I am able to pick up Mandarin somewhat quickly. I at least hope I can learn to sing the songs sooner vs. later… understanding will be the next step ☺

Happy New Year from Malaysia

With Li Mei in her home village of Kota Marudu

At the Tip of Borneo

Happy New Year! Today was definitely the strangest time to experience the 14 hour time difference. It is so weird for me to think that when I when I was ringing in the New Year here in Kota Kinabalu it was only 10 am back in the Midwest... and when all of you back home are celebrating, it will already be 2 pm on January 1, 2010 here. I am pleased to tell you that the new year is going very well already! I had a very nice time last night celebrating with the other volunteers and a few new friends here.

Back-tracking a little....

When the school year ended in November I anticipated December would be a very low key month with little to occupy my time. I didn't think I would see the teachers from my school much because it is a long drive from where they live in KK to where I live. Luckily, these two assumptions could not have been more inaccurate. As you may have guessed from my lack of blog posts (sorry!) I have been keeping very busy; December was an eventful month.

Among the highlights were...

-visiting Li Mei's (a teacher at my school) home village, Kota Marudu, twice. It is two hours away from KK.

-visiting the Tip of Borneo with Teacher Hiew and her family... 3 hours away from KK.

-going to see The Princess and the Frog with Leon (one of my students), his little brother and Li Mei

-spending the day Christmas shopping with Jennifer (20 years old, the daughter of the principal at my school)

-spending Christmas in a small village in the countryside (aka jungle)

Through out the month I have developed a strong group of friends and I am very blessed that it is a wide range of friends comprised of different ages and different backgrounds/cultures. I really feel like I am part of a community now. I may have said this before but this has been a gradual process and it continues to grow stronger every day. I feel like everything is coming together now and will just continue to feel more like "normal" life as it continues. In the first three months here I developed different pieces of a puzzle for my life here and over the month of December I feel the pieces of the puzzle have come together.

One of the biggest changes that happened in December... actually just earlier this week... was that I moved to a different district in KK. Before I lived in the district of Likas and now I have moved to the district of Petagas. I moved to be closer to my school. When I lived in Likas someone had to pick me up every morning and take me home in the afternoon. Each way it took at least 15 minutes and that was if there was no traffic. It was a huge hassle for everyone so we decided to find a place for me to live close to school. I now live in an apartment with Li Mei, who taught the 6 year old class ARed last year. It is within walking distance of the school... about 5 blocks. I have only lived here for 4 days now and I am already really enjoying the change. It is so much more convenient and I like being closer to school and to where all of the teachers live.

The new school year begins on Monday, January 4th and so this weekend I am very busy preparing for the first week. We have two new teachers so I will spend the first week helping one of the new teachers in her classroom. The second week of school I will start teaching English in all of the classes again. I will also start my afternoon tutoring class on the second week in January.

I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas season and a very happy new year!

With Leon (on right) and his brother at The Princess and the Frog

Beautiful sunset at the beach in KK