September was a “fun-filled” month with two visits to two
different OA villages on weekends back-to-back.
The short school holidays in September was filled with
public holidays too: the Raya Haji break n the Malaysia Day break. It was a
much anticipated visit for a local Chinese church to visit this village, off
Batu Gajah. Their medical team comprised of both western n eatern medicine
complete with nurses. It was about four years ago since I visited this village.
It was left off our radar as the pastor is a renal patient n we do not want to
burden him with many missions team visits. It has changed. The route to the
village was changed to another direction while the route I first took to the
village is now almost bare. The palm oil trees that I knew providing a cooling
shade was all gone making it scorching hot under the afternoon sun.
The following weekend I was “on the road” again bringing
another team into another village. First we were disappointed that at the last
minute, another Anglican church decided to visit that same village. The
“gate-crashers” team interrupted an otherwise well-planned Friday. Yet, we made
the best out of it n saw the brighter side of this incident. Saturday morning n
we travelled to a “new outreach” a short distance away. The team did children n
youth meetings followed by a simple lunch before returning to the base village.
By Saturday afternoon, we had the place “to ourselves” n we were pretty
relaxed. We savored the much anticipated delicacies, including the “atas pokok”
meat. I am thrilled at the progress of the villagers in partnership with the
visiting team who was there the second time. I am excited to observe the bond
growing tight in the urban-rural partnership. This is an effort I m looking to
establish for the other urban churches too, especially the one above (visit to
village off Batu Gajah). Partnership should be focused with a clear objective.
The OA villages – they are not locations of “tourism” to visit “touch n go,”
instead they are our brothers n sisters together with us growing towards
maturity of the Malaysian church as a whole
Please pray for our proposed cottage industry to market a
snack product. I am in planning with the local villagers to look into mass
producing buah perah n marketing it to the cities as a healthy snack. We plan
to offer three flavors – original, spicy, n anchovies. Buah perah is a seasonal
nut n we hv quite a bit of time to plan carefully before the next season
arrives n production begins. So, what is buah perah as some of you may ask…when
it is produced, come grab a pack from me!
October will conclude SAM Taman Pelangi academic year when
the current class in Church Admin ends. Elsewhere in SP, the academic year only
concludes in Nov when the current Theology 1 class ends. In Ipoh , the diploma module concludes the year
after our study in the topic of Theology of Persecution n Discipleship in mid
Oct. The certificate module still has another class in Nov before it concludes
for this year. We have three graduates in Certificate of Christian Ministry
this year. This is perhaps the smallest team, even participating family/friends
make up less than 10 in our entourage to Seremban for the Convocation service
on 15Oct.
Please pray for SAM Committee team visit to Seminari
Theologi Sabah end of Oct. We are exploring partnership to offer MMin program
in the Peninsular from SAM Ipoh. You may ask why as we are already in
partnership with MEC for the same program. STS shares the same accreditation as
STM (ATESEA: Association of Theological Education South East Asia) while MEC
receives accreditation from ATA (Asia Theological Association). We want to
standardize n streamline our curriculum to be more focused. Besides, our MMin
students are now “on-hold” in their studies as requested by MEC who claims they
need to iron out a little hiccup – something which I do not know how long it
will take!
Join us in prayer too for our next year’s schedule that is
in planning. Pray for our regular teaching team – for wisdom, time, n passion –
to continue in this ministry. Pray that funds will permit us to attempt related
activities for our students to enhance their learning experience. Once again, I
thank you for your partnership in this ministry
SB
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