My Trip to Malaysia 
 

After 5 years, it was so good to get back to Malaysia. I was there for about 2 weeks. I caught up with the YWAM guys there whom I know and stayed at their house. We had a good time together. We talked about ideas for future outreach teams, ministry opportunities generally, what their Base is doing, and thoughts for my involvement. It was good to spend time with them. I felt I was able to contribute to their ministry just through talking through situations and ideas, as well as brainstorming. I was able to learn a lot more about Malaysia, things I had forgotten as well as things that were new.

So my main purpose in going there was to check out what possibilities there might be for me to still be involved in Malaysia, while still living in Australia. It had been 5 years since our last trip, and I didn’t want to lose focus. At this time we don’t feel to move to Malaysia but I know there’s still stuff that can be done there! I feel like I accomplished this. These are some ideas I’ll be exploring in the near future:

I met (for a second time) a lady who is originally from Malaysia but lives in Brisbane. Her father was an evangelist for most of his life to the Malaysians in that region. One of the things she does is send several container loads of clothing and equipment to Malaysia. Much of it goes into a store where it is then sold. The income goes to support some of the local ministries that struggle financially. Because she lives here in Brisbane we can easily help with this type of project by gathering used goods that they could use or sell over there. I’d love to help out in this simple way.

The main church denomination in East Malaysia has asked YWAM to create a discipleship program for their young people across the whole state. I’ve said that I’d love to help. They want this program to be something they can hand out to all of their 300 hundred churches (most of them village churches). The goal is to help their young people really understand their salvation and how to walk that out. This is a big need, as many may call themselves Christians but not really know what that means. And many of the leaders do not know how to instruct them. I’d like to see how I can contribute to this.

And lastly, I may like to take short-term teams there in the future, maybe once a year. However, rather than taking missions teams, take teams of volunteers... it’s calling volunteer tourism. It’s for people who are interested in making a difference when they go out for their holidays. They go to do charity or humanitarian work while they’re touring. I would like to see if this is a possibility to do, to take Australians (possibly even school teams) to see Malaysia and the people, and to benefit their world. The Malaysians then would also be benefited by their social welfare, as well as the income it could bring to certain individuals. Of course, this does not replace the gospel being preached, but these teams could allow for other YWAM mission teams to then come through with a complete message of the gospel.

So this is where I’m at at the moment. Funny thing is, when I returned home and my first communication came through about the discipleship program I got a bit overwhelmed. I realized, for the first time, that taking on projects in Malaysia also meant more work for me. AHHHH!!! So, what I need now is wisdom. So if you are praying, please pray that God will give me the wisdom to know what to do and how to do it, how to make the most of my time, and to direct me in what he wants for me to do (and not just to take it on cause it seems like a good idea).

To those of you who prayed and gave financially, thank you so much. It has really meant a lot to me as I have worked through this with God for his will to be revealed.

To see a few photos of the lighter side of the trip have a look at the photo page.

"No one should be for sale" 

Did you know that around the world there are currently around 27 million people who are enslaved against their will. 80% of these people are female. 50% are children. They're brought into forced labour, child soldiers and sex trafficking. And this is not just happening in foreign developing countries. For example, in the United States there are 17,000 people trafficked in each year. And in places like Thailand, millions of men come as 'sexual tourists' to take advantage of the cheap sex they can obtain there- even with teenagers and children. 

This month we hosted a human trafficking conference with the "Not for Sale" campaign. They brought awareness to us of the modern day slave trade and how we can be a part of stopping it. If you can ever get to one of their conferences I highly recommend it. We learned about how women and children's freedoms are being abused and taken away from them in so many different ways. We learned about the efforts that they're doing in various parts of the world. And we learned how we could be involved, even just doing the very things that we do best. It was so encouraging to see the programs they've put into place. Their various projects were so encouraging to see. Not only did their programs help take care of the victims who have come out of slavery, but also worked to build systems that would keep them or others from going back into it. Such as education, job creation, job training. They also are working on programs to help us as consumers make better choices in how we buy our clothes, coffee, electronics, chocolate, etc.

Youth With A Mission is looking to do more work with Not For Sale in the future. This may involve our short-term teams being involved in projects with Not For Sale overseas. Or our staff gaining training in being able to investigate human trafficking in our city. We're eager to see how we can be a part of such a global need on a practical level.

For more information visit their website at www.notforsalecampaign.org or join their Facebook group. 

"I am not for sale. You are not for sale. No one should be for sale."

Epic 
 

Our weekly youth program "Epic" is still going strong. We've got our regulars that keep coming around- most of them around 11-14 years old. We've begun to notice a change in the kids. One story I think of: Our group of skate kids (usually some of the rougher kids) are taken to a skate park by our leaders who drive them there. On this day, a few of the kids had begun being really rude, disrespectful and swearing... just really inappropriately. The leaders gave them some warnings but after not being listened to, they turned the bus around and came back home. Whoa, that did not go over well! The kids were completely unhappy, and said they wouldn't be coming back. Well, sure enough they came back. However, over the last 2 months they've actually started being nice to us. They actually talk to us, one of them requested to be my friend on Facebook, and they tattled on some other ones that were breaking the rules! We'd love to see this change continue, as they learn to respect others and themselves. I hope it can flow out into the rest of their life. 

I and some of the other leaders also started getting to know some of the girls more. One of the girls who used to come moved to another State. But one of her highlights of coming back to visit her mum during the holidays is coming to Epic, and she always greets us with a hug. One of the other girls I realized trusts me enough to be open about where her family is at. The other day, first thing she says to me when she sits down "mum threw dad out of the house this week". What? The same mum who's under-going chemo for pancreatic cancer and has 5 kids at home?? It's really opened my eyes and allows me to pray for them more. And when I walk by their house I can stop and say hello. 

This ministry really has so much potential to not only develop these kids, but even reach into their families. If you'd like to pray with us, see the Prayer page for our specific points.