New Songs

“Sing to the LORD a new song.”

Psalm 96:1

I prefer to sing old songs – my favorite ones that are a part of who I am.  The ones that hold memories of good times and relationships with people who mean so much to me.   Even now, as I write this I’m listening to the familiar Maslanka 9, reminding me of people and experiences so close to my heart.  The old songs give me a sense of everything God placed in my life to prepare me to be right here right now.

And perhaps it is human nature to gravitate towards the songs we know how to sing.  The ones that make us feel content, at home.  The ones we know all the words to and can’t possible mess up.  But what happens to our hearts when we don’t worship the Lord in new ways?  What happens when we only sing the songs we know make our hearts content?  When those songs become stale, boring, meaningless? 

This past week YAGM Malaysia was on retreat in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.  For church on Sunday morning we went to Queenstown Lutheran Church.  We walked in during a quiet organ prelude, and as the service continued, we sang familiar hymns and traditional liturgy with an organist.  It was almost as if I was back at my home church, or sitting in the band at Boe Chapel while the brass added fanfare to “This is the Feast.”  In the states, growing up, the liturgy was boring, making the churches services too long.  It was a collection of old songs I was proud to sing from memory at a young age. 

However, in Singapore the liturgy was a new song.  A breath of fresh air in the huge variety of Malaysian worship experiences.  Because here in Malaysia, there is no such thing as a typical worship service.  Most Sundays in Tuaran, it’s just Jireh Home and another family or two at the little church building where the Bahasa Melayu congregation worships.  Our kids lead the songs and psalm reading at the beginning of the service and a pastor preaches.   Far from typical, this past Sunday, we went to a 45^th anniversary celebration of the Anglican Church Tuaran, featuring dancers with tambourines and flags at the front of the crowded sanctuary while we sang.  The BCCM, our partner church in Sabah, 130^th anniversary celebration was another example of diverse worship.  All of the YAGMs went before our retreat and the ceremony featured speeches, many different song/dance presentations and a large section of traditional dancing to modern praise music.  Sing to the Lord a new song. 

So I am here, literally learning new songs in new languages (or making up what I think the words are – I’m particularly good at Chinese songs….).  And I wonder if I am actually singing a new song, or just mimicking my friends around me?  Are my new songs full of worship or an attempt at survival in an unknown church culture?

 My life here is completely different.  As I figure out who I am here, who God has made me to be in this place, I am working to sing a new song with my life.  A song based on old melodies and familiar harmonies with completely different musicians.  It’s a song of community, relationships, love and exploring life together.  A song of complete praise and thanks to the God who connects us all.  

Bus Connections

As I become slightly more competent in both cultural norms and my Malay skills, I have been taking the opportunity to venture on my own to pekan (town).  To get to pekan, I could take the 45 minute walk, which would be less than pleasant in the morning heat, ride my mostly broken bike, or ask to see when people at Jireh Home are going.   But instead I've been taking the bus in from the bus stop very close to my house, as I did a couple of times with Lebiana and Kisa when I first got to Jireh Home.

Bus is a liberal description of the transport I normally receive.  Instead of the color coded minibuses in KK or the large coach buses that take people across Sabah, my bus is whatever car or van stops to pick me up.   One time, a neighbor picked me up as I was walking to the bus stop.  We had a very nice conversation in English and she dropped me off with a promise to pick me up again sometime.  This would never be okay in the States.  But stranger danger is definitely not a thing here.  So I sit at the bus stop and wait.  Sometimes I wait for 2 minutes and sometimes I wait for 15 or 20 minutes.  As a result, I've gotten pretty good at the snake game on my handphone.  But eventually a van will flash its lights, I'll stand up and squeeze  past the few other people into the back row.

If I get enough stares from the person sitting next to me (likely as I am very white here), I'll ask, "Apa Khabar?" (How are you?) And if they continue the conversation, we talk about what I am doing here, how long I've been here and where I'm from.  Usually my new friend will tell me I am incredibly clever to speak Malay at least twice in the conversation, which is a nice constant self-esteem boost.  By the time we reach town we part and will likely run into each other again sometime.

However, my favorite part of taking the bus is the ride home.  The vans to my part of Tuaran leave from in front of a little convenience store, where the drivers and other locals sit and chat.  People looking to ride the van stand around and chat as well, because the van won't leave until it is full.  This past week, one of the drivers recognized me and asked if I wanted to go to Jireh Home.  I told him I was actually going to rumah saya (my house), which was before Taman Sinar Jaya (Jireh Home's subdivision),  by the rumah biru (blue house, an incredibly helpful landmark for my dirt road home).  And then I got in the van and waited.  Even though it was hotter in the bus, I didn't want to miss the unspoken signal to get in.

A couple of minutes later, a lady and her four year old daughter sat next to me and we started talking about her daughter and our lives.  It was a simple conversation, but it was all in Malay and easier for me than I expected.  When the van stopped at her house, she to me to come to her house if I ever need help, then followed her running daughter down their driveway.

And that is why I love the bus.  Because it is another way to be connected in town, to learn about life in Malaysia outside of Jireh Home, to recognize faces in the community.  It's likely I won't see that particular woman and her adorable daughter for a while, but the fact that they were brave enough to engage in conversation with the clear foreigner made my day.  And if I do ever need help along the road home, I know exactly where do stop.

Sabah, where the sweat confuses the tears

We were hiking up the stairs to STS.  It was towards the end of orientation, and we were talking about Agnes Newton Keith's books about Sabah.  The first book in the series is called,  The Land Below the Wind, a description of Sabah still commonly used.  As we made it to the top the stairs very hot, sweaty and tired, Ashley thought, "Sabah, where the sweat confuses the tears," was a more appropriate description.   While it might seem a little intense, its something I've been thinking about the past few weeks.

Two weeks ago on Friday, I took an adventure to the secondary school.  As per usual, I had no idea where I was going or why, but I was told to be ready around 7:30.  So the staff picked me up and we went to the secondary school for what I found out was a ceremony to wish the Form 3 (maybe about 9th grade in the states) students taking the PMR good luck.  From what I understand the PMR is a standardized test with results that affect the students' futures.  As we walked through the school complex, each of the kids from Jireh Home called out to me from their classrooms.  I'm sure they were incredibly disruptive, but the familiarity was wonderful.  We got to the room at least an hour early and sat to wait.  The ceremony included a speech from one of the Jireh Home boys, and concluded with all of the parents forming a line to shake each student's hand.  Somehow, I was the first female, and each girl took my hand, some pressing it to their foreheads, tears in their eyes.  Then the one girl from Jireh Home in Form 3 approached me sobbing and gave me a huge hug.  As my eyes filled with tears for her and her incredibly stressed classmates, I was grateful for the sweat dripping down my face, confusing the sympathetic tears. 

The next night, Jireh Home had a farewell dinner for Brother Pascal, the Swiss volunteer who has been here for nine months.  The girls and boys each presented entertainment in the form of songs or dances  and then some students shared impromtu thank you speeches in English.  One boy could quite articulate his thoughts and just said thanks and hurried across the room for a hug.  A couple of the girls choked back tears.  Once again, I was thankful for the constant sweat to confuse the tears that wouldn't stay away. 

And last week Tuesday, Brother Pascal, my guide for my first month here left for the airport.  He came in and gave each girl a hug, many two, and walked across the street to the boys house, ready to leave.  The girls followed slowly. Everyone cried.  The older girls kept an arm around the younger girls, who didn't care to be tough, to hold back their emotions.  It will be hard for me to forget the sound of the youngest girl's sobs as she walked home across the street, led by one of her sisters here. That afternoon, there was no need for the sweat to confuse the tears, as we already felt Brother Pascal's absence. 

As often as I try to hide my tears, afraid to be lumped as in the same category as  my lovely mom, who cries at everything,  I am grateful for the emotion.  I am thankful I am feeling, beginning to understand deeper cultural practices, and sympathizing with the daily life of the kids, each of whom has an experience that runs much deeper than the smiles, games and silly broken conversations in Manglish.  And as I watched the kids say goodbye to Brother Pascal, the sweat confusing the threat of tears, I felt so blessed to have about ten more months to get to know each of them and this place in a more meaningful way.

Circles

It was almost 10 pm.  I was exhausted and hid in the living room from the girls who were diligently studying in the dining room playing FlowFree on my iPod.  Lillyiana (one of the younger girls) came to help me play, frequently making things worse.  But just like everyone else she needs love, needs someone to want her, to choose to spend time with her.

It had been a long, full day.  My morning routine with an empty house was thrown off by Pastor Repeih's day off.  I was tired after a wonderful weekend in KK with the YAGMS, and spent the morning of preparing a likely overly ambitious week of English lessons and chatting with Pascal.  The afternoon included a ride into Tuaran, the expected English class, and a jog with the girls to the falling apart playground at the entrance to the subdivision.  After playing silly games on the see-saw and being pushed on the swing by one of the younger girls, Kisa and I talked about boys and relationships while the girls went home to shower before dinner.  After dinner Lebiana gave me a back rub and we discussed body image and then I laid on the floor with Kisa, discussing the finer details of English grammar as the Jireh Home orchestra rehearsed outside.  So many activities, so much love, so much sharing.

But then the long day didn't matter anymore.  The girls began to sleepily fill the living room and we sat on the floor in a circle.  Pastor Repeih talked to them in Malay, telling them to keep studying, to keep trying hard.  I had the opportunity to make an announcement and declined.  Then the girls sang and we joined hands to pray, my fingers intertwined with the tiny delicate hand of Sufiana and the sure hand of Ratiah, who leaned her head, exhausted and heavy on my shoulder.

We prayed out loud all at once, my English murmurs hidden yet intertwined with the girl's prayers in Malay.  After a while we feel silent while Pastor Repeih finished.  Lissa began Doa Bapa Kami (the Lord's Prayer) and we were done.  The girls headed upstairs to bed with sincere wishes of "sleep tight" and "goodnight Sister Kelly."  I promised Sufiana I would go jogging with her the next morning at 6:15 and followed Pastor Repeih home, still dazed from such pure love, the complete acceptance of a circle of people, each with hard stories and different experiences, joined together in prayer.

All I could do was thank God for the small hands to keep me grounded as I experienced something so much larger than myself.

Observing Daily Life

"I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw." 

Proverbs 24:32

How often do you simply observe?  Can you say that in your day, you can remember a specific detail and describe it without placing your natural biases?  What do you do with observations?  

Everyday at Jireh Home is something different.  I know that every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday I will teach an hour of English, either to primary school students or secondary school students.  The rest of my time I originally considered time to support the staff and students with the things I can give.  My observations, however, have been teaching me otherwise.  

In class,  I see smiling faces, blank stares into space, girls, boys, young and old, eager and bored students in both classes.  I hear the calls of "Saya, saya (me, me)" of one student ready to answer, the giggles as I mistakenly switched two boys names for the whole class without knowing it, the constant refrains of various pop songs with not quite perfect lyrics, and excited cries of "Go Fish," one of the kid's favorite games from brother Jacob three years ago.  

I hear the horses who belong to our neighbors, the crickets and frogs in the yard,  the constant Malay around the house that I can almost understand.  I taste rice, sour/spicy mango mix my friend Lebiana made for dinner, chicken cooked with the bones in, small, whole fried fish, lots of Milo, and a little bit of peanut butter as a daily reminder of home.  

I smell the water that builds up in the gutters after the daily rain, the fried eggs we had for dinner last night, the swamp-like puddles in our dirt road driveway as I walk home.  I feel the mud squish under my feet, the hands of the younger girls as we walk around the block before dinner, hugs from the girls, the flower I was given before I went home today, the cool breeze from the fan in the living room and the constant stares from curious people in town.  

And those observations barely scratch the surface.  I also see 31 kids of all ages from incredibly different and likely what we would consider "tough" backgrounds take care of each other.  I watch them work together to ensure the house is clean, sing songs in Chinese, Malay or English for visitors, do each other's hair, race down the street in the neighborhood, find puppies in the field across the street, boss each other around, fight, and share chairs when there are so many available less then ten steps away.  I laugh as the younger girls quickly do as the older ones ask, bringing them their backpacks, pouring their tea for minum patang (afternoon drink), and moving if they occupy a desirable location.   I see the some of the older students in class I (primary school English I teach) sitting at the table with the younger ones, mostly helping them understand.   I watch as the younger girls protectively bonded around one of their roommates who was having a rough week;  as the older girls gathered to talk, debrief, gossip and giggle in rapid Malay during their evening free time.  And I hear so many welcoming and inviting calls of Sister, that sometimes I forget my name is actually Kelly. 

I am included in this community, this place where people take care of each other simply because that is what they do.  The kids offer me their loot from town, chopped mango with some sort of sauce that makes it quite sour or even spicy.  They constantly include me in their games, trying not to laugh too hard as I clumsily jump over a knee high rope they gracefully leap when its higher than their heads.  The girls make my normally boring ponytail into something exciting, and consider it a treat to have me sit at the table with them while they study.  The boys gently kick the soccer ball my way after showing off and are patient enough to explain the basic rules of takraw (volleyball using only your feet  and head).  And the staff spoil me completely, almost always serving me food, constantly checking to see if I am hungry, thirsty or tired, doing my laundry for me during my first week there, and buying me things from favorite places in Tuaran.  In return, I don't laugh with them when they make fun of the habits I didn't know I had - the noises I make when I understand, the face I make when I'm confused, my incredibly short, bitten finger nails, and my constant inability to get out of bed at normal Sabah time (6 am) to go jogging with Pastor Repeih.    

The acceptance, love and care of in this place forms the truest sense of community, a real and unique family.  I have been learning that in community, sometimes it is best to receive rather than give, to do nothing rather than help, and to be taught rather than teach.    

Beauty

"It is sunset now, and there is nothing left in the world but beauty.  I am too small for such beauty.  I only know that I give thanks to the blazing, clouded sky, the tossed up black tropical islands, and the oily, resting seas for existing until I could see them.  There is nothing in me great enough for this, but all of me that is gives thanks"

written about Sabah from Land Below the Wind by Agnes Newton Keith


Last week Sunday, I was the last of our YAGM group to leave STS.  Rommy, the driver here at Jireh Home came to get me and my excessive amount of luggage around 6 and we drove the 45 minutes to Tuaran discussing families, jobs and favorite things using the vocabulary we have in common.  As we approached my new home, the sun was setting, casting vivid colors over the green, lush landscape.  I stared in awe at the beauty of this place that is my home.

Some of the primary school students had a short holiday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and invited me to go jogging with them Wednesday morning at 6 am.  As we have been constantly encouraged to say yes to every invitation, I set my alarm and got up with Pastor Repeih (the woman I am living with who also works at Jireh Home), and took a leisurely jog/walk to the house to meet the four young girls.  Pastor Repeih pointed to our left and said Kinabalu, and there it was, Mt. Kinabalu, looming in the distance.   Majestic, but hidden during the day.   I stared in awe at the beauty of this place that is my home.

This past Sunday was Malaysia Day.  Pastor Repeih invited me to go to KK for a thing that afternoon.  I was tired, overwhelmed by constant Malay and was hoping to taking the afternoon to myself, alone, likely on the internet.  But I said yes, it was an invitation.  Driving back to KK, I was thrilled to be going somewhere, excited to possibly see other YAGMs, and completely clueless about what was going on.  We sat in the stadium in KK having arrived almost 2 hours early as the sun shone through the clouds a little too much for comfort.  What once was an empty stadium, was suddenly filled with Malaysian Christians, who came to bless the nation in their year of jubilee.  The sun set over the mountains during the presentation of many different types of cultural dances, giving the celebrations a gorgeous background.  Then at exactly 7, they (so so many people) blew the Shofars (ram's horns) to welcome in the Spirit and the worship began.  I was overwhelmed by the commotion, the passionate and joyful worship featuring dancers with flags and tambourines, about 100 Malaysian flags, and at least 100 Sabah Flags.  The mayor of KK lead the blessing of the nation with over 100 of the city's pastors and people flooded the field, united together to pray.  As I watched, I stood in awe at the beauty of this place, the richness of its traditions and faith, the passion and pride of its people.

This is my home.

Exhaustion and Amazement

Sunday morning I stood and sang as the mostly Chinese congregation clapped with seemingly no sense of time in worship.  The music was surprising familiar, a welcomed comfort after two weeks of complete unknown.

It turns out, adjusting is hard.  Adjusting is accepting the insecurity that we know nothing.  Its acknowledging that we have no idea where we are going to eat, how to get around town, what people are saying almost all the time, and that everything we wear and do may be violating so many unwritten, cultural norms.  Its hard not to be paralyzed by this insecurity.  Hard to constantly observe people in a non-creepy way.  Hard to let the observations stay neutral observations while trying to figure out how I fit into this place.  Hard to not be right, or even to not know what is right in most every situation. Its an exhausting process.

Opposing that exhaustion is amazement at so many small surprises.  It's the shock on the local waitress's face as I manage to properly eat a full Chinese meal using chopsticks with my site supervisor; the excitement of the doorwomen as I say a simple, "Terima Kasih, Selemat malam," leaving a restaurant; the laughter of a Malaysian peer at the mall as I ask "Di mana Food Court?" covered in sweat after spending four hours wandering through KK.  I'm amazed at the beauty of the island beaches, towering lush mountains, and the fog and clouds that roll in before a heavy rain.  The teen who translated the entire service for us at a Malay speaking church and then took us to lunch and out for ice cream just because.  I'm amazed by the market vendors who struggled with us in Malay, working together to lean more about each other. The joy of delicious steamed chocolate cake from our incredibly loving language teacher, Ibu Laura, and the constant welcome and blessings from the students at STS, despite the fact we likely did so many things wrong.  And I'm amazed at the seven other young adults willing to be grown, change and molded by this place and the support, guidance and love of Peter, our country coordinator.

And now, I am finally here, at my site.  Despite only spending a full day here, I continue to be amazed.   Amazed by the openness and excitement of the people who were once mystery friends. Amazed by the staff at Jireh Home who encourage me constantly to not be shy, while sharing their lives and daily routine with me, despite desperately missing last year's volunteer.  I am amazed by the 31 students who live there, giving me little hugs each time they pass by and eagerly helping me learn more Malay.

As I reflect on these small surprises, I know God is the source of all of my amazement, the reason I am here.  The constant in my world that is currently very much so upside down and backwards from what it would be if I had simply went straight to graduate school.   So my prayer this morning as I continue the exhausting process of adjustment and observation is Psalm 62:5-6,

"Yes, my soul, find rest in God; 

my hope comes from him.

Truly he is my rock and my salvation; 

he is my fortress, I will not be shaken." 

I am praying that as this places completely shakes my world view, I am able to continue to find strength, courage and grounding in God's grace and love.