Evelyn Tan
27TH JULY 2013
http://www.gbaships.org/
Dear Church,
How has this past week been ? I had my last C-Day (ministry day) last night. Surprisingly, I was assigned as team leader for this C-day. I say it is surprising because as a STEPper, we usually aren't given as much leadership opportunities or 'big roles' in anything so this was really a great opportunity for me and I felt really honoured. My team consisted of 5 people of different nationalities - North Ireland, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Kuching. One of them is a port volunteer, which means throughout the time the ship is in this port, she volunteered to help out and work as well. We went to a BM Village Church. It was about an hour drive away from the ship. We left the ship around 6pm and began our journey. There was a pastor who invited us picked us up. We went in two cars and later in three. The pastor and the team that was with him did not usually atend this church. From my understanding, this is like a sister church or something like that. So we got lost. Halfway through, we stopped by a kopitiam and had food - kind of like dinner. During this time we were able to fellowship with the Pastor and his team as we awaited one more member to arrive before we continued to the ship. One of his team members was an Iban lady who recently started attending this church(about 2 months now). She used to live in MIri with her late husband. As she told me abit about her story, I was stunned. I didn't know how to respond or what to say. She was with her late husband in Miri where he worked. They were married for 6 months when tragedy happened and his life was taken. She didn't go into details. She couldn't. All i could do was pray for her in my heart because she didn't seem like she wanted to talk much about it but I was glad that she chose to stay close to God in this time of grief.
We reached the church around 8.40pm, in the middle of the service. The speaker was a pastor from Sabah and if im not mistaken, it was either him or the actual pastor of the church who was a convert. That was pretty cool to hear.
We were given 15 minutes to present about the ship, share a testimony and give a song presentation. Super short time but everything went well. We had to rush off after the service to make it for curfew at 11pm, but we didn't make it.
Overall, it was quite an interesting experience and our whole team agreed that even though we didn't get time to actually fellowship with the church people since we had to rush here and there, we were very thankful for the times we got lost with the pastor and his team and for the food with had with them. Good conversations really arise in long car rides and over good food.
It was a very pleasant way of ending my C-Day. That's it from me for the week. God bless.
Evelyn Tan
22ND JULY 2013
http://www.gbaships.org/
Hello Church!
Sorry for not emailing within the last two weeks. I've been extra busy in this port with events. So, how am I doing?
Physically:
I've been eating so much food! Being on the ship has made me realise how wonderful our Malaysian food is. Things that I took for granted like the local kopitiam or Chinese restaurants, just seem so fantastic now. Our food is so full of flavour! I've been eating so much! Anyway, I recently recovered from a two day fever. This was probably due to how much I had been pushing my body with all the activities and lack of sleep. Also, there is a cough, flu thing going around the ship. Please pray for healing over ship's company because it really isn't very fun to be sick while on board.
Happenings:
Although public/street evangelism is not allowed, we have had many on board events for youths. One of them was a Bahasa Youth event for minority ethnic youths. The whole event was done in bahasa so all the bahasa speakers were encouraged to get involved. I was in the worship team and it was one of the best worship sessions I've played for and it was completely in BM! The youths that came were struggling with their identity and worth in Christ. Although they were Christians, there were many single mothers and many of them were sexually active. This event was held to encourage the youths and show them that God cares and that they can find their true identity in Christ. During worship, the youths were encouraged to come forward and write their struggles or new commitments on a piece of paper and place it at the cross. I was moved to see many youths get up from their seats and do that. The event was called Jangan Bergoyah, implying that these youths should be firm in their belief and not be moved by what others perceive of them, despite the fact that they are a minority group. Also, playing in this worship band, I realized how powerful these BM songs are. The words are so simple yet so powerful. I can't wait to share them with you!
Other than that, I went to a local church on Sunday just to attend the service, not to run a program. It was called HOPE church. The church was a branch off from the main church in Singapore. It was about quite a big church i would say. Maybe 300+people? They have 3 different services - English, Chinese and BM. Before the service started, the emcee would ask everyone to pray for each other. There was just a lot of prayer before anything started. I found that really good. The message was on Missions, strangely enough. The speaker based his message on Acts 10 (Cornelius and Peter). It was amazing to see how active this church was in their ministry. They've been church planting in so many places! Different countries and even locally. It was really encouraging to have the pastor encourage the congregation, young and old, to venture into missions because the harvest is plenty but the workers are few.
Spiritually:
I am recovering from a small wave of struggle. Over the last couple weeks, I had been so busy with whatever was going on on the ship, I was sliding. My body was tired and I began to lose focus of why I was doing what I was doing. It seemed like my heart wasn't in it anymore. I started getting frustrated because it was getting so difficult to stay close to God.
I thought, 'How is possible that even though I know how faithful God has been to me and I know His goodness, I still find it extremely tough to keep holding on to Him?'
But on Saturday night, before playing for an event, my friends and I prayed together and I laid it all out to God. I was refreshed and rejuvenated and my focus was put back in the right place. I've realized how important sleep is and how important discipline is. It's so easy to get caught up with everything here. So easy to put God aside.
I have begun being wise in the opportunities i choose to take and to just take what I can handle. I'm still recovering but I know I'm on the right track again. Praise God!
I hope all of you are doing well. I'm pretty excited to be coming home! (although i kind of am already home, heh)
GODBLESSYOUUUUU!
