The last four days we have been staying at a couple different friends' houses: Frankie and Juliet Yap, and Kok kiang and Soo Hui. We have had a chance to explore a variety of places in both Seremban and Kuala Lumpur with them. Some of the highlights were seeing the old king's palace in Negeri Sembilan. It was huge and made without any nails!! We also saw the Petronas Towers, Palau Ketam (an island where everything is built on stilts), and some museums. Today, we are going to be doing some shopping and going through some of the cultural parts of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. We have been so blessed to have such good friends! We have been enjoying the food, and the weather has kinda grown on us. We definitely see the differences here compared to in the US in everything from driving, eating, work, lifestyles, religions, government, etc. We pray that each of you have a blessed day and we are coming back soon. Time sure does fly. We have tons of pictures, but it will take us a few days to process our trip because so many things are taking place. On Saturday, we are playing at a concert to raise money for the orphanage. We are excited.

Saturday and Sunday we were in Rawang helping at the Diakonia Church. The youth there were sponsoring a BBQ night as a witnessing tool to people in their town. Dan and I arrived early to help prepare food (We cleaned and skewered 350 chicken wings), set up tables/grills, and pray for the evening. We also prepared what we were going to share, as Dan was asked to give a short talk and I was asked to play my flute. The night was a success with over 150 teenagers coming.
Earlier in the day, we also helped out with children’s church, where about 50 boys and girls came on school busses and vans to learn more about Jesus. They sang some fun songs, played games, and broke up into classes based on their languages: either Malay, Chinese, English, or Indian. It was great fun to see their excitement.
We stayed with Karen and her family during our trip to Rawang. It was wonderful to be back in this city and to see many great friends there. We attended church on Sunday followed by a chance play basketball with some of my friends from my last trip to Rawang.

The pictures are of me speaking, the kids barbequing, and Karen’s family.

We spent most of last week working at the Desa Amal Jireh orphanage in Kajang. It was nothing like what we planned, but everything we hoped for. We arrived on Monday afternoon and were able to meet many of the children that day through either visiting their buildings or through playing sports with them. The orphanage rents numerous houses for children of all ages and some elderly. The boys and girls are kept separate starting around age seven and each house has staff, who watch after them. Some of the children go to school while others take part in a home schooling program at the orphanage. We originally planned on just visiting the home school, but we ended up staying all week to help out with classes. It was an enriching experience to help students with their studies and also to learn from them. One of the most memorable experiences was to help the students prepare a skit and song for a concert on July 15. The students worked really hard and seemed to enjoy working on something other than their studies. :) During the afternoon, we would play with the nursery children, visit the older students after school, and play soccer with the older boys. Though it was hot, Dan had a lot of fun!

The relationships we made with the students and staff were awesome. The students wanted to learn and we were very willing to teach. In the middle of teaching math, English, and Social Studies we were able to use the lessons we planned. We taught about David and Joshua and how they are Superheroes of the Bible. The last day, we were able to lead worship and teach about the ultimate superhero, Jesus. This is an experience we will never forget.

The pictures are of the home school students and some of the activities we did with them.

Sunday was a very full day. We went to church at Agape Gospel Assembly in Seremban. Patty was very surprised because we were announced in church and everyone mobbed around is to shake our hands and we were offered many cups of Milo (hot chocolate) after the service. We enjoyed the energy and worship greatly.

After eating lunch with the family and some friends, we had an adventure by ourselves on the train. We were able to see a lot of the countryside as we went to visit some friends in Jalan Templer. We met up with Kok kiang, Soo and baby Clarence for a trip to the zoo in Kuala Lumpur. Most people know how Patty loves the zoo, so this was something very memorable. The zoo had a wide variety of Asian animals, including some we had never seen before such as hippos and some different kinds of cattle and reptiles.

We met another college friend Sherry Tan and her boyfriend, Anthony at the gate and they led us to our next destination, downtown Kuala Lumpur. One thing about Malaysia is that they love to eat and that they eat for hours. We went to a street with about a hundred different stalls of food and they kept ordering food until we were all stuffed. It was quite the experience. Then we went on a tour led by Anthony through the upper-class stores and hotels and even the bathrooms. Each restaurant had an unusual atmosphere and the bathrooms were something to behold. There was an attendant who helped you wash your hands, because the sinks were actually pumps run either by turning a huge wheel or by pumping a bamboo cistern. This was a great chance to see the nightlife of Malaysia and their love of food in action.

On Monday through Thursday of the next week we will be working at the orphanage in Kajang and Rawang on Friday through Sunday to speak at Diakonia church.

Two of the pictures are of Kok kiang, Soo Hui, and Clarence with us at the zoo and the other is of Anthony and Sherry showing us the nightlife of Kuala Lumpur.

Saturday was a very exciting day as we were able to visit with some of our friends from college in the afternoon. Because we were so excited, we needed something to do until then so we took our laundry out and looked around some shops in Nilai. They had block after block of fabric stores with amazing colors and designs and we were able to find some musical instruments from Asian countries for our classrooms.

Three of our friends were able to come, Kok kiang and his wife Soo Hui and their baby Clarence, and also Capriole Choy. It was a wonderful time to talk and catch up and share about all of the news happening in our lives. We took a lot of pictures and planned some trips for our third week in Malaysia. Here are a couple of the pictures we took while our friends were over. Our first picture is of Capriole (we will have to readd this picture later), who is starting a new job today working with her father's business. The other two pictures are of Kok kiang and Soo and their son, Clarence. Clarence is nine months old.

In the past days, we have eaten almost everything. The food here in Malaysia is awesome. We have had an assortment of noodle dishes, chicken, pork, and beef. But the more "crazy" foods we have tried are rabbit, ostrich, an oyster omelet, super huge shimp, and white carrot "cake." The cake is not really a cake at all. It is fried and served with bean spouts. There are lots of other types of food, but we don't have time to name it all.
Normally, in Malaysia people order a lot of food and then everyone shares the dishes. Rice or noodles are almost always served along with tea. We have really enjoyed trying all the different food and will really miss it when we leave.

The pictures are from Friday night. We went with Wiahon and his cell group from church to a steamboat restaurant. Here you get a plate of uncooked meat, veggies, tofu, shimp, etc and you cook in yourself in boiling chicken broth. The first picture is Dan cooking his meal. The second is us eating the food we cooked.