Sabbath morning we all headed to Dr. Perumal's home church. As we drove, he pointed out landmarks from his childhood and life growing up in Kuching.
We were welcomed very warmly by the Sunny Hill church. The bulletin had a special greeting for us and everyone made an effort to greet us with a warm hand shake and a "happy sabbath". I especially enjoyed the song service because the entire congregation sang joyfully with the piano, trumpet, clarinet and violin. It was beautiful.
Ashlee, Jordan, Zoë and I sang Seek Ye First/Jesus is the Answer accapella style as a special music. I was so nervous! I'm not used to singing up front and felt like borrowing the violin from the praise band. But praise God it went well.
For the sermon Dr. Perumal gave an introduction and Zoë gave her testimony about God leading in her life and then I gave my testimony about my experience with the Sabbath in high school followed by Jordan's testimony about God's plan for his life. It was beautiful getting to hear my fellow classmates share so genuinely about how God has shown himself in their lives.
It was the first time I have given a testimony. Although I have always heard that everyone has a testimony I never thought I had one, or at least an interesting one. That is the reason I wanted to give mine on this trip. A testimony shows how God has worked in one's life and I figured if I couldn't see that in my own life then my relationship with God was not healthy. So I shared how in high school my belief about the sabbath was tested and through those tests my faith was strengthened. After the service a couple members approached me to tell me they could relate and were blessed. That in itself is a testimony of God working, which makes me excited.
At the potluck after church we had the chance to meet and talk with the youth. They were all very friendly and I couldn't help but notice how diverse they all were. A lot if times we categorize people at home as Asian or southeast Asian without realizing how many different ethnicities are within that generalization. There was even a young man from Zambia who was studying here at the university. Some of the girls taught me how to count to three in Malaysian: satu, dua, tiga! After exchanging FB information and throwing in a couple selfies we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sabbath rest.
That afternoon as we rested we heard the call to prayer, from the local mosque, for the first time. It made us stop everything we were doing with it's beautiful and almost eerie invitation. We felt an atmosphere of reverence fall on the city for those few minutes that it lasted.
That evening we were scheduled to have dinner with a Hindu family that Dr. Perumal said he knew "very well". It wasn't until we had already been asking questions about Hinduism and talking with the father of the family that we discovered he was the younger brother of Dr. Perumal! We were all so surprised and couldn't believe Dr. Perumal had kept it a secret from us.
We made our good byes to the Perumal family and returned to our hotel to rest up for a busy Sunday. That night I could see lightening out our window and we left the blinds open to enjoy the majestic show. There was nothing more peaceful or soothing as falling asleep to the rain as it cooled the city down.
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