As you may have noticed from my blog titles, I've been following this food-oriented strand as I've been going through the book of John, which I finished today with a final food image: If you love me, feed my sheep! A fitting image here in Malaysia, where both physical and spiritual food is offered in such a variety of forms.
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| Buffet at a restaurant we walk to often |
Which leads me to a short digression on one of the great things about Malaysia--so many options and mixtures of the best of foods from all over. Sometimes I'm not quite sure what I'm eating, but the flavors and techniques of China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and various Western options are all blended in interesting ways that make for never-ending exploration possibilities. I would not be exaggerating to say there must be 100 restaurants within walking distance of where we live!
But back to the injunction of feeding sheep. The last few weeks have begun to open up numerous opportunities to get more involved in people's lives here. God seems to keep opening up different gates for us to get to know the various "sheep" he's put around us:
- a weekly counseling opportunity for Janet
- significant conversations after church when people hang around to talk
- growing relationships with co-workers for Tom
- mentoring possibilities among women at church
- great enthusiasm by Tom's supervisor for him to start up a book club for English students
- partnering with and mentoring an American team of young adults who are doing student outreach at the many universities in the area
- beginning to meet neighbors, and help them practice English
- deepening relationships with church staff and leaders
- numerous conversations at various conferences (4th one next week) by Janet about CCEF, potentially leading toward students for January classes
- skype calls with friends and family at home to keep up ongoing relationships
Lots of "sheep feeding," although clearly the feeding goes both directions! So we would greatly appreciate prayers that would enable us to be good encouragers, and to grow in our gifts of hospitality as we open the doors of our apartment and our lives, to share both physical and spiritual food with those God puts in our paths.
Blessings,
Janet & Tom
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| My first ever attempt to cook steamed fish Chinese-style. Yum! |
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| Some of our favorite selections |
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| Sometimes you don't want too many details... |
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