Who's the king of the jungle?

We've just got back from a two-day trip to Tasik Chini. This village is in the middle of the Malaysian rainforest/jungle, and it was an amazing experience. We were all very struck by the contentment of the people - poor though they are, and the beautiful scenery that they live around. (Pictured: Michael, Caroline, Bryony, Gordon and Chris rehearsing songs at Tasik Chini)

The teaching was mixed. The pastor who visits them every Thursday gave a talk on Daniel 2 - giving the main application as asking God for help if you have bad dreams. It does not take a biblical scholar to see that this is a long way from what Daniel 2 is on about! On the other hand, Andrew Cheah, the pastor at SMACC, gave a faithful presentation of the cross which we trust and pray will impact the people. It was hard work to serve them - we spent Friday morning cleaning up their village - they don't seem to have heard of bins! But nevertheless the trip was lots of fun - the Ebbe's folk providing some much-needed banter for most of the time.

We're back in KL for the 12 days we have left. Some things coming up:

- SMACCTeam tonight, the monthly church fellowship meeting. They have a meal altogether, pray, report back and have some training on encouragement. Gordon and I are doing a presentation on the Tasik Chini mission - pray that we'd get it sorted in time;
- Thank God that Sam is now back to good health, and pray for his remaining talks and sermons (two Sunday services, one Guest Night, one praise evening, Dialogue suppers);
- The holiday kids club (Mon-Wed), for Michael and Ben doing talks on Jonah, and for the kids to repent and trust in Jesus;
- For Gordon, doing a CU talk on Addiction on Friday;
- For me - I've been asked to do an hour-long talk/seminar to a CU group on Friday. Provisional thoughts are 1 Peter 3 - please pray for wisdom and help from God to prepare this.

We sang some songs in Malay at Tasik Chini - here's one of them (translation comes next post, see if you can guess what it is)

Dia Tuhan, Dia Tuhan
Dia bangkit den kubur dan Dia Tuhan
Tiap lutut bertelut, lidah mengaku
Yesus Kristus Tuhan