Home Sweet Home but Bye Bye Van

1. Thank you Australia

(Friends and supporters whom I’ve made and now dearly miss in St Matthews Unichurch International, Perth.)

It’s been a good 2 years spent in Perth and I can’t thank God enough for the friends I’ve made there and the growth I’ve had from the sharing of our lives together over there. Here’s what I’ve enjoyed about Perth:

• Learning how different Australian culture is from the Malaysia’s, yet being encouraged that we believe in the same gospel and can be united in it.
• Knowing that we also share many similar struggles when it comes to serving the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we can therefore share in each other’s joys and pains.
• Being able to boast about how Asians work harder and sleep later and therefore are more superior (**joke).
• Learning from Australians to take initiative instead of the Asian culture of waiting for people to give orders.

To my UCI friends (my church in Perth), my college mates, my lecturers, I pray that we continue to serve Jesus faithfully together in the power of the Spirit and the grace of God given to us in Christ.

(My mates and lecturers in Trinity Theological College celebrating the #Reformation500 with the Reformation bands by the Gospel Growth Fellowship Malaysia)

2. Back home, Ministry has started. I’ve gotten employed by the church.

I arrived in Malaysia on the 10th of December 2018 and I must say… it’s reaalllyy good to be back permanently. As much as I enjoyed studying in college, I’ve also been looking forward to put my learning into practice, which is what theological college has always been about.

Since being back from Perth, I’ve been interviewed by the elders in CERC for a pastoral position and I’m glad to announce that as of 26th of Jan, 2019, I’ve been officially employed as CERC’s pastor-in-probation! This is a position that will last for 6 to 12 months to allow the church to support me and re-assess my gifts in ministry before deciding what my permanent role in church should be. I’m really excited for this opportunity because CERC is a church that I’m wholeheartedly happy to serve in and I’m looking forward to do gospel work alongside my fellow brothers and sisters here. 

(My first preaching opportunity since graduating from college. I preached at my friends’, Paul and Rachel’s, wedding ceremony – in Chinese!)

As of now, my tasks as the pastor-in-probation include mostly campus university and chinese ministry work and I’ve already been given 5 preaching opportunities. (Please continue to pray for me that I will be faithful and successful in the tasks God has given me to do!)

3. Back in the office

Starting work in CERC also means being back in the office! AND it also means this now…

Van the 2nd year Moore College student  (she’s back for the holidays) bugging me with memorizing Greek and Hebrew vocab – something that I am mostly thankful for and sometimes… a little annoyed by. This shouldn’t be surprising for those who know us and know our brotherly-sisterly relationship in Christ. We’re very different people who are polar opposites in terms of our personality profiles and yet we actually work quite well in the Gospel together (click here to read more about our differences).

P.S. Van, if you’re reading this, I pray that you will ace your studies in college and come back more than ready to serve the Gospel in Malaysia! (especially after bugging me with parsing all those Greek and Hebrew vocab!!)

4. Leading a Strand in FWC, whereas Van taught about women and kids’ ministry at FWC. All the best Van, Looking forward to your further growth

One of the more exciting things that I’ve done since coming back is to lead a training strand in the recent Fellow Workers’ Conference. FWC is a conference dedicated to train fellow workers of Christ on how to do faithful Gospel ministry in our Malaysian context and I had the privilege of leading the strand “how to do 1-on-1s” with 3 other leaders. We taught more than 100 participants (!) on how to do faithful 1-on-1s and it was a good experience for me as I got to put into practice the theological-thinking abilities that I’ve acquired from my church and seminary. Overall, the whole conference was a great time of learning again how important the church is to our Lord Jesus and how important it is that we uphold word-centrality in everything we do.

(Final day photo of all the leaders who contributed to the conference content)

Whilst I was leading the 1-on-1 strand, Van was leading the children’s ministry strand and giving a talk on running faithful women’s ministry. It’s quite exciting for me to see another comrade whose training from church and college is shaping her to bear really good fruits! (Van, I’m really excited to see how much more you can grow after another 2 years of college!)

(Van explaining how children’s ministry fits within the context of church and faithful word ministry)

Please pray for Van as she returns to Moore College this 11th of Feb. If you would like to pray for her, you can find her prayer points here: 

My Prayer Items:

1. God will use me well in ministry and that I will continue to rely on God’s strength and wisdom to serve Him.
2. God will continue to grow and mold CERC to be the kind of church that glorifies Him in every way.
3. The seminarians, CMA-ers and BMT-ers to be trained well for service to God’s church.
4. The fundraising trip to Singapore that I will be going for on 22-25 March 2019. Pray that the fundraising team and I will be able to connect well with friends and supporters and raise enough support for CERC to continue growing strong.

Finally, if you’ve been encouraged by what God is doing in Malaysia through CERC’s ministry, please consider contributing financially to our ministry (we would really appreciate your help!). If you would like to support me personally, you can send me an email at daniellu@cerc.com.my and I’ll pass you more details from there.

Thank you for following up on my progress!