Penang

Feb. 3rd we caught a bus in the morning to head to Butterworth, once we arrived we got straight onto a ferry to head across the water to the island of Penang. We got taxies, but got dropped off at the wrong address, luckily the right house was only a few doors down. We had a quick orientation and then went and had some lunch in the section of town called 'little India'. There is so much history and old buildings around Georgetown, it is definitely a tourist hot spot. Our team got split this time for housing so Adam and Chieko, Jalena, Lydia and I are in on house which is being shared with students from a foundations of counselling school happening on base. Sally, Chris, Isaiah and Sam are staying at Kawan drop-in center which on mon-wed-fri is where we help feed the homeless.
Sam had come up one day early with a friend we met back in Ipoh. His name is Joash and you won't believe this but he is from Newcastle and is visiting Ipoh because his girlfriend, also lives in Newcastle, her family is originally from Ipoh. Small world! We ended up meeting them at the Vietnamese service when we said our goodbyes that last saturday.
So Sam had went to a temple the day before and wanted to go again, so he invited Jalena and I to come along. It is apparently the biggest temple in Southeast Asia. We met up with some 'couch surfers' who Joash met online, one girl lives in Penang and is like a tour guide and the other guy was from Brazil, just passing through on his way to Sri Lanka.
This temple was incredible, it had things that symbolized the hindu and buddhist religions. There is a lower level and and upper level which in on a mountain so you take a lift to get up to it. Once we got to the upper level we saw a statue that is probably over a 100 ft tall and made of metal. I guess a few years ago the head of the statue was struck by lightening and fell off, so they decided to paint the head and place it on another building and rebuild the entire thing. I'm sure God had a laugh about that one.
We have spent the last two days just getting to know the area and meeting new friends. We got to go to Hillside baptist church yesterday which we all really enjoyed because the worship and sermon was in english and it really spoke to us all.
We are excited to see what new things God has in store for us while we're in Penang :)