West Malaysia Educational and Church life trip

This was my first trip in this year, a trip to West Malaysia. The main purpose of the trip was to accompany my sister to her university for registration in Tronoh, Perak. On one hand I took the opportunity to meet some professionals in the field of engineering and image processing to expand my knowledge in this field. This was rather an interesting trip of visiting 3 different states in Malaysia for 14 days with some personal matters to be dealt with.

I departed from Kuching to KL on the 27^th of May after the seminar. It was rather rushed because the seminar took longer time than it supposed to be. I rushed back to hostel and simply grab anything that I came into my mind departed to the airport. A lesson learnt never do last minute packing and doing more than 3 things in parallel. I was still lacking in the ability of multitasking. This caused me to have a dreadful time at the beginning of the trip and nearly ruined my mood in this whole trip.

Things forgotten; toothbrush, formal attire (slack trousers without blouse), slippers, formal shoes, wrong keys for the lock of my luggage, shampoo, body lotion, comb and medicine.

Luckily I was not going to wangsakala place. Every forgotten items I borrowed from my youngest sister and later buy at Carrefour.. Phew.. the only misfortune was that I was not able to open my own luggage. In the end have to force my 3 weeks old newly bought luggage to open.. what a careless girl..

I stayed in KL for 3 days 2 nights excluding the first night because it was time for bed when we reached Setapak (Wangsa Maju). On 28^th May, Celine and I got the opportunity to join the last week of the perfecting training. The training was okay for me but for Celine her first impression was what a fanatic activities. I keep on encouraging her to be patient for few more days but still failed. Thank God and sis Fong Wei, she was caring, seeing the conditions, she fellowship with me regarding my sister’s condition and in the end we were exempted from the training and guess Celine was grinning from ear to ear.. oh well I suppose I was also the same because I fall sick on the second day in KL having not enough rest and pack schedule for the training. Sis Fong Wei arranged for us to stay at a sister’s house on the next day. Phew.. Been released from intensified training.

Celine and I plan to pay a visit to Evelyn, my younger sister who was having industrial training in KL. In the end we had to cancel the plan for few unavoidable problems. First, I fall sick and the second was Evelyn notified us that place where she stayed was far away from Setapak. In view of this, Celine and I canceled the thought of visiting her and had a drive around Setapak area with Abby. The funniest part of the stay in KL started here. As we drove around Setapak area I sported a familiar place that Evelyn told me. The surrounding of the place where she stayed, Wangsa Maju. Guess what… Evelyn was actually stayed near to the place we stayed just a close 10 minutes walk. Since we were not familiar with the route in Setapak so we asked a sister who stayed there for about 2 years. She informed us that Wangsa Maju is actually a park in Setapak. Both of us burst into laugher when talking via phones to Evelyn teasing her of not knowing directions and the park she was in even though she had stayed there for about 2 months.

On Friday night we joined a small group gathering at Bro Wen Jie’s house. Since it was UTAR and KTAR university reopened there were about 10 gospel friends joined the small group gathering. Oh well, I thought I was able to escape from contacting new students.. It seemed that wherever I go, they were actively involved in students’ work and for sure I had to involve in the stream. Praise the Lord that I was involved in it. I enjoy the blending with the saints there. I was not alienated of course. Thought I did not know most of the university students and not having enough time to approach all of them for a chat, my function (from KS till KL) washing plates were still there. Oh well, I had to admit that I dislike washing plates (it caused my hand to be coarsen), anyway washing the plates keep me function as part of the member of the body as well I suppose.

After the meetings, there were 3 gospel friends got baptized all of them are from UTAR and KTAR. Praise the Lord. In the meetings I met my younger sister, Evelyn. What a coincident met. All the saints there were shocked when Evelyn told them that Celine and I are her sisters. Well, have to say that we were special in the case that we are siblings yet do not look alike.. another weird thing was that we are from Bintulu yet we have to meet each other in KL.. what to do? Study kept us apart.. I’m in Kuching, Evelyn in Johore and Celine in Ipoh.

On Saturday after having lunch in OldTown we departed to Ipoh at 2:00 pm by bus. We reached Ipoh around 5pm and stayed at Bro Ding’s house. Bro Ding and his wife are in their 70’s yet they are very energetic. They brought us to buy some daily necessities in the shop nearby for Celine to be brought to UTP in Tronoh. At night we went to Jusco with Hannah who was a student in UTP as well, just finished her foundation, a year older than Celine. Feel proud of my youngest sister for her shopping capability.. RM 300++ for 1.5 hours of shopping.. When Bro Ding and his wife saw the car bonnet they were shocked! Haha.. I suppose this was counted normal for East Malaysia students who came to study in wangsakala place in Tronoh, Perak. The surrounding condition was worsened than UNIMAS.

Sunday morning after having breakfast with Bro Ding and his wife, Bro Simon and his fiancés and Bro Ping Hung, we departed to Tronoh. The duration of the journey took about 40 minutes from Ipoh town area. The conditions were just like travel from Kuching to Kota Samarahan but Tronoh is much in rural if compared to Kota Samarahan.

At the moment there are 7 saints studying in UTP, a master student bro Elijah from Nigeria, 5 undergraduate students (2 Civil Engineering, 1 Chemical Engineering, 1 Electrical Engineering and 1 Petroleum Engineering) and Celine, foundation student (Business Information System). Not to forget also Bro Ping Hung (Mechanical Engineering) who will be graduating in this coming August. The campus work in Tronoh (UTP) was not as strong as UNIMAS because of the lack of the service one and families. UTP saints will travel by themselves to Ipoh just for a Sunday meeting. I was really impressed by their seeking heart. They are as busy as students in UNIMAS, yet they have to prepare for the Lord’s Table meetings driving for 40 minutes to Ipoh just to meet with the saints. If they do not have the transport they will either rent a car or go to meeting by bus (1.5 hours to reach Ipoh town area). I wondered when will the students in UNIMAS willing to pay a price for that? On Friday noon, they will have campus students gathering in an enclosed room in the library accompanied by sis Lily an on jobber full-timer. Praise the Lord that He remembered the students’ seeking heart and the price that they paid. All the students there score CGPA of 3.6 and above. One thing they shared to me is that they want to be the testimony of Christ in UTP. They just do whatever they could in their studies and would never escape the meeting. I strongly believed that with their prayers the Lord would raise up families to move there for the campus work.

After all the cleanings I left UTP around 7pm for Celine have to attend her class and orientation activities. Bro Ping Hung drove me for dinner before back to Ipoh and then back to UTP again for his VIVA on the very next day. May the Lord remember his services.

On 1^st June, after breakfast bro Ding and his wife brought me to Kampar about an hour drive from Ipoh town. I visited UTAR in Kampar, it was quite a big campus. Kampar is a small town with lots of old shops.. quite an interesting one.. I took lots of the structures photos when bro Ding drove pass.. At the moment there are about 30 saints meeting there. I met Dr Ng from UTAR for a short chat and then having lunch together with them. Around 2:30pm we left for Ipoh. Reaching home I was exhausted and fall asleep till 5:30pm. At 6pm we left for some visiting again. We visited a brother from Sitiawan who was undergoing his kidneys treatment. This was the first time I saw people undergoing Hemodianalysis.. Ouch.. it’s really suffering. That night we visited Bro Wei Xing as well, who accidentally rolled his fingers into the machine smashing 3 of his left hand fingers while making noodles 2 weeks ago. Lastly, we visited Bro Chang who was just back from Johor. That was the whole activities for that day. No photos were captured because I didn’t bring my camera out for some safety purpose.

2^nd June after breakfast bro Ding send me home because I was not feeling well. Whole day I stay in the room doing my progress report and writing some drafts for my blogs.

On 3^rd and 4^th June, I accompanied the grannies for some visiting again. I was amazed that grannies in their 70’s could remembered every saints, their children and also their grandchildren’s name.. wow.. Ashamed of myself of not even could remember the name of every saints in Samarahan..

On 5^th and 6^th of June, I went for a morning walk at the park nearby bro Ding’s house. You better believe what I saw.. lots of loving couples going to have morning walk together. Oh well, is not the newly married one but the old grannies.. I seldom saw grannies going out together to have morning walk and breakfast here in Kuching or back to my hometown. Sorry for not photos captured because granny dun allow me to bring my handbag for morning walk due to safety issues..

7^th June, I went for the Church meeting in The Church of God in Ipoh later in the evening I visited Simpang Pulai.

8^th June, I departed to Penang. In the evening I went to visit some campus students in KTAR (Penang). 9^th June, I went to Bukit Bendera. 10^th June, the day had come eventually I had to come back to reality. Back to Kuching for work… By the way, I start missing Kuching I suppose.. =p

That’s the 2 weeks trip to West Malaysia.