Pekan Ranau

Pekan in Malay is a village town. It is not big enough to be called a town (Bandar) but a pekan is a centre for a cluster of villages and there must be over 100 villages within 50 km radius of pekan Ranau. One could walk leisurely in less than 10 minutes from one end to another of the pekan. It is mainly flat but there are hilly areas at the outskirts and where I am, I have to climb hills to go to Ranau. It is less than 1 km from my house and church office.
The building is large and there are two apartments upstairs and I occupy one of them. We have a seminar cum meeting room downstairs and the general office is spacious and could fit 6 or 7 staff if the church expands. I was told once the church had 3 pastors but now I am the sole pastor. This new office is a statement of intent by the church leaders that they expect God to do great things. We have 100 regular members and another 100 students come worship on a Sunday but most return homes to their villages during school days. On Fridays, we minister in 5 nearby villages where our members live for regular cell groups. Some travel 20 kms or more to church and I was told one member lives 50kms away and there are many churches along the way but he insists on coming to our church in pekan. Today is public holiday in Malaysia but I am doing up the slides for my first Sunday of the year as the new pastor. As the floods in West Malaysia caused a delay in school opening, we probably won't see that many students until 18th January. So I will preach a short Pauline letter, Colossians for a start throughout January and then we will begin to preach from Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Luke for the two Sunday services at 8am and 10am services with alternating OT and NT passages each week so that those who come to one service can hear both OT and NT preached from one Sunday to another.