From Ryan Stewart, a World Racer who has been growing so much this
year. Compare this with Ryan’s first encounter with spiritual warfare back in January. God has his heart and is opening his spirit man wide open! I love
it!
Our first of two nights in Penang, Malaysia
(the island where my friend Judith is from) Tim and I got to experience first hand,
The Hungry Ghost Festival.
It’s a Chinese festival that I had
heard about a few days earlier at church in Petaling Jaya. It’s a time
when some of the Chinese people in Malaysia (I’m not sure if it’spractisedin China or not, and I’m not quite sure if this is a Buddhist ritual or what) invite spirits
(most of which are their ancestors I think)
out of hell
to please them so that the spirits don’t haunt them here on earth. From
what I saw they pretty much just burn a lot of stuff, like incense,
fake money, big effigy statues, cars, houses..etc (all made out of paper of course)
to ‘please’ the spirits so they’ll be friendly spirits, and not
haunting spirits. They also have half dressed women singing like
britney spears to ‘please’ the spirits, and of course the men too.
We (Judith’s sister, Marion and
her boyfriend Calvin, and Tim and I) just happened to find this
particular gathering as we were driving around town. We stopped and
looked around, and Calvin found out that they’d be burning the big
effigy in less than an hour. So we stuck around.
the effigy and other altars and things
praying to the demon god or idol thing
the demon god/idol (effigy) that they later burned as an offering
somekind of prayer, as led by a priest (left)
I
couldn’t
help but notice this baby crying while all this noise of people,
firecrackers and loud music were going on. Made me think of Jesus and
the children. It’s almost like this little toddler knew what was going
on here (inviting ancestral spirits out of hell and burning things to
please them, so they won’t haunt people) was messed up, but the adults
and this priest (foreground, right) are all paying attention to
deceiving evil spirits
carrying the effigy out of the….garage, so they can parade him around the block before setting him on fire
piling on the fake money to the burn pile
turn away my friend, turn away from this madness
the effigy and all the other stuff…ablaze
it’s like hell in malaysia…
…but it’s quickly just back to regular old life. Let’s just hope the ancestors enjoyed the show.
Maybe I’ve just become
‘
worldracenized’
…or maybe I’m just more aware of the evil side and spiritual side
(good or evil)of the worldthan I have ever been in my life…but the
few people I talked to about this festival, didn’t seem to really share
the same feelings aboutThe Hungry Ghost Festival thatI had about it.
Though
hearing about it did kind of surprise me, it didn’t surprise me to hear
about that kind of stuff as much as it would’ve a year or two ago. But
I think it’s a big deal, well, something to not take lightly, when you
hear of a ceremony or something where spirits are deliberately being
invited out of hell. I mean, is that not satanic??? Is that not just
asking for trouble?
The
people (christians) that I talked to about this festival, seemed to
have more of a laid back, almost…comical outlook on it. That kind of
struck me as odd. I mean, given, those people I did talk to live in
Malaysia or had already experienced the festival, and therefore
probably know more about it than I do, but I couldn’t help but thinking
to myself, “Wait…do you guys realize the…magnitude of what these
people are doing?”
I don’t know…am I making it more of a big deal than it really is?
I just
wanted to express that sometimes it’s not that hard to get caught up in
something that is profoundly evil. You just don’t realize it as that
bad. And just to be aware of themultiple ways that the devil and his
demons can deceive us so very easily sometimes.
…Feel
free to set me straight if you are more theologically wise than I
am…but those were just some thoughts I wanted to express.
