Adventures in Laos

We are in Laos right now, and I'm typing this bit of an update on the iPad. (edited later to add photos)
Wed  morning we hustled away in a great hurry to catch our bus, only to sit and wait at the office for a while until it arrived... This is life! Our ride was fairly uneventful. The children did quite well. We got to the border town around 4:30 or so, and were shown to our nights lodging... It was quite a luxury suite! Not! But I figured we'd still sleep just fine. There I was mistaken. It was under a bar and by another bar, so that about the time we settled in to sleep for the night some other folks were just beginning their evening's activities. The druken noises continued till sometime around 2:00 am, and shortly thereafter John awoke and decided he was ready to get up. Besides which my part of the twin sized bed in our fan-less room had a few extra comfy springs to massage my ribs!
Anyway, the night ended at last and after some toast and jam as our substantial breakfast we were on our way to cross the border.

Our crossing was by boat...quite the boat! Mom would have LOVED this! I was holding my breath and praying for safety, and definately relieved to reach the other side safetly!Maybe I wouldn't be so petrified of rickety overloaded boats if I knew how to swim, but since I don't and with two little ones besides.... And the life jacket you see on John was an adult one that didn't buckle... How much help that would have been God knows, but I'm glad we had no cause to find out!

We were taken to the bus station by our tour coordinator, and then a long wait for the bus while we found ourselves being closely observed by the Laotians around us. I had to wonder how often they had seen foreigners before, especially little foreigners!  The man you see beside Darren in the photo is from Israel. He joked about us being aliens and our our ufo being parked further down the road.
I spoke to him about the Lord, but he is not religious and looks at Christianity and other religions as being simple a product of the brain to make us all feel better about ourselves, so it was hard to get any where. He just smiled as if to say - Yes, it's so nice you can have such a comforting belief!  But of course I know better than to think it is reality.
Soon we were on our way on long bus ride to the village town we are staying in. On the way the driver stopped and said something in Laos. I asked a lady who spoke some English what we were stopping for and she said with a heavy accent and a gesture around her. "You can go to bathroom... Anywhere you want"
We arrived and got a taxi to a very nice guesthouse for around $8.50 a night. That's nice, especially since food is more expensive here than we expected. Today we spent some time exploring the town as well as in prayer and reading.

These two little girls were enjoying some desert together at the table outside our guesthouse

 

Here is a picture of the strange rotor tiller powered type vehicles that are common on the roads here in Laos - Driven by a youngster

 

Two cuties that we passed enjoying a secret

The landscape

The houses of the rich are quite a contrast to those of their poorer neighbors

 

John loved the riding toy that the guesthouse owners allowed him to use

 

Our cutey!

 

 

Refuge from the pouring rain

      We took public transport on the way back. Observe the speedometer reading and gages - We were going full speed though they do not show it.

      The Lord orchestrated our trip and led us to a man from Laos who wants to be a Christian.  Please pray for him that he will be real one. He wants to talk with Darren more on the phone today or tommorrow. Pray that God will give Darren the words to say and wisdom to make truth plain to him. His name is Sene.

     So here's a very recent family picture! We are just finishing up 4th term and ready to head off to Laos for our trip. It should be an adventure! We have bus tickets to get there and a hotel for the first night away from home. After that we are on our own. No connections in a foreign, and Communist country! So remember us to our Father! We really have no idea what to expect, and no real plans for what we will do there.  I have a phrase book with some Laotian phrases and usually you can find somebody who speaks at least a little English. Otherwise it will be through signs and wonders - We sign, and they wonder and vica versa.   So yeah, it could be interesting! It's a little scary, too, even though I do like adventure!

     And here's a snap-shot of the two of us that someone took the other evening at Rick's house.
Our time here had been very good for us as a couple. I think we've learned to know each other better than ever, and also to realize how much more we have to learn about how we each think, as we talk things through... miss each other occasionally, and finally learn to see how the other sees. I really appreciate those times of visiting and sharing hearts. Especially when Darren makes time after a long day of study!

Here is a picture of me working on the painting I've just finished on Lee and Joyce's wall... while it was still lacking some things! That was a lot of fun! I've got another one to do when we get back from Laos.

See John's bandaids? He just got over a case of boils and last night I discovered that it's Christy's turn next. :(  Please pray that she will get over them with out any more trouble! She cried like her heart would break when I squeezed them out last night. I know it has to be extremely painful! This morning she seemed like she had a grudge against me till finally I wondered if she was upset about me hurting her last night and so I sat down and talked with her and told her I was very sorry I had had to hurt her and that I didn't want to. Then she kissed me and was okay again. It's almost surprising sometimes how much she seems to understand!

Our Trip to Omkoi

For our last ministry trip we went with the group of students in the picture above to a Karen village about 3 1/2 hours South of Chiang Mai. The Thai man at the top of the picture is Pastor Kiat. He made the contacts for us, and directed the revival meetings in the evenings, as well as teaching at the local Bible School during the days.

This is a Karen boy in a traditional handwoven Karen shirt.

Huh? What? Who? Me?! I'm not doing anything, Daddy, honest and trully!

One of Christy's many "admirers" :) Just playing :)

This is a traditional Karen women and myself after an evening meeting. Many of the local people had responded for salvation that night.

Here is Christy in her Karen dress that was gifted to her. The people loved her! She was sick a lot of our stay with the stomach flu, but overall she has done pretty well.

Here is the group of students that we worked with a lot during the days, teaching English.

This is the student body of the local Bible School where we ate most of our meals. They basically hosted out stay in the village.

Darren and Asher with some of the students in their traditional dress.

 

Several of the girls wanted to pose for pictures with us. 

And lastly just a couple shots of the children, since some of you have been saying you would like to see them on here. 

A cute kissing moment between my two little munchkins! Johnny can be so original at times! This morning he told me "Josiah was so satisfied because he couldn't do along to volleyball!" He meant sad. :)

*    *    *   *

An excerpt from the letter we sent to our church folks, for those of you who haven't already read it and wish too. It says some of the same things, but without the added pictures:

    Greetings!  We just returned from our third, and favorite ministry trip! We went to Southern Thailand with Pastor Kiat, and stayed in a Karen village. The people were very friendly and hospitable, but the food was somewhat trying, especially the cucumber stew. The first morning that they served us the cucumber soup/stew, I had stayed home with Christy because she was sick. Darren brought some back to me and it was cold and rather gross. I tasted it, and my stomach did some flip flopping. But I hadn’t commented yet when John tasted it. He took one enthusiastic bite and then turned away with “Put that stuff in the POT, Mom!” I had to mentally agree with his deduction. So if any of you all have extra cucumbers this year, and were just thinking that soup might be a creative way to deal with them.... Do a retake. :) 
    In the evenings we helped with the revival services at the local churches in the village. Quite a number of people responded for salvation. But I had to wonder how deep their understanding of sin and salvation was. Pray that the pastor there would be able to disciple them, and that they would not fall away and become more gospel hardened.
    The history of the Karen tribe here in Thailand is that when the gospel came, they turned to Christ by the hundreds. But now it is several generations ago, and many of people do not really have more than a nominal Christianity. The smell of opium was on the air even at the church service, and one of the talented local men, who could sing and play guitar, and spoke very fluent English, had obviously fried part of his brain doing drugs. There is much need for discipleship among these hill people.
   

Thanking God for His Mercies!

Here's a view of the falls that Darren tumbled/flew down yesterday! Those who observed said that he was totally out of control and bouncing off his head. He did several somersaults, bouncing off these rocks. He came very close to colliding with some of these trees.
I was upstream with the children, splashing in little pools, when some one came to me and said Darren had fallen, I thought they meant he had just slipped in a puddle, a bit. I asked about his camera. They looked uncertain and said they hadn't seen how he landed. That's when I got concerned. I hadn't realized that the falls was probably thirty feet high farther down stream, and very steep, with trees intermingled. I wasn't sure what I would see when I got to him, and was relieved to see him coming to meet me!  By the way, this next picture is not the falls that Darren fell down.

Here is Darren a few hours later, sore, but smiling and thankful to be alive. He has some bruises, scrapes and punctures, and two broken cameras and lens. But he's a blessed man that it's no worse! And I'm a thankful wife to have a husband who is going to be fine in a few days!

 

photo credits to Matt Chupp - because Daren's cameras are out of commission! 

Update: We had the cameras and lenses checked out... They are beyond repair, so any further pictures from this trip will be taken on a borrowed camera. A special thank you to Duff Brown!

News from Us at Long Last!

I know it's been far too long since I got on here and wrote anything! But here I am at last. Since I haven't been writing anything and they say a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll major on pictures and then maybe post a bit of the stuff from the letters home that we've written for those of you who didn't get it.

 These are two of the children from the school for Burmese children that we visited on our first ministry trip back the last time I posted.

We are doing very well, but we miss home and all of you! Some how staying another four months looks longer as we think about it now, than it did before!

The value of McDonald's takes a whole 'nother face when you are on this side of the world and haven't had a burger and fries in weeks! Johnny was delighted with our family visit to the local "joint" :)
  But because most of the food here is so cheap, it felt like we were really splurging to spend 300 baht (about $10) We did it on our last ministry trip when Darren needed a de-stress and some familiar food again.

Johnny has learned to ride bike with training wheels. Not with out a few bumps, one of which is visible on the picture of him with Ronald.

Christy and John love to play inside the cupboards at the play area. They are both growing up!
 

We've also found that, when it's not too sultry, the children have a lot of fun at the park close to our house. The play equipment is mostly made from re-bar soldered together.

A beautiful evening sky here...

There was a special evening at the English center here, and the had different activities for the children. Here they are looking at some slides and trying to identify the pictures in English

On Monday and Friday nights we go to the CMC church and while the others teach English to the children, I visit with the mothers. Here is one of the moms that speaks more English than most of them. She has discussed Christianity with me and explained to me some about what she believes as a Buddhist. It's hard for me to fathom the futility life would have if I believed I would be reborn for ten generations as whatever animal I had harmed, to pay for my sin!

We went to the Compassion Children's Home for one Sunday morning. Here are some of the children enjoying our visit

This is a Buddhist shrine. Pray for us as we seek to shine Christ's light in this dark country. Every where we walk, and even right outside our building are shrines to spirits, and each morning I watch the neighbor lady carry her offerings and burn insense before it,  as she bows and wais.

 

And here's some reading for those of you who want to read some more details!

    I haven’t posted or written any thing for a while...
Maybe that’s because life has settled down to a sort of normal abnormal. We are getting accustomed to life here and there doesn’t seem to be all that much to say. But we still want to keep in touch so maybe I should try to describe what our new normal looks like at IGo.
A typical day usually begins some time early in the morning for Darren. Sometimes he just wakes up at 2:30 or 3 in the morning and can’t get back to sleep. But normally he doesn’t really need to leave for the school until around 6:15 - 6:30. Then while the children and I get ourselves up and around for the day, he has breakfast and his first class of the day. I usually bring the children over for breakfast and chapel around 8:00. After chapel finishes at around 9:15 there is some free time for study and homework before the next classes at 10:00. After that I don’t see much of Darren until lunch. The children and I play, read books, or go for a walk. Some times I try to converse in a few phrases of broken Thai and English with the people we meet. Walks during the day are short of necessity, because it is so hot that we tire, overheat and burn if we stay out long. So most of our time is spent indoors during the hottest hours from 10 - 3 pm.
    Lunch and supper are always an adventure, waiting to see what unusual food we will have to test our American palates.:) Darren and I are usually fine with it, but John really struggles with the spiciness. The cook usually tries to have something available that isn’t too spicy, but sometimes the flavors and textures are difficult for children, so his adjustment has been a bit of a challenge. He LOVES when she makes chicken and french fries! :) One thing he liked better than Darren was the small fried fish - fried whole with their stomachs still full of fish eggs.
While the children nap in the afternoon, Darren and I study together, and this last term we listened to the recordings for the course  - Teaching to Change Lives. That was my way of getting a bit of study in. I’m not sure how it will look for this next term. I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there.
Since this term is finished and we are into our second ministry trip, there will be some different days for a bit. We are staying here in the city for this trip, and working along side of a missionary couple. Plans for the trip will be adjusted of necessity, because they just had their baby this morning. It’s a good lesson in flexibility.  Instead of helping teach English the other night, I stayed with Lisl and played the role of early labor support. I really enjoyed our visit between times :) and I think it was nice for her to have something else to keep her mind on til her husband returned.

Here’s is the report we gave on our ministry trip here at the school:

We spent our “trip” here in Chiang Mai, working along side of the CMC Church with Dru and Lisl Latin. We really enjoyed our time and feel like we learned some valuable lessons through it.
    One of those unpredictable, unchangeable features of our time that changed some plans for us and affected our stay was that the Latin’s baby arrived the second day of our trip time with them, and so they ended up being unable to do some of the things with us that we would otherwise have done.
    The larger part of our ministering lay in Darren teaching English on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, while I took care of the children visited with the mothers. God blessed those times with some profitable conversations. Darren also had the opportunity to teach the bible study.
    CMC church has church functions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights as well. And there was also some extra functions going during our week with them, like the City Wide Pastors Meeting, and the City Wide Prayer Meeting. We attended the bible studies, discipleship classes and prayer meetings with them, worshipped with them, and got a feel for what Dru’s ministry with them looks like. Besides this, Darren and Dru also shared some time with Lee Mummau,  and we had the opportunity to visit some with Deanial Yoder's and Duff Brown's family and learn more about what they are doing and their visions for the work here.
    I think that one of the things that our trip did for us was to drive home the need for discipleship among those who are Christians here in Thailand as well as around the world, encouraging those who name the name of Christ to live lives that are true to God’s word, and to grow in their understanding of the scriptures.

Lastly just a bit of a personal word - We are all doing well. Right now the change in weather is predisposing us to colds, but we haven't caught anything too serious. John is still getting SO many bug bites, and I just pray he doesn’t get dengue fever from them, because the mosquitoes that bite in the day often carry that infection.