Ministry Update : June

A milestone! This is the 100th Journey Note that we have written. Of course when you combine all our blogs this is the 288th note that we have added to our site, but 100 is a much nicer number to talk about.

We just wanted to share an update on what is keeping us occupied at this point. As Lori progresses through her third trimester, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to spend time in the village. The mental drain of language, the emotional drain of medical care, and the physical drain of making a baby have all combined with the constant spiritual drain of ministry to really wipe Lori out right now : so we are only spending a few days at a time in the village.

Last weekend we went up for two nights with two gals from Colorado and had a wonderful time in our village near Doi Mae Salong. Marlene and Pam were real troopers, and our Akha mom fell in love with them. She even decided that she would be willing to go back to America with them for a month (she was only kidding, but if you knew her you would see from that statement how much fun she had with these two women).

This weekend we will be spending some time with a team from Faith Bible Chapel, going to church at a village here in Chiang Rai and then spending two or three days over the next week pouring a foundation - by hand - for a new church in Wiangpapao (about 1.5 hours southwest of Chiang Rai). Lori, of course, will not be pouring concrete but please pray for her energy levels and both of our translation abilities as we will be the only Akha/English speakers there for the group.

In between these ministry excursions we have been spending time in our home in Chiang Rai. While Lori has been recovering from / resting for the next outings, Paul has been spending time working on a number of side projects that have been piling up.

Those projects include the creation of a video for some Akha pastors who went on a missions trip in March, a transcription of an Akha evangelistic tract to a digital format, and the editing and production of an Akha literacy video which is intended to be distributed to the Akha in Thailand and surrounding countries.

Through all this we are keeping occupied and trying not to spend all our time and energy anticipating the arrival of Curious George.

Tags:

• Akha
• church
• ministry

Where, O Where Did the Last 4 Weeks Go?

Our goal with this site and these blogs is to keep you all frequently updated on our ministry, experiences, personal lives and general events here in Thailand. At best, we get up one short post a week, giving three or four glimpses into our lives each month. This is wonderful for us, because it serves as a record that we can (and have) review when we think back over the last two years. Some months, however, we allow too much time to pass and too many stories have gone by.

This has been one of those months.

So, we will not be sharing about the Chinese/Akha wedding with a Western twist, the trip to the handicapped school in Chiang Mai, the Akha clinic experiences nor the visits to our Akha aunt in the hospital. No, for this post we want to share three stories that are told in the following picture.

Esther

If you recall a few months ago we wrote about looking for someone to help us out with language, the house and the baby. Well, the girl standing in the far left of the picture is the answer to that prayer.

The girl we originally asked wanted to go work in Bangkok, and has since left. We thought that perhaps God had just closed the door and a helper was not going to work out for this season. But our friends in the village and our friends in the city kept encouraging us, saying that without the support structure of family in the States we were really going to need some help.

However, one of the girls from House of Joy had gone back to her village in Myanmar and told her cousin that we were looking for an Akha helper. After a couple of phone calls and a quick "interview" we had a helper, and a feeling of horror as we asked ourselves "Are we really ready for a teenager?"

Our fears were quickly put to rest however, when Esther came to live with us. She has Thai citizenship and can speak Thai well, but her education was in Burmese. She's a natural around the house and her Akha is spectacular. Surprisingly, she is fully literate in Akha and as we just finished our first formal Akha lesson in over a year, we are thrilled to be back into a learning schedule again.

We have also started her in a Thai adult education class once a week so she can eventually take the "Maw Hok" (kind of like a GED) to help her as she plans for her future.

We are amazed at God's timing in all of this, and when Curious George finally comes into this world he or she will be welcomed by our families, both American and Akha and an Akha Sister too!

Our New Truck

Continuing the idea of God's timing, and with thanks to the incredible generosity of all of our partners back in America and the missionaries who just moved back to America, we were able to purchase a wonderful 1990 Nissan pickup truck, whose nose you can see in the right side of the picture.

Transferring all the title and paperwork was less of a headache than we expected, taking only two full days in government offices. However, I do have a Thai driver's license and registration in my name to show for it.

It has been a real blessing and has already served the village as a "church bus", "ambulance / limo service" and "Akha clinic on wheels". There are a few upgrades we are looking into including a roll bar and a lift for safety and those great dirt roads, but we have been thrilled by the gas mileage, the ease of transporting so many people and the reliability.

The only thing we regret is that we don't know what to call it. Suzi was such a wonderful and natural nickname for our Suzuki (who, by the way, will continue her work among the Akha and AOF after a huge overhaul). If you have any ideas for the nickname of our new truck, please drop us a comment below - who knows, maybe we'll use it.

Hot, Tired and Hungry

This section should probably go in the baby blog, but the five little kids eating their lunch in the shade in the picture above is a great insight into our last four weeks. After a great second trimester, Lori is really pushing through tough times again and is having difficulty keeping meals down. The joy is that the baby is so strong, but we have had a number of days where Lori can only be out and about for a few hours at a time before needing to get back to snacks and Air Conditioning.

Because of this, and Lori's last trip to the hospital, we have cut back the length of our stays in the village, deciding not to stay more than three nights at a time until the baby comes. This has meant a number of trips up and down, but this pace of ministry seems to do the trick for this season.

If you made it all the way down here, thanks a lot! We'll try to update more often to keep these posts shorter.

Tags:

• vehicle
• ministry
• helper
• pregnancy