Last month my team and I were serving at an Ecolodge Resort an hour outside of the city Vientiane in Laos. Originally, our squad wasn’t supposed to be in the country of Laos at all; we were supposed to go to Burkina Faso. But due to unfortunate circumstances, we were rerouted and sent to Laos. As I write the words “supposed to” it sounds kind of silly to me. The reality is we weren’t ever actually “supposed to” go anywhere other than Laos. Most of us might have thought we would go to Burkina Faso, but looking back and reflecting on the past month, I couldn’t imagine having gone anywhere else.
Laos was a full month. Full of beauty, relationships, work, refreshment, growth- the list goes on and on. Laos is a closed country, so technically it is illegal for there to be missionaries in the country. Since you aren’t allowed to preach the gospel openly to anyone, our hosts are trying to reach Laos through the relationships they build with their staff, their guests, and others in the community.
Here’s a little run down of what my typical day in Laos looked like:
I started off my day working in the kitchen washing dishes. I grew to love washing dishes because it meant I got to start my day either in peaceful silence or listening to a podcast while gazing at the beautiful river. After that I essentially played charades with the kitchen staff who only spoke Lao to figure out how I could help them. The most interesting was when the restaurant manager needed to go to the market to buy food, so she acted out driving her moto, paying for food, and motioning for me to make sure to stay at the restaurant in case a customer came. My time spent in the kitchen included peeling a lot of garlic, chopping all sorts of vegetables, occasionally taking orders and serving guests, and making an obscene amount of rice.
When there was nothing to do on the boat, as well as in the afternoons, I helped out with the construction crew. The main task I helped with involved destroying and hauling countless bricks. There was a brick maze on the property that our hosts no longer wanted there, so they could use the space for something else. So we were charged with breaking apart the maze and then using the bricks to fill potholes on their road. We also did a few other projects like clearing out weeds, laying cement, painting buildings, making signs, and sewing duvet covers.
Our time in Laos reminded me how important our actions are. We worked closely with the staff at the resort, but they spoke very little English so our actions and attitudes towards our work were mainly what we had to speak for who we are and why we were in Laos.
Since there wasn’t always a lot of work in the restaurant, and I couldn’t communicate super well there, I often felt as if I was in the way and not actually being helpful. But one day our host came to talk to me while I was washing dishes and told me how much the restaurant manager enjoyed having me there. He told me she was impressed by my willingness to start washing dishes without being told to and surprised that I was always asking what else I could help with. It was such an encouragement to know that I was being helpful and a good reminder that even my willingness to help can make an impact on those around me.
Our hosts also told us several times how much they appreciated the work we were doing on construction and amazed at the amount of work we got done. We didn’t have the most glamorous job, but we worked well together and had fun doing it. To us, we thought we were just working everyday to fulfill the job we were given. But to those around us our joy and persistence in our work became an encouragement to the other staff members there.
For a couple of days our hosts went on a family vacation, so they connected us with another missionary family to work with while they were gone. Our team ended up going to work at a halfway house called Transformation Center. Our team continued being construction workers. One of the projects I was assigned was to help mix cement that we put on the front wall to make the entrance look more welcoming. 
We were only at Transformation Center for two days, but it was one of my favorite parts of the month. The people there were so welcoming and treated us as family from the moment we arrived. It reminded me how much you can impact someone in a very short amount of time. I am only in each country for a month and sometimes feel as if that is not enough time to do anything. But then I have moments like at the Transformation Center, or getting to know a guest at the resort, and I am reminded that time isn’t as real of a constraint as I think it is. If I can make strong connections and personally feel impacted from a place or person in only a couple of days, what more can I do in a month?
