Hello again from the jungle!! Its been so much fun out here getting to know everyone and helping with the work we’ve been doing. I decided to layout my update a little differently this time….so, here you go:
MINISTRY
Throughout the week we’ve been able to pray more for people individually – specifically for those who have been sick. There has also been a lot of progress made to the house or as they call it, “chalet,” our team has helped them build. Our guys have really been the biggest help to them – it’s nice to have 2 guys on our team that are engineers J. Our team has also held Bible studies, taught English (thanks to Heather, our certified teacher on the team J ), and taught in the church services.
Always remember tool safety! 😉
Heather teaching the kids the alphabet and little Ati, listening attentively
CULTURALY
– I feel like I have, finally, successfully learned to point with my thumb instead of my index finger, LOL. Here pointing with your index finger is considered rude. They point with their thumb and I think I have it so much down pat I might still be doing it when I come back to the states.
– Eating with my hand feels totally normal now. It’s still quite messy at times but since you eat with only your right hand your left hand is nice and clean still – free to wipe your mouth, haha.
– Having a “bathroom” wherever you want, whenever you want (pretty much – you know, still want privacy J ) is kinda nice. I still like toilets though.
– Eating out of leaves is fun J
– LOVE seeing how involved the men are with their children here! I believe, this is the most I’ve seen the men involved out of any country we’ve done ministry in thus far.
– I’ve gotten used to drinking a lot of hot tea. Initially this was pretty hard since it’s SO humid here. Usually you want a nice cold drink, ha. We drink hot tea though with every meal and often times in-between.
With one of our translators, Lee, about to drink some nice hot tea out of our bamboo cups
This is how they would cook our lunch on construction days. They wrap the rice in leaves and then stuff them into these bamboo shoots to cook over the fire.
Diggin’ in about to eat one of our yummy dinners….wild boar.
HIGHLIGHTS
– Eating wild boar!! They hunt it here and it is SO good! We’ve had it now a handful of times.
– Watching Jess and Ash kill a chicken, that we later ate that night, SO HILARIOUS!
– Going to a wedding in the village. It was literally an all day event full of food, socializing, music, more food, dancing, and this game they play that’s a cross between soccer and volleyball (yeah, hard to describe but its so cool to watch).
– Our last church service. We opened it up for questions afterwards and were able to have really good discussions with them about who Christ is and how you become a Christian. The people that are already Christians here are still baby Christians and still learning a lot about the character of Christ. This service led to us meeting a woman named, Apon. She asked for prayer after the service stating that she wanted to learn how to live her life better for Christ. We have since been able to visit her and her family. We have invited her and the women in her family to a women’s Bible study we will be having this week.
– Hanging out with Pastor Hem, the local pastor, and his family! They are all so wonderful and his kids are just adorable (he has 9 total and one more on the way!!).
– Riding motor scooters for an hour and a half through the jungle to get to town so that we can have our day off and post our blogs for you all J. It’s such a great way to see the country!! Your butt gets a bit sore riding on one of the super bumpy dirt roads, but it’s worth it ;). Our contact didn’t have enough room in his truck for all of us so got us a couple scooters to use. The guys drive them and take one of us girls with them each time.
This is the river we bathed in. We also had to cross it to get to the construction site where we worked.
Jess and I with the pastor’s new grandson, John. Jess got to name the baby and named him after John the disciple :).
Riding the scooter into town!!
Jess and Ash killing our dinner 🙂
Ash and the headless chicken. Ash’s face is priceless :).
Dead chicken (incase you couldn’t figure it out, haha 😉 ).
This is inside the church where we slept. They ran a generator for a few hours a night so we’d have power.
We will be here until Feb. 25th which is when we will head back to Kuala Lumpur to meet up with the rest of the squad. We will be staying there in the city until leaving for the Philippines on the 2nd. I should also mention that Feb 26th just so happens to be my birthday, yeaaaa! J I will officially be stepping into the last year of my 20s….oh my ;).
I can’t wait to give you all another update from wherever we are! THANK YOU for all your prayers!! If you think of us, can you please pray for our safe travels to the Philippines too, thank you. Until next time……
J
