My team and I are most definitely village people. On Thursday, when we arrived here in the Mae Hong Son province of Thailand, we definitely felt that same feeling we felt on the first night in our village in India. To paint a picture of where we are, we had to take a 6 hour van ride from Chiang Mai to the province and then it took another hour to get to our village, and that was all after the 10 hour bus ride from Bangkok. We are pretty much in the jungle.
We get to sleep in bamboo huts and we’re also here during fruit season so praise the Lord for fruit. We haven’t gotten a lot in India or Nepal. We sleep with mosquito nets because malaria and dengue fever are common here. We also wake up to roosters crowing every morning around 5 am which makes our mornings extra special than usual.
Our ministry host took us to a little Chinese town on Friday and on the way we stopped by an amazing waterfall. The day was a good day for us to develop a relationship with our host. We got to spend time with him and his wife, the founders of Freedom Harvest Ministry. Exploring Thailand affirmed that wherever we may be in the world, there is no spot in the universe you cannot see at least some sparks of his glory.
The people who live in our village are Burmese refugees. We are living about 10 miles from the border of Burma so we actually got to walk across the border on Friday. We also got to pray over a woman there whose husband was in the military. The kids that we are here to teach English to are so thankful for life. They each have their own personality and are so full of energy, joy, and worshipful hearts. We get to have church with them every night and I love watching them worship. The thing that I love the most about the church in other countries is that it’s very unstructured and oftentimes led by the kids. They just start singing whatever song they want to sing and share whatever testimony they want to share. It’s built on worship and testimonies. A lot of them are not believers yet so be praying for their hearts to hear the true gospel.
Yesterday, we went into the jungle with the kids. I don’t know what we thought we were going to be doing but it definitely wasn’t what actually happened. We went straight up a mountain that was like a mud slippin slide. But we got up it somehow. And then we came down it. Which was pretty much just skating down a mud mountain.
Just like there are Christians in America who are not pursuing Christ, there are Christians here as well who are more like cultural Christians. I hope to be able to walk alongside them in this discipleship process and show them how much Jesus loves them and wants an actual relationship with them. Thank you for your continued prayers!
