This past month my squad and I spent in Myanmar.
6 hours on a bus. Walking across the border with our packs, drenched in sweat. 10 hours on a new bus where my sweet friend sitting next to me threw up. At 2 am. On her birthday. Sorry Hav, love u. 4 am we got off the bus with two other teams and spent a few nights on the floor of a bible school just outside the capital city. After that, my team and I hopped on yet another bus for 24 hours of travel wayyyyy up into the mountains.
?And that brings us to Hakha. Positioned high in the mountains of the Chin state, the poorest state in Myanmar, Hakha is a small and beautiful town. It was in the 40s when we arrived and rarely got to a point that you couldn’t be comfortable in a light sweater. Home to about 5,000, Hakha is surprisingly active. People always going somewhere, to church, to school, to sit outside their friend’s house and just be in each others company, to play fight with swords on motorcycles in the middle of the street at 3 am… keep themselves real busy up there.
The best way I can describe what Hakha looks like is what you would imagine a coastal town in Alaska to look like. Colorful simple houses and building scattered along mountains and hills around an alaskan lake (we just didn’t have a lake) with cold air and lots of sun.
Our favorite places included K-Mart, a small convenience store with good bread and cold Pepsi, and Hakha Town Coffee, where we went 3 times a day for our meals. Eggs and toast for every meal… every. single. day. Until I threw up eggs and toast and ate banana bread for the last week instead. Health is wealth my friends.
Shortly after Hakha was founded in the 1890s, a missionary family settled there and began a church. Their impact ran so deep that today, Hakha is 95% Christian. Our ministry was mainly coming along side a Christian school and encourage the teachers and further share Jesus with the students. Mount Carmel International School was one of the sweetest places. Ministry started at 12. Babuan would pick us up in the bus and drive the bumpiest road for about 15 minutes to school. We would play soccer with some of my favorite little boys for an hour until 1:15 when class started. My teammate, Abbey, and I taught middle school which was 15 kids between the ages of 11 and 14. For the most part, they spoke really good English. We taught them camp games, learned how to play some ukulele chords, wrote creative stories, learned about the character of Jesus, talked about dreams, and just enjoyed time together. Some of the times I laughed hardest were listening to the stories they wrote about Abbey and I being spies or dragons. Also introduced them to The Sandlot…a real fan favorite.
The teachers at Mount Carmel love the Lord and love to have fun. They took us to a river campout one weekend where we danced and laughed and ate and sang horribly. We did the same thing the next weekend at a strawberry lake (a strawberry field with a small pond on the front of the property). Miley Cyrus… another fan favorite. They invited us into their lives, loved bringing us to their favorite restaurants and look out spots, introduced us to their friends, taught us all the Chin songs in church, loved us real well.
We also got to add on to our ministry when we met Eden and Lian. They both are directors at a Christian boarding school not far from where we were living. They invited us to spend time with the students a few evenings in the week. The kids there were incredibly kind and hardworking, all on scholarship to get an education to be able to support their families that are back in their native villages across the Chin state. They taught us how to play Chinlone, a popular game in Myanmar which is essentially volley ball but with a small whicker ball and you can only use your feet. It’s genuinely the most impressive thing when played well you need to watch some professional YouTube videos (I know that’s a real thing because we all watched them… determined to be pros). Eden and Lian took us to Museums and out to traditional meals and loved us real well. Two of the kindest most hospitable people.
This month was much needed rest. Reminders of the Lord’s faithfulness in the beauty around us both in nature and in the people. His name is written all over little Hakha.
View from our roof. Just a little piece of Hakha’s beauty. Does it no justice.
truu.
Lake picnics with our teachers.
Joined Han’s 4th grade in an attempt to boost my confidence by winning an arm wrestle against a 9-year-old.
The one day I taught kindergarten before deciding kindergarteners require much more responsibility than I possess.
Learning “Country Roads” on the use… an interesting request.
After winning a very competitive soccer game. These two called me “Loser” all month after ONE bad pass… tough crowd. Also genuinely impressed by how good these kids were at soccer.
Bik Bik. Genuinely one of my favorite kids to ever live. A 30-year-old in an 8-year-old’s body. Best laugh in the entire world. Favorite hang man word is “xylophone.” Loves sarcasm and puns. Dream is to be taller than me one day.
Bus rides home were never anything shy of a great time.
Me and my body guards.
Kambary and Bawi Van Thawng (called him Christmas because he would only play soccer in bright red joggers and bright green knee-high socks pulled over said joggers). Two of my besties. Name a more iconic trio.
After the scene where Squints kisses the life guard and they decided it was just too much.
Our middle school girls <3
And the boysss.
2 hours into the 24…
Hope I never get used to this.
– L
