This month in Laos was a pleasant surprise. I’ll be honest, prior to signing up for the race, I didn’t even know Laos existed as a country. I truly had zero expectations coming into this month because well… the world has never told me anything about Laos before. And truly, there’s a part of me that wishes every month was like that! We started the month clean, stoked to be camping, and all sorts of ready for those bucket showers and squatty potties… by the end, we were pro at putting our tents up and taking them down, we had no problem with going to bed with dirt all over us and cement in our hair, power naps on the concrete with ants crawling all over us quickly became something to look forward to, peanut butter sandwiches happened 3 meals a day, along with white rice, and we were all in bed by 7:30. It’s the little things in life that quickly became so significant, like a reeeeally good apple on the last day of ministry, or having a table to sit at for meals.
Before I post the video of this month, I wanted to share some photos I’ve taken with you guys and expand on the significance of each photo. Hopefully, you can catch a feel for what life looked like for us!
This was our “living room/kitchen.” This is also the home to the wonderful family that lives on the farm.
This is the pig house we worked on all month. We dug trenches for water and electricity, and we plastered all the pig “rooms” inside. Now, within the next two weeks, the pigs will be able to come and families (widows & their children) will be able to live on the farm and make a living.
This is what it looked like waking up in the mornings (if it didn’t rain in the middle of the night and we didn’t have to hurry and throw our rainfly’s on).
Oh, I also woke up to these guys more than once also!
This is our bathroom/shower!
Meet Matthew. I can honestly say he’s the craziest kid I’ve ever met. If he’s not crawling on you, he’s probably sprinting around the farm yelling something, or shaking a tree back and forth, or climbing on anything he can find, or doing anything to get your attention while you’re trying to sleep in your tent. Ha! He’s for sure a keeper!
This is Matthews older brother Ahlo! (I think that’s how you spell it, maybe) HE is the SWEETEST kid you’ll ever meet! He could do anything he wanted, but everyday he chose to help us out in the pig farm. He fixed our tools when we broke them (we lost count the first day) he showed us up when we were plastering, and he always knew how to put a smile on our face throughout the day. If we all had a work ethic like this kid, and had as much fun doing it as he did, we would all be world changers! God’s got BIG plans for him, thats for DANG sure!!
This of course is Mary. The first 3 weeks, she had the best poker face in history, no smile, no frown, she didn’t really know what to think of us! But, this last week.. she was ALL smiles! She was a huge blessing this month! There’s no way you could be anything but joyful with her in your arms! I mean, just look at that face!! Gollllleyyy!!
Matthew and Mary, one of the few times they were loving each other! 😉
When God gives you a stick and a pile of rocks… you have batting practice of course! This really was one of the things we enjoyed most about this month! Someone get this kid an agent! 😉
We spent the weekends in the city, these are 2 street kids that we got to spend an afternoon with. We got to share a meal with them, and then took them to pick out a pair of shoes. We didn’t understand each others languages, but that didn’t matter one bit. It’s incredible how God has moments like these divinely planned out, and how you fall right in to these opportunities. It’s experiences like this, that really encourages you to listen to God’s voice throughout your days and seek HIS schedule, not our own.
This is our family, this is who we came “home” to every week and this is who we worked and lived beside! Pray for them, they have big hopes and dreams and I’m believing God is going to answer their prayers! I’m also believing those 3 precious kids, will grow to know God and His love for them.
Thanks for reading through, thanks for taking the time out of your day to see what God’s doing in all these places around the world. Thanks for praying, and thanks for all your support!
Speaking of support… HUGE thank you for each and every one of you who bought a shirt! I am one step closer to meeting this final deadline! My goal is to be 100% funded by April 5th! If you’d like to join me in meeting this goal, you can 1) Support financially by clicking the “support me” link at the top of the page. 2) Share my blog with your friends and families, share these stories about these people around the world and how God is working! 3) Please pray that God will show up and provide in big and unexpected ways! May this deadline be a testimony of how Great and Big he is. How He is MUCH bigger than this $16,257! 🙂
I love you guys!
