During this last month on the field I get the opportunity to
travel with Jeremy and our two new squad leaders, Ross and Mae, to see all
three of our teams in their different locations. It’s a unique experience that I am able to travel to see all
the teams, and get to spend this much time with Ross and Mae before they are on
their own to lead this squad.
We
just finished up our time with our first team called the Current in Pua,
Thailand. We had an incredible
time with them at the House of Grace, a home for young girls from the hill
tribes around Pua.
During our time in there in Pua we were able to teach
English at multiple schools, teach about prayer at church, visit the homes of
the girls who live at House of Grace, and my favorite: we took a hike into the
mountains to visit a hill tribe for two days.
I would venture to say that most people who are reading this
have never been in a place where there are NO Christians other than
themselves. Honestly, in the past
few years there are only a few times that I myself have been in a similar place. In Thailand it’s not uncommon to find
yourself in a place where you are the only Christian. We found ourselves in this situation as
the only Christians as we traveled to see the hill tribe.
Before we left for our journey to the hill tribe we asked
Pastor Samat how long the hike was, and he would never tell us the truth he
would only give us a sarcastic response.
We weren’t sure if that was a good or bad thing but we figured it surely
couldn’t be that bad. We packed up
the trucks and left Pua at 9am, stopped for lunch at a school on the mountain
and then proceeded to squish into one truck to 4×4 another 20 minutes up the
side of the mountain.
Once we got
to our stopping point we were off to hike for ???? amount of time? Thankfully the gorgeous scenery and not
knowing the distance kept us going strong considering the terrain was less than
desirable.
The Thai missionaries we were with kept passing us on their dirt bikes taking all of our essential items and as we got closer they even loaded our backpacks on the bikes and took them too. Toward the end I even got to ride on the back of one of the motor-bikes. It was kind of terrifying considering the steep inclines we were going up and down. At one point my driver said “walk” the only word he seemed to know in English. When I looked down the steep and rocky path I was glad he said walk because my legs and arms were hurting so bad from holding on so tight to the motor-bike.
We arrived at the hill tribe around 5pm to camp at an open-air
school for the night. I couldn’t
believe where I was when I looked around, I could only see mountains in the
distance. The village was made up
of 40 houses with straw roofs and curious but stand-offish villagers. As we walked through the village and
ended at the school we still had very little information as to why we had made
such a long trip and hike up the mountain.
That night we ate, worshiped and prayed around the campfire
with our team and our Thai friends.
There we found our that our Thai friends who are missionaries have been
going to visit this hill tribe weekly for the past three years and there are still
no Christians. What???? No one has come to know the Lord???? That is absurd! As we worshipped and prayed I could
feel the need for us to take authority over this land since the village people
worship ghosts. We declared God’s
Spirit and Kingdom in that place and I truly believe the breaking point is
coming soon.
The next morning, Thanksgiving Day, we were given the
opportunity to teach and share at the school where we were staying. Somehow I ended up getting to teach the
entire time to our class, so I just went with it. We played copy-cat games and sang silly movement oriented
songs and they were great at repeating me and following along.
After I had their attention for a while
I was able to speak to them about love. I asked them who in their families
loves them? At first no one
responded. I thought surely that
got lost in translation, right?
Thankfully after a while someone said that their mother loves them, then
after some more probing they said their brothers and sisters love them. I was able to share with them how much
we love them and how much God loves them.
For some it was their very first time to hear the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, for others they had heard before but they seemed unaffected by it. AGHHHHHHH!!!! Knowing that the missionaries come back weekly I left it at
that, frustrated but in my spirit I KNOW that the time is coming when the
entire village will come to know Christ as their savior.
One of my favorite things to do is to pray through
declarations, especially when my faith is not quite where it should be. With the AIM community and myself our
declarations usually end up being loud and we stand on top of things. Through a series of Patrice and Holy
Spirit events we had all of the kids in my class jumping up and down declaring
“JESUS LOVES ME” “I AM LOVED” and
my favorite was when we had the class banging on the desks saying “TEAR DOWN THE
WALLS, TEAR DOWN THE WALLS, TEAR DOWN THE WALLS”!!!! It was awesome, no really I cannot describe to you how incredible
it was!!!!!!! I know that the
students don’t know English but Satan does and he heard us declaring that the
walls and lies that he has built around that village will come down in Jesus
name!!!!! That was the best
Thanksgiving Day that I have ever had!
I am so blessed to get to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a remote
village in the mountains of Thailand. Now that was worth a days travel and a
long hike!
Keep praying that the walls will indeed fall down for this
hill tribe of Thailand and that every knee and every tongue will confess that
JESUS IS LORD! WE ARE VICTORIOUS!!!!
