On the 27th we received the blessing of a day off (for Hmong New Years) and we went to the school where we watched the eligible bachelors/bachelorettes of the town throwing balls back and forth to find their lucky guy/girl. It’s like the one day a year to make your affections known–while the whole village stands around and watches your every move. The guys who weren’t so interested in the flirting competition stood around with cell phones attached to their ears.  The Hmong people take this one day to dress extremely fancy in their traditional costumes.  The kids practice their tossing and catching abilities with each other and spin tops and look extremely cute doing it too.

 

This week, our team has seen a lot of progress within ourselves.  We praise God that we all haven’t killed each other and we all genuinely want to work out communication and understanding and push onward with good attitudes (thanks for your prayers, again, they are working)! We can’t compare ourselves to other outreach teams and their experiences.  The Lord redefines success as obedience and we are obeying Him by being here. It’s a hard place with hard hearts, but this is where we were called to be.

 

Eak and Well (the Shan couple) have been making progress building relationships with some of the Shan migrant workers here (These migrant workers have literally nothing here. They are not eligible for i.d. cards and can’t travel, work legally, or own anything. Their bosses usually pay them in food as an incentive to not leave working the farms, but they have no money for anything else. They are a shy people, who choose to stay on the farms and keep to themselves.  Of course, working in Thailand for them is a world of opportunity for them compared to getting shot up in Burma.  Of course the workers are interested in how Ek and Well got involved in our DTS so doors have been opening to share the Gospel. Please continue to pray for Eak and Well as they will be able to reach people that we never could (neither Thai or farang = foreigner).

On New Year’s Eve, we went with Eak to visit a Shan family that lives in the middle of one of the King’s Project chrysanthemum farms.  A family of 5 lives in a 2 room shanty made of tin and crooked boards.  They have been working there for 2 years and we got a chance to talk with them (Eak spoke Shan, Uan/Au spoke Thai and we listened, smiled, and prayed).  We got a chance to pray for the grandmother, Jing, who can’t work because of a hurt wrist for 9 years (which she is convinced was inflicted upon her by a witch-doctor).  The family believes in animistic spirits and Hinduism (there was a Hindu-god drawing over their bedroom door).  We prayed for her and spoke blessing over the house and the 2 grand-kids (Sienpon and Zeh). She welcomed us back anytime and we will definitely be back for a visit.  They family lives close to a nature trail/waterfall so we will have to check that out as well.

 

Happy New Years everyone. Love you!