questasia

Team from Australia

A view weeks ago I had a team from Australia up in the mountains. We worked on the Hui Kau Laam water project. We still have some weak spots in the pipe we are working on. With the team we were also able to divert a creek through a cement pipe. The road was always flooded and made driving through the area a big hassle. Beside the hard work we also had some time doing outreach in Hui Kau Laam and Hui Ma Jom.

Here are some pictures.

 

Reaching out

The people in Hui Ma Jom gave me greetings through Enoch, who visited the village last week. We are praying about how to get more involved in this particular village. I remember the first time we went there. People were in prison because of drug trafficking, there was sickness and a heavy Spirit on the people. We have seen people healed there from time to time and the village-head gave testimony in front of the village. An evangelist from another village is now visiting every week, but it is a very hard ground. Mida said the Lahu deng (red Lahu) are very hard to reach. Other Lahu groups are mostly christian. When we go into villages, our goal is not to make people change beliefs or become Christians. We want them to know Jesus. This is much harder to achieve. It takes time to know a person, even more to know a person you can not see and is affiliated with a strange live style and dominant church culture. What we do is build relationships, pray and wait. Sometimes we take teams up and have activities. we also help develop infrastructure, but make sure they don't feel they have to give us something in return. The people in the mountains may live a simple live, they are not stupid. They know who is real and who's not. It feels a bit like when I used to do landscape gardening. After we prepared the ground for the lawn we had to walk very careful on the patted ground (not to make footprints) while sowing the seeds. To wait faithfully for the seeds to come out of the soil is one of the many challenges when it comes to cross-cultural missions.

go teams in Hui Cha Loen

Hui Cha Loen is a Lahu village near the border to Burma. Most of the villagers are christians. There is a church and even a pastors house. Only a pastor is missing. The church had invited us to come to encourage them. Their greatest concern is to get back into their old ways. There is a big need for teaching the bible and the Lahu language. We spent two days in the village. taught new songs, played with the children, prayed for the people and taught the bible. The people were encouraged and also touched. they invited us to come back soon.