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Who do you think Preston looks like, me Tim, or a mix of both?

I guess the title could have been Thai Dam Prayer Journey 3

(Does it look like I’m really moving? I’m not)

While on our trip we met a few people who were cycling across southeast Asia. Bicycling, that is, not motorcycling. We would usually spend a day and a half in one place then catch a bus through the mountains to our next stop. It was incredible to us that we kept seeing these same guys in various cities along the way. They weren’t traveling together but we would see one here and one there. Our group started joking about doing another prayer journey next summer, on wheels. Well, I thought we were joking. I was, as least. Then a few days after the trip I found out that at least one person on the trip was really serious about it. She’d already emailed one of our team leaders to see whether he thought it was a good idea. I think there’s lots to take into consideration before signing on for something so ridiculous, but it sure would be a wild ride, wouldn’t it? These pictures were taken during the two days of the trip that we did ride bikes, but only to a nearby waterfall, a Buddhist temple on a hill overlooking the town, some nearby villages and a very crazy bridge made of bamboo and wood and rocks. I would post a picture of it but I’m waiting for Evan to send me a cd before I can do that (hint, hint to Evan or Hannah). So, if anyone has some biking experience and is interested in doing a trip like this just let us know.

(Macho-man pose)

Well I’ve been really slow at getting additional posts up here about the prayer journey to Vietnam and Laos. I won’t try to capture too much in this post (and hopefully it won’t take me another month to get back and write a little bit more), but wanted to write a little bit about one of my favorite moments of the trip. It was in northwestern Vietnam, in a place where quite a few people had started to worship Jesus and some churches had been established. What we knew about this place was that the churches had experienced lots of opposition and persecution from the government and many had fallen away. Some stood firm in their faith, but many did not. When we visited this area we found a large hill in the middle of the town so we made our way up to the top of the hill one evening. It was beautiful to watch the sun set over the mountains. The town completely wraps around the hill and you can see rice fields outside the town in nearly every direction. We saw smoke rising from Thai Dam villages in the distance. Though we enjoyed the beautiful view we also felt the heaviness of what had gone on there and the amount of people who had once believed but then walked away when the affliction came. I was reminded of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, so we gathered as a group up on the hill and one of the guys on our team read it aloud while we sat in a circle and listened. In the case of the letter, Paul was writing to a group of believers who had undergone severe affliction but their faith had remained secure. Their reputation was well known and their faith during times of persecution was an example and an encouragement to other believers in the area. Sadly that hadn’t been the case for those in the area that we were looking at from that hill. We used the words of 1 Thessalonians to launch us into our prayers and to guide us as to what we should pray for. We found so many things in this one short book (letter) that we could use to give us an outline for our prayers for those believers who had stood firm and for those who had not yet believed but will in the future.

Some highlights or things I took away from the experience:
*Sitting in a circle and listening to someone read the letter outloud helped us get into the setting and mindset of how it was first delivered. When we read a few chapters or verses here and there we make it very difficult on ourselves to capture what was really being communicated.
*It was such powerful training in using the words of Scripture to shape my prayers. I often try to do this but this time was a very easy and natural expression of it.
*This is a great place to start for anyone looking for ways to pray for believers who are experiencing persecution. Look at this letter and see what Paul has to say about this group.

Hannah and Evan went on the prayer journey with Tim. It was really good to see them out here. We met Hannah a couple of years ago on a TM trip and this summer she decided to come out and do a prayer journey instead of a TM summer. I didn’t get to spend a lot of one on one time with her as I would have liked, because of all the traveling they did. Thanks for coming out we love you.

Since we moved here 3 years ago, we have personally been responsible for 6 interns. Beka came first, right after our move and experienced a lot of transition with us. Rachel and Abby came at the same time and experienced our first months as members of OMF. Kari and Meghan came almost a year later and Bethany was our last intern who left in December. Meghan and Bethany were living with us when Tim and I got pregnant. Since I was due December 20th and Bethany wasn’t leaving until the 30th it was a good chance that she would be the only intern to meet the newest member of our family. As it turned out Preston was born the day Bethany left to go back to Canada. We actually had him as her flight took off from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. It was sad that she got to watch us through the whole pregnancy and never got to meet the little guy. This week however Rachel came back to Thailand for a visit and she was the first to meet Preston. Rachel was the first intern to leave Thailand 2 years ago, but ironically she was the first to meet our son. We miss all of you and pray that you can all come back sometime soon to meet Preston. So to Beka, Abby, Kari, Meghan, and Effy we want to say it is your turn to come and meet our little guy. We love and miss you all. Each in your own way have touched our lives and we feel richer for having been a small part of your life.

We celebrated on Sunday, but here are some pictures. I wrote happy fathers day in Thai for Preston to hold, but it was so hard to get him not to eat the paper.

The team and I arrived back in Chiang Mai almost a week ago but it’s taken some time to overcome the exhaustion from all the travel and spend some time debriefing our trip before we all dispersed. There is so much to say about this prayer journey but in order to do it on a blog I have to sift out what I can’t say because of security concerns and also what I would like to say but isn’t easily explained unless we are sitting face to face. I will also try to split it up into a few posts to prevent this one from becoming way too long. Before going into too much detail I’ll just answer the W’s (who, what, where, why…)

WHO: Six of us traveling together. Some of us had known each other for a while and others I just met within the last two months, one as recently as early May. Now our team of six has split — two live in Thailand, one in another country in SE Asia, two returned to the States yesterday and one is out in a Karen village near the Burmese border and will soon continue on to Cambodia.

WHAT: We traveled through areas where the Thai Dam people live, to pray for them to come to know God and for churches to be established throughout the Thai Dam world, throughout the small towns and villages where they live. We traveled by airplanes, taxis, motorbike taxis, bicycles, boats (just to cross a couple rivers), and buses. Bus rides were our primary means of transportation. Lots of bus rides. Long bus rides. Bumpy bus rides through the mountains. Probably more to come about that in another post.

WHERE: Starting in Hanoi, Vietnam we made our way back to Thailand by land. Doing this allowed us to pass through the heartland of the Thai Dam people, very few of whom know the God who made them. From northwestern Vietnam we crossed into Northern Laos and continued west to Thailand.

WHY: So many reasons. Our church-planting teams place a strong emphasis on prayer and we believe it is essential to seeing indigenous churches established among these unreached groups. A prayer journey enables us to go into unreached areas and actually pray for the very people we are hoping will be reached. Taking short-termer’s on the trip opens the door for them to get a vision for the people and to become advocates for them when they return home. A trip like this also helps us to know how to pray and stirs the fires of our own prayer life in places where the flame has died down. I could go on and on about this and I will probably come back to it but I’ll leave it at that for now.

Tim gets home tonight, and I have a million things to do. While he was gone I got out all of my scrapbooking stuff which is no small task. I never got to doing any actual pages, just a lot of looking through pictures of what I want to do next in Prestons’ album. So now I have to take it all off my kitchen table and put it back in the storage room (formally known as Effy’s room). Also while Tim is gone I usually leave out Prestons things so that I don’t have to get them out the next day. I know it is lazy, but it doesn’t bother me while Tim is gone. However, I know that Tim loves the house picked up at the end of the day and I want him to come home to a happy house. So today is operation clean up before Tim gets home.

Tim texted me from Laos to say they will be coming home tomorrow night. I am so excited!!!!!! The nights were getting a bit quiet around here with out him and 10 days is a long time to be gone anyway. Preston has been great, but being a single parent has exhausted me. I can’t wait to hear about all that happened while they were on their journey. Keep praying for a safe arrival.

I talked to Tim and it sounds like they are at the boarder town in Viet Nam. They had a great day of praying for Thai Dam. They will enter into Laos sometime tomorrow and continue their trek until they make it back to Chiang Mai Sunday or Monday. Keep praying for wisdom for the team, divine appointments, and most of all safety. There is another girl on the trip who lives in Laos on the team. Tim said it was so much fun talking to Thai Dam with her because there are parts of their language that are similar to Laos so she would understand things Tim couldn’t, but then there were parts that are similar to Thai so Tim could understand and together they could have a good conversation. I think this trip has really helped the members of the team see that ethnicity transcends political boarders. The mere fact that they can travel throughout Viet Nam and on into Laos and come upon villages that speak neither Laos or Vietnamese, but only Thai Dam is such an eye opening experience for people who tend to only notice political boundaries. So even though they are Laos or Vietnamese they are ethnically Thai Dam. I am excited to hear all of Tim’s stories when he returns.