The Village

Ok, so I didn't quite get this posted Monday evening like I thought I would but better late than never!  Saturday morning we began the day at Zoe around 9am where we participated in their worship service.  We all sang a bunch of songs for one another and we heard words of  encouragement from a few of the Zoe kids.  We were able to spend time with them and help them with the craft project.  We were then handed a sack lunch and then hit the road.

The drive to the village was long as expected and so windy that many people were feeling queasy by the time we arrived.  We took a short walk around the village which was not a rural as we thought it would be and it was very beautiful there.  After dinner we had a gathering in the local church and the villagers were invited.  We sang songs and a couple people gave their testimony.  The local pastor also said a few words but sadly, I was so tired after the long day, that I'm pretty sure I fell asleep during most of what he said (it was all in the local Karin language so I couldn't understand it anyway!).

Our night was an interesting one - we all slept together in a big room on the floor in mosquito nets.  All I can say is that the ground was hard, the air was hot and there was an incident with both a gigantic spider and a cat with a mouse.  Good times! Really makes me appreciate the hard beds in the hotel so much more =)

The next morning was really amazing...the majority of the people in this village are professing Christians.  I'll admit that I thought we were going to an unreached people but instead we were building up the body of Christ where many people don't visit.  They start their Sunday morning at 6am with a prayer meeting until 7am.  They then split up the women and men and then speak words of encouragement to one another for about an hour.  After breakfast they all come back together for church which then lasted up until around noon.  They dedicate 6 hours to the Lord every Sunday - we were feeling a bit convicted when we sometimes complain about a long-winded pastor who went 15 min over time...seems so silly now.  It was simply beautiful to see people around the world worshipping the the Lord in their own language.

While most of our team was in big church, a small group of us did the Sunday school class for the kids.  It's so funny how you can prepare for hours for something and then end up doing something completely different.  We had a huge challenge with kids because they were much younger than we were expecting and the translator we had only spoke Thai - most of the kids only spoke the local language of Karin.  So we had to really think on our toes, change our plans a bit and kind of make things up as we went.  The amazing thing however, is that we know that they got at least one concept out of our teaching because they answered a question correctly - that God loves them! Later that afternoon, our trip to the village hotel was short and we were all thankful for showers and beds!!!  We had a lovely dinner and then off to sleep we went, thinking about all that we had done that weekend and what was yet to come.

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:  "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." ~ Revelation 7:9-10