Hello from Southeast Asia!
We have just spent the week doing our Village Home Stays! We started off last Monday and traveled about 3.5 hours to the NT village. The drive was absolutely breathtaking. This country blows the USA out of the water for views! They fed us amazing food inside their homes and we got to prayer walk all the villages!
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| Catie playing with the kids of BY Village |
On Tuesday we packed up our stuff and headed to another village where there was a river right behind our guesthouse so we all got to have a little fun and swim in the river with our team and supervisors son! It was so fun just to get to hangout and be silly as a team.
The next day we headed to BY village! We got to stay here for two nights. These people had a huge impact on our hearts. That day we met with the owner of the guesthouse and got to walk around the village and saw where they do the local pottery. We finished up the evening by playing a popular game over here called "Boon" which is basically a mixture of corn hole and horseshoes. It was so fun, we had about 6 locals who came over to join us! We girls also got to teach some of the young kids fun games like "Ring around the Rosie" and different cheers from the US!
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| All of the team's bracelets from the Baci Ceremony (the white strings). |
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The next morning we had a local guide who took us through a one hour hike to another village where we got to learn about the culture and prayer walk. After that we went to the local pottery shop where we got to make pots and hangout with the locals. Then we got cleaned up for a ceremony with the local elders and their wives, called a Baci.
There are two types of Baci ceremonies. One that is spiritual through the Buddhist religion or the friendship type. We obviously chose the friendship ceremony. During the ceremony there was a lot of chanting and from what our supervisor could understand there were a lot of blessings of good luck, safe travels, and for our families in America. During their chanting/singing we were all singing songs of praise and praying for The Lord to move in this village through their elders. Then each one tied a white string around our wrists and blessed us individually. It was very powerful. After that we got to sit and talk with the owner of our home stay, NJ. We asked him about what he believed in and told him a little about Jesus Christ. We got to open the door for our supervisor to be able to come back and build more on that relationship. We were all so encouraged.
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| The whole team with a beautiful view of our country behind us. |
Although we only have one more week here in northern country before we go south to our second location we hope to see a lot of growth and fruit come from the last week. We are so thankful for the opportunities that have come from this trip and can't wait to see God work through our supervisors and the local believers here!
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| The boys having some fun on the boat! |
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| The girls having some fun on the boat! |
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| The team playing boon with the locals! |
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| The team playing boon with the locals! |
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| The team playing boon with the locals! |
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| The team playing boon with the locals! |
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| The view from the river that we took back to LP. |
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Prayer Requests: All of the villages to see the beauty that surrounds them through The Lord. Our supervisors to see fruit and be encouraged that what they are doing is amazing! The health and safety of our team as we travel to the southern part of our country this week.
"Let faith arise, in spite of what I
see Lord I believe. But help my unbelief, I choose to trust You. No
matter what I feel, let faith arise. Let faith arise. For my champion's
not dead, He is alive! Oh, and He already knows my every need. Surely He
will come and rescue me. God of miracles come, we need your
supernatural love, to break through. Nothing's impossible, you're the
God of miracles!"
-Chris McClarney
XOXO,
Village Home Stays Team
