Lindsay shared her testimony of God's goodness and provision during our adoption of James and pregnancy with Juliet
James was great at playing with the other kids (this was a game of dodgeball)
We didn't know what we were going to be doing today as we hadn't exactly formalized our plans with Dave & Louise the day before (today was the final day to get that grant proposal in so they were busy!) We had a slower start to the day, waking up around 8am, so figured that we would use the morning to hang out in the pool (Lindsay and the kids) and I spent some of the morning working on our budgeting/month end and a proposal I needed to submit for work (I should have done it before we left but things got busy!)
The kids had a lot of fun at the pool--thank goodness there is one, otherwise they might be a little more stir crazy than they are already--and they stayed down there until about noon when we ordered in lunch.
We messaged back and forth with Dave and decided that he would pick us up around 4pm to go to an outreach church event at a Myanmar refugee camp that Lighthouse MB Church was involved with. For the rest of the afternoon we finished watching the movie Wonka (that we started the night before), picked up a few small grocery items, and went back in the pool...it was a low key afternoon too!
Dave picked us up at 4pm and we went to Lighthouse to meet with everyone. They have 15 interns that live, serve, and learn together at the church. Every Thursday night they split up into teams and go do outreach at different Myanmar refugee camps. Dave loaded up his truck with us and a number of other people from the church (interns and members) and we drove about 10 minutes to a camp that was tucked away on the land of a Thai family, off-the-beaten-path. Dave said that it is common for refugees to gather together under the leadership of an elder who will help negotiate on behalf of the community. They aren't a formal church with a building, but as a group of people coming together to learn about Jesus, they are calling themselves "Open Heaven Church."
As you can see from the photo and video above, the village is modest. There are elevated wood huts on short stilts, dusty roads, and limited services. They do have wells for water, some electricity, and their own small store setup, but it is very modest and a far-cry from anything that we have ever seen back home. We had a bit of time before things "started" to play dodgeball, walk around, and talk with people. One of the church members, Chris, and one of the interns, Mai Mai, were able to do translation for us.
When it was time to get started, the interns setup a couple tarps to sit on and many people from the community came to join us. The adults all sat together on the tarps in one area, and the children all joined together in another area. The children did lots of songs, colouring, and crafts, and James stayed there with them the whole time! Lindsay and Juliet stayed for a while and then came over the adult tarp as Lindsay and I were going to share a bit of our testimonies (with translation help from Chris).
Pastor Michael led a few worship songs in Myanmar and everyone sang and clapped. Lighthouse has been involved in the community for at least a year (we aren't sure how long) so they had some familiarity with the songs already. Lindsay and I both shared testimonies, as did another Myanmar fellow, then we all prayed and handed out some cooking oil and noodles. We weren't there for long - maybe 1.5-2 hours, then we went back to the church to say goodnight.
Tomorrow we are going to go to a few other small outreach events the church is doing so we will report back on that tomorrow!
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