We Have a Visa!

We are happy to announce that we have recieved our visa for Abigail from the Thai Embassy here in Singapore. The process was amazingly simple since we already had our work permits and visas (and having all the paperwork from the foundation we work through really helped). The bad news is that outside of Thailand you can only receive a 3 month visa, so we will have to begin the 1-year application process for her as soon as we get back to Thailand. But she is on the "official grid" now and the process, though long and expensive, is achievable.



Since we had to come to Singapore anyway, we are enjoying our time here. We have some friends who have a daughter just a few months older than Abi who have graciously played host for our impromptu trip. We have seen the Singapore sights and eaten of the numerous food options here in the Lion City while little Abi and Maya have had a great time playing and interacting with one another.

We are heading back to Thailand on Sunday afternoon and plan on getting back to the village this week once we have begun the application process for Abi in country.

Thanks for all your prayers! We'll (try to) keep you posted.

Tags:

• travel
• visas

We're In Singapore

Well, Bangkok would not give a visa to Abi so we are in Singapore and are about to head to the Embassy with her paperwork. Keep us in prayer!

Tags:

• travel
• visas

Technical Difficulties and Updates

I need to apologize to all of you, especially our new readers from the recent issue of Foursquare's Missions Advance magazine (see article here), for the current state of the Vernon Journal. We recently had some server changes which have required some coding updates on all of our pages, and a complete overhaul of our news feeds on the right side of the page.

Unfortunately, I just do not have the time right now to completely update all of the pages on the site (the entire site has needed design and code changes for some time), but I have been able to get our ministry blog (Journey Notes), our prayer and praise blog and our personal blogs (Lori's, Abi's and Mine) up on crutches for the time being.

As for the rest of the site, our info, media updates, partner pages and the upcoming Mae Salong Project pages, they will not be updated for a little while. We are heading back to the village today and will not be back in Chiang Rai for any significant amount of time until the end of the month.

We are also waiting for some developments from the server over at Foursquare Missions which will allow us to begin receiving online contributions toward our ministry. As these features become available over the next months our site will be updated accordingly.

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Here are our current updates...

We are planning on building a new home in our village in Mae Salong:
This was actually not our idea, and was difficult at first, but as we have thought more about it we are getting very excited about the prospect. The village leaders want to move us away from the center of the village and use our current house as the village home for cooking, hosting and storing things as needed. Actually, our home has always been used for these purposes, but now that we have a growing family they want us to move to a home with a little less foot traffic.

We are hoping that we will get an internet connection in our new home:
We still will have a bamboo house and grass roof, but because of the proximity to the Chinese town of Mae Salong we might be able to put DSL into our new hut. It's still just an idea and there are a few development issues that might stand in our way, but if we are able to set up an office with full internet connectivity in our new home it will allow us to more effectively communicate with all of you as we spend more and more time in the village compiling the data we collect from the Mae Salong Project.

Visa Travel:
After we receive our 1-year visas at the end of this month we will have to travel to Bangkok to apply for a 1-year visa for Abigail. If we cannot get this visa in Bangkok we will have to travel to Singapore to purchase a visa there. We are planning on traveling to Singapore at the end of April anyway, but would love to have all our visa issues worked out before that trip.

School Break Plans:
School break has begun in Thailand and will continue through the beginning of June. Other than our visa needs and ministry travel plans (we have some exciting developments in the works that we will update you on if they work out) we have some plans to minister in our village as we build our new home and settle in again for the year.

Around the Thai new year we will treat our entire village for stomach worms (ourselves included). Although we will all be sick for a few days, the village is really looking forward to this medication as they understand that when the stomach worms are dead, the food (and therefore, the money) goes much further for the family.

We will also be "teaching english" through some sign language videos that John donated for the deaf family in the village. This way the kids will all learn sign language while learning english words and will be able to communicate with the deaf children as they are learning to sign.

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Thanks for your patience with us as we deal with the site changes and please keep our energy and health in your prayers as we enter these very busy months.

Tags:

• travel
• ministry
• updates

A Visa Story (Or, How My Baby Travelled to Burma Without Me)

So we have another Visa story to add to our long list of Visa stories. Apparently, we should not have left the country with the Baby until after our Visas renewed. When we returned to Thailand she was given a 30-day visitors visa. That means she had to leave the country after 30 days.

We, however, are in that wonderful month in-between the old visa and the new visa where we cannot leave the country. Therein our dilemma lay.

After speaking with the Military Police in Maesai, they told us that we had to give Abi to a Thai person, have the Thai person take her over the border to Myanmar (Burma) to get a stamp there, and then return her to Thailand.

Seriously.

Fortunately, we have Esther. So off our little 6-month old went into Myanmar with her 18-year old Akha sister.

It was a long 15 minutes for Mom and Dad, but soon that little round head popped out of the crowd of border passengers and made her way through the checkpoint. She was a trooper and didn't give Esther any problems at all.

So our little Abi is a world traveler - she's been to Taipei, America and Thailand and now to Myanmar without her parents. And she'll have to do it again in 23 days. What a crazy life we live.

Tags:

• visas
• travel
• Abigail

Getting Started Again

Have you ever gotten further and further behind on a task that the very idea of tackling it made you sick to your stomach? That's where we have been in regards to our online and email updates over the past six months or so.

Whether you have noticed or not, our communication level has been on a steady decline. Lori's personal blog hasn't been updated since halfway through the pregnancy. This blog, Journey Notes, has not been updated nearly as often since Abi was born. Abi's blog has not been updated since we left for America in December, and we haven't written any updates about anything since we returned to Thailand earlier this month.

So, rather than trying to back up and catch up on everything we have missed, we are just going to get started again. Looking ahead is much less overwhelming than trying to catch up on what's already behind.

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So here is our update:

Today we are going to Maesai to apply for our new Visa. Yep, it's that time of year again. Just when all the drama of the process should be behind us we have a baby, so pray with us that everything goes smoothly and quickly.

Next Monday we present our vision for THE MAESALONG PROJECT to the Akha Outreach Services board. We have had significant changes in our plans as the family that was going to join us has now decided to remain in Bangkok for this upcoming year. While disappointing, we are still confident in this vision to help serve the Spiritual, Physical and Educational needs of the 30,000 Akha in our target region. We will be reevaluating our goals, timetable and approach to this project over the next month and will continue to keep you updated.

2008 Akha Bible Institute Graduation. On March 8th ABI will be celebrating its graduation and will also be graduating a large number of pastors from throughout northern Thailand from the monthly pastors training school. This will probably be the largest event we have seen at Akha Outreach Foundation and we are looking forward to the event. We'll get you pictures and updates of the festivities later that week.

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Thanks for your patience with us as we adjust to the changes in our lives. We should be better at these updates over the upcoming months.

Tags:

• Akha
• ministry
• MaeSalong.Project

Goodbye 2007, Hello Future

Looking back at 2007 we realize what a great year this has been for us. God has been so faithful to provide for our needs, our dreams and our future.

Abi is an incredible joy.
Our house/language helper Esther has been wonderful for our language and relationships.
The Akha clinic has been a great ministry.
Our relationship with Akha leaders throughout Northern Thailand has grown.

But the most exciting thing is that God has given us a vision for serving the Akha in the near future.

Many of you have heard whisperings of future plans, and some of you have gotten the details. We still aren't ready to post the full vision of the projects before us, but want to let you know how to pray for us over the next few months.

We are about to team up with a dynamic Akha family to begin a project to help serve the spiritual, physical and educational needs of the 30,000 Akha people in the greater Mae Salong region.

This family will join us in Mae Salong in April once the father has finished his master's degree from Bangkok Bible Institute.

We are heading into this new season with excitement and trembling, and ask for you to partner with us in prayer for these specific needs:

1. Provision for staff salaries for the family who is joining us
2. Guidance in expanding relationships in these villages
3. Specific, step-by-step direction in meeting these ministry goals
4. Expansion in our language to meet the demands of ministry and relationship with this family and with the Akha people.

Thank you for your prayers, and for all of your support!

Tags:

• prayer
• Akha
• ministry

Tick... Tick... Ticking Away

Is it just us, or has everyone experienced the rapid passage of time since August 10th of this year? We have been down in the city for a week now, working on some local projects and meeting with Akha leaders (I mean really, really big-time Akha leaders) here in town.

Oh yeah, and our truck broke down.
You can get the video on John's blog. It's the one labeled "More Videos Week 2"
I guess that's what you get when you use a vehicle as heavily as we do.
The silver lining is that we actually needed to be "stuck in town" for a little bit. We have a lot of work to do as we prepare for some really big changes in our ministry and lives next year.
Beginning next year, we are looking to expand the scope and impact of our ministry in the Mae Salong area and, most exciting, we will be partnering with a dynamic young Akha family.

Consider that a teaser with more to come. But the minutes are ticking away, so now I've got to get back to work...

Tags:

• Akha
• ministry
• update