Journey Notes

The Ladder Man

2008-07-15T12:49:00.002+07:00

Having lived in Thailand for three years, we've become pretty accustomed to some of the odd sights that overseas living has to offer. However, some things still surprise me. Take, for instance, The Ladder Man. We occasionally see these guys around town, but this one happened to be selling his wares in our neighborhood recently, so I took the opportunity to snap a picture for you!

I often wonder how he can actually make a living as a mobile ladder salesman. Although, I confesss, I'm probably looking at it from an overly American perspective....The Icecream Man is one thing, but the Ladder Man just wouldn't fly in America! On the other hand, I guess it does make sense here; most Thai families have a scooter instead of a car or truck, so they can't simply run to the local store and bring a ladder home... the ladder has to come to them!

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Building a Home with the Akha (Video)

2008-07-14T15:51:00.005+07:00

Our director is off to Singapore tomorrow to teach on the subject "Communicating the Gospel in a Pluralist Context" for Haggai Institute. I have had the privilege to help him prepare for these 8 lectures: we have been working on the powerpoints for months, and intensively over these past two weeks. The time is upon us, however, so ready or not (hopefully ready) he is off to teach leaders from around the globe.

We have visitors and teams coming beginning tomorrow through the remainder of this month, so that gave me today to get caught up on some of our communication to all of you.

We mentioned a few months ago that we were building a new home in Mae Salong. The home that was built for us upon our arrival was built to last 3-5 years. With our three years up, we decided to build a home that will last us closer to 10 years as we continue to live and work with the Akha.

Once again, our village was incredibly generous, donating their time and expertise to our need. Our new home features such ammenities as cement on the floors (it's not level, but it's not dirt!), an indoor bathroom, indoor running water (when available), and electrical outlets and lights in each room. These modern conveniences are still coupled with bamboo walls and a grass roof, which we love and will probably never go away from (it's so much cooler!).

It's a huge blessing for us as a family and also for the village who are now using our first home full time as the village community house.

We have a video of the entire construction process - take a look...

Click To Play
or
Download .MPEG (High Quality)
Download .FLV (Low Quality)

For those of you who are wondering, the song (Big House by Audio Adrenaline) is an homage to our old Campus Crusade days at the Colorado School of Mines. Good times, good times... but you probably had to be there.

I'll get a video tour of the "lived-in" house up on the site next (who knows when, but it's my next project).

Thanks for following our lives here at the Vernon Journal!

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Where have we been?

2008-06-11T10:37:00.004+07:00

Well, we've been all around, actually, but the times that we have not been teaching at the Bible college, receiving training in community development, assisting our director as he prepares for a teaching series in Singapore or showing Tiffany and Tamara around Northern Thailand (we had a great time girls! - hope you enjoy Bangkok) we have been in the village.

It turns out that although we do have a new home (video tour in a few weeks) we do not have the ability to get DSL internet, thus destroying our great ideas for video calls, blog posts, study and work from the village. There is a satellite option, but it is rather expensive and we aren't quite ready to make that commitment yet. So, for the time being, we will do our best to get posts up as often as possible - but the will likely come in chunks like you are seeing right now.

We are off to the village again this weekend and will be there for the next two weeks. Please pray for us as we will be beginning our forays into new villages as we begin the Mae Salong Project!

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Holistic Ministry

2008-06-11T09:22:00.007+07:00

When we share about our work with the Akha, we stress a holistic approach to ministry. Simply stated, this means we seek to minister the whole gospel to the whole person through the whole church. There is a spectacular article by Ron Sider et. al. over at forMinistry.org if you would like to read more on these ideas.

This focus in our ministry has led us in surprising directions, including living in a village, the Akha Clinic, helping children receive formal education, and patience in the pursuit of definitions in our ministry as we build meaningful relationships with our village.

It has also largely kept us from preaching in church on Sundays or telling people "theological dos and don'ts" as we have observed the culture around us.

This year is the beginning of a new season for us, however, as we are now taking [tentative, deliberate] steps in the expansion of our ministry beyond our village. We are seeking to build relationships with our extended community of Akha, ultimately connecting with the 30,000 Akha living in the Mae Salong Region and assisting them in their journey towards spiritual, physical, emotional and intellectual health.

In the light of this direction we took a little time out of our village schedule to attend a training workshop that was hosted by Community Health Evangelism, an inspirational development program through Lifewind International.

The training was very beneficial to us, helping us to give more details in the way that we would like to help villages in their development as well as helping us to define and to defend why we do the work we do. Even more exciting, however, are the CHE resources which will serve as in invaluable tool as we move forward in our holistic ministry.

The total body of CHE materials now exceeds 1,500 specific lessons covering topics from A to Z. LifeWind manages and makes this resource easily available to trained CHE users. LifeWind also develops specialized materials on topics such as HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care, Maternal/Child Health, and Birth Life-saving Skills (BLISS) as cutting-edge resources addressing critical health issues. All CHE resources incorporate Participatory Learning, a teaching style proven effective in training people of all kinds, especially those with limited {formal} education.
-From the Lifewind website, italicized words are mine

So, we're excited about these tools, and these ideas. We are excited to see holistic development and lives that are characterized by health. And we're excited to see what God does with all these seeds which have been planted in our minds and hearts.

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ministry

Signing Time!

2008-06-10T10:25:00.000+07:00

This is A-Paw. She is hearing impaired. When we first arrived in the village three years ago, she was an outgoing, playful little four year old who had no idea that there was any difference between her and her friends. Unfortunately, without any exposure to sign language, in the past three years we've seen her eyes glaze over and her temper flare more and more often as she realizes that she doesn't really understand what's going on around her and that she can't adequately communicate her own wants and needs.

After visiting us last fall, our good friend John really wanted to help A-paw and her family, so he donated the first six DVDs in the Signing Time Series. Now that we have our new house built, we've brought up an old TV and started showing the series once a week to anyone that wants to come! A-Paw is a brilliant little girl and, after only a few lessons, has most of the words memorized. We're hoping that this, admittedly limited, exposure to ASL (although slightly different from Thai Sign Language) will give her a bit of an advantage should she ever end up at a school for the hearing impaired. If nothing else, we hope that she can have a few more words with which to communicate with her family and friends.

The added benefit of the Signing Time series is that it's a great way for the hearing kids to learn a bit of English. Our village has been nagging us to teach English ever since we've arrived, but we've been reticent to start official lessons, knowing that most of the kids in our village go to Thai school all day, and then head off to Chinese language school for three hours every evening. We just couldn't imagine that they would have any time or brain power left to sit through another lesson! Luckily, Signing Time seems to be a great solution because it makes learning fun! It uses songs and great visual footage to help the kids remember each new word, not to mention the, signs themselves, which are so intuitive and help the memory as well!

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We Have a Visa!

2008-04-25T18:37:00.008+07:00

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.

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We're In Singapore

2008-04-24T07:51:00.001+07:00

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!

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Technical Difficulties and Updates

2008-03-15T07:50:00.003+07:00

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.

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

2008-03-01T11:17:00.002+07:00

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.

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Getting Started Again

2008-02-27T07:55:00.002+07:00

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.

~~~~~

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.

~~~~~

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.

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Goodbye 2007, Hello Future

2008-01-01T00:25:00.001+07:00

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!

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Tick... Tick... Ticking Away

2007-11-26T08:50:00.001+07:00

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...

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Welcome John B!

2007-11-09T09:46:00.000+07:00

That's right, the founder and creative genius behind the internationally renowned Flying Hippo Project has graced us with his presence for the entire month of November.

We've had a great time with him in his first week with us - spending time in Chiang Rai, Mae Salong and Chiang Mai - and he's been documenting the whole trip on his hand held camcorder.

So, if you are looking for a fresh, new-generation interpretation of our lives here in Thailand - go take a look at the videos John has posted at the Flying Hippo Project.

*** for those of you who are quickly overwhelmed by MySpace pages - the videos are down and to the left***

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Site Update :: Partners Page

2007-11-05T09:49:00.000+07:00

Well, it's been nearly a year since we began officially running all our support funds through the FMI (inter)national office in Los Angeles, but I am just now getting around to updating our site to reflect that change.

So, for all of our partners (and those who are considering partnering with us in the future) the new information and the Partner Coupons are now up on our partners page.

We will continue to communicate with all of you through email as well, and ask that you feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding this information.

Thank you all for your partnership and for your patience with me in getting this site up-to-date.

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Family Portrait

2007-11-02T10:22:00.000+07:00

Some recent conversations with bloggers for the NextGen Summit and writers from Advance Magazine, each part of our Foursquare family in America, have prompted us to take a new family portrait.

Being the "digital age" missionaries that we are, we thought we would share that photo with all of you:

Read our interview on the NextGen Summit Blog: Part 1 :: Part 2 :: Part 3
Subscribe to Advance magazine here

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1500 Kilometers Later

2007-10-29T14:39:00.000+07:00

For all of you Yanks (which is about 95% of our readers), that's over 900 miles that we put on our truck in this last week. We want to thank you all for your prayers, as we were able to have the energy needed to not only make all the trips, but to interact and connect while in Chiang Mai, Mae Chan and Mae Salong.

Unfortunately, because we were so overbooked last week, we were not able to enjoy any one event in its entirety, and we did not attend the missionary retreat in Chiang Mai at all.

In the abbreviated times we had, however, we were able to connect with a number of people whose relationships we value. We saw most of the Thailand Foursquare missionaries at the Foursquare National Convention in Chiang Mai. We were also able to connect with an Akha / Foursquare pastor while at the convention who we hope to work with more in the future.

The staff retreat for AOF in Mae Chan was a great time, and we were reminded again how we are surrounded by a superstar group of young Akha leaders. It is truly a privilege to work at Akha Outreach Foundation.

Finally, the New Rice Festival in Mae Salong was wonderful, as always. Pastor Ajoe and his wife Miba and sons Mose and Chalom were up from Bangkok and we had a good time with them. Remember those names, as we have some exciting visions for the future with he and his family - we'll be sharing those with you at Christmas!

We have a few days in the city before we are on the road again, this time working on some videos for AOF, helping out with a sponsor team that is visiting from Colorado, another trip to Chiang Mai to get Misa back into the handicapped school and welcoming Johnny Burroughs (who now goes by "John", but old habits... ) who will be spending the rest of November with us.

We'll try to keep in touch as best as we can during that time, keep your eye on our site!

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Super Scary Scolopendra

2007-10-14T15:03:00.000+07:00

As usual, while in the village we had to use the Akha Ambulance to take two women down to the hospital in Mae Chan.

One of the women has been having stomach discomfort for some time, and since the antacids she has been taking have not helped, she needed a more qualified opinion. She is now on a stronger antacid and will return again later this month for further evaluation.

The second woman, however, had a much scarier experience.

Early in the morning, while walking into the jungle to collect her firewood for the day, this woman stepped on something that stung her foot. As her foot began to swell, the men from the village came to explain to me what had happened and that she needed medical help. They kept telling me the name of the animal that stung her, but I was unfamiliar with the word in Akha.

Then they all remembered that one of the Akha boys, Asalo, had captured one of these animals that morning and had put it in a bottle. They ran off to his house and came back with the meanest looking bug I have ever seen. An 8"-long centipede with a body as thick as a quarter, bright red hind legs and inch-long stingers.

This is footage of the Scolopendra centipede of Thailand that I found on YouTube.
Notice the coloring in the legs and those nasty stingers.
These things are monsters!

Armed now with the general knowledge of what we were dealing with, we rushed her down to the Emergency Room in Mae Chan. After some translation help from an Akha friend we were able to communicate to the Thai nurses what had bit her so they could administer the appropriate treatment.

Since then, we have learned more about the Scolopendra: Giant Centipede of Thailand:
Though their stings are poisonous, they are not deadly if there is no allergic reaction.
The sting is terribly painful because of the depth of the puncture and the amount of poison. A painkiller, such as Paracetamol, should be administered quickly.
There is no specific antidote for the poison, but an antihistamine should be administered as quickly as possible to keep the reaction and swelling down and the person who has been stung should go to the hospital for further treatment.

The woman is now home recovering, as it is several days to weeks before the swelling and pain are completely gone, and we now have one more little bit of knowledge in our arsenal as we try to care for the physical well-being of our Akha friends.

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The Akha Clinic : Mobile Again

2007-09-24T13:09:00.000+07:00

Perhaps our most significant ministry to the Akha is the Akha Clinic. In Thailand, many of the Akha are not given Thai citizenship, even if they are born in Thailand. This is due largely to the fact that they are recently (within the last 3 or 4 generations) from Burma.
Unfortunately, this also means a lack of medical care.

The Thai government is trying to improve this situation, giving non-citizens the chance to go to clinics where they can then be referred to the government hospitals in serious cases. However, even these clinics are expensive when the daily wages of field workers are taken into account (there is also no enforced minimum wage in the rural areas of Thailand).

Beyond the issues of finance and privilege, most of the Akha do not speak much Thai, causing miscommunication and distrust between doctors and patients.

All of these issues facing the Akha have combined in the formation of the Akha Clinic. Although we have no formal medical training, we have run these clinics with Doctors and Dentists from the US and have learned much from them. We have a shop in Chiang Rai where we can purchase medicine and supplies cheaply and in bulk, and we have developed a fairly comprehensive clinic that can be packed in the back of our truck and serve in any Akha village that we are invited into.

We always have this medicine and supplies with us, and are often caring for emergency cases while in villages, but our goal is to take the Akha (mobile) Clinic on one formal village day-long trip each month, eventually incorporating community health education into the clinic days as we receive further training on the subject.

Thus far we have been unable to maintain our once-a-month goal, however, now that Abi is settling in we are refocusing our clinic ministry. Last month, inspired by Dr. Luce, who brought a dental team from Colorado to perform free dental care in an Akha village, we were able to treat nearly 100 patients from an Akha Village near Wiangpapao with medicine, care and listening ears.

Take a look below at some of the snapshots of the clinic-preparation day:

Also here is some footage from the clinic day - it's pretty raw and not very entertaining (no music, translation or special effects), but there is a little bit of footage of Dr. Luce's Dental team and also a shot at the very end of Abi in her Akha hat that is just priceless:

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Seven Wonderful Years

2007-08-05T17:40:00.000+07:00

Today we celebrated seven wonderful years together!
What a great adventure it has been.

I love you so much Lori - and I'm looking to all the adventures -
the trials and joys;
the failure and success;
the sickness and health;
the poverty and wealth... that still lie before us.

And yes, we would do it all over again.

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marriage

Feral Cats and Fake Markers

2007-07-06T20:50:00.000+07:00

I think the nesting bug has set in, as we have been frantically scraping, spraying, scrubbing and situating our home in Chiang Rai. Things that we were previously oblivious too are now glaring testimonies of how much life will have to change when we have a child. OK, so we're really not that panicked, but we are working hard on projects that should get done before the baby comes.

The only thing I'm currently concerned about is teaching our child to drive. I love Thailand and the people here, but I constantly switch between fearing them and fearing for them when driving.

In this time in the city, while working in the house, we have been hearing strange noises coming from our "attic". The other day while climbing onto the flat roof above our porch to unclog our drains, I saw three adult cats and five kittens scrambling away - the adults over the roof and the kittens into it.

Suffice it to say we are unhappy with the idea of Feral Cats nesting in our roof, but there is not much you can do to get rid of them, I tried to shoo them off but was met with the response in the picture on the right. Out of ideas, I have asked Lori to get me a high-powered pellet gun. We'll let you know how that turns out.

Amidst the shopping for furniture, organizational supplies, and tools, we stumbled upon a hidden treasure. A five-pack of Sharpie Markers for only 25 baht (about US$0.80)!?! These are impossible to find here, and are wonderful for labeling CDs. However, after closer inspection (click on the image to view) we realized that it was not a pack of Sharpie Markers, but rather a pack of Skerple Markers. But hey, they should write the same, right?

Guess what? They don't. They bleed all over paper and I've yet to try them on a CD. Foiled again.

I think we should have about two more good weeks of work here in the city getting everything ready before Lori hits that "I'm too uncomfortable to do anything" point. That is plenty of time to finish the errands on her list, then it's down to finalizing my honey-dos (crib, rehang two doors, repair all the leaking sinks, child-proof the tool room, put the fear of God into those darn cats...)

Really this has been a great time, preparing for our little newcomer, spending time together and with Esther and doing many of those projects we have been "too busy" to do for the last 2 years.

Lastly, and this word is important, there is wonderful and exciting news hidden within this post. I'm not allowed to officially say anything yet, but with very little mental effort you should be able to figure it out!

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Ministry Update : June

2007-06-23T09:08:00.000+07:00

A milestone! This is the 100th Journey Note that we have written. Of course when you combine all our blogs this is the 288th note that we have added to our site, but 100 is a much nicer number to talk about.

We just wanted to share an update on what is keeping us occupied at this point. As Lori progresses through her third trimester, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to spend time in the village. The mental drain of language, the emotional drain of medical care, and the physical drain of making a baby have all combined with the constant spiritual drain of ministry to really wipe Lori out right now : so we are only spending a few days at a time in the village.

Last weekend we went up for two nights with two gals from Colorado and had a wonderful time in our village near Doi Mae Salong. Marlene and Pam were real troopers, and our Akha mom fell in love with them. She even decided that she would be willing to go back to America with them for a month (she was only kidding, but if you knew her you would see from that statement how much fun she had with these two women).

This weekend we will be spending some time with a team from Faith Bible Chapel, going to church at a village here in Chiang Rai and then spending two or three days over the next week pouring a foundation - by hand - for a new church in Wiangpapao (about 1.5 hours southwest of Chiang Rai). Lori, of course, will not be pouring concrete but please pray for her energy levels and both of our translation abilities as we will be the only Akha/English speakers there for the group.

In between these ministry excursions we have been spending time in our home in Chiang Rai. While Lori has been recovering from / resting for the next outings, Paul has been spending time working on a number of side projects that have been piling up.

Those projects include the creation of a video for some Akha pastors who went on a missions trip in March, a transcription of an Akha evangelistic tract to a digital format, and the editing and production of an Akha literacy video which is intended to be distributed to the Akha in Thailand and surrounding countries.

Through all this we are keeping occupied and trying not to spend all our time and energy anticipating the arrival of Curious George.

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Where, O Where Did the Last 4 Weeks Go?

2007-06-13T09:17:00.000+07:00

Our goal with this site and these blogs is to keep you all frequently updated on our ministry, experiences, personal lives and general events here in Thailand. At best, we get up one short post a week, giving three or four glimpses into our lives each month. This is wonderful for us, because it serves as a record that we can (and have) review when we think back over the last two years. Some months, however, we allow too much time to pass and too many stories have gone by.

This has been one of those months.

So, we will not be sharing about the Chinese/Akha wedding with a Western twist, the trip to the handicapped school in Chiang Mai, the Akha clinic experiences nor the visits to our Akha aunt in the hospital. No, for this post we want to share three stories that are told in the following picture.

Esther

If you recall a few months ago we wrote about looking for someone to help us out with language, the house and the baby. Well, the girl standing in the far left of the picture is the answer to that prayer.

The girl we originally asked wanted to go work in Bangkok, and has since left. We thought that perhaps God had just closed the door and a helper was not going to work out for this season. But our friends in the village and our friends in the city kept encouraging us, saying that without the support structure of family in the States we were really going to need some help.

However, one of the girls from House of Joy had gone back to her village in Myanmar and told her cousin that we were looking for an Akha helper. After a couple of phone calls and a quick "interview" we had a helper, and a feeling of horror as we asked ourselves "Are we really ready for a teenager?"

Our fears were quickly put to rest however, when Esther came to live with us. She has Thai citizenship and can speak Thai well, but her education was in Burmese. She's a natural around the house and her Akha is spectacular. Surprisingly, she is fully literate in Akha and as we just finished our first formal Akha lesson in over a year, we are thrilled to be back into a learning schedule again.

We have also started her in a Thai adult education class once a week so she can eventually take the "Maw Hok" (kind of like a GED) to help her as she plans for her future.

We are amazed at God's timing in all of this, and when Curious George finally comes into this world he or she will be welcomed by our families, both American and Akha and an Akha Sister too!

Our New Truck

Continuing the idea of God's timing, and with thanks to the incredible generosity of all of our partners back in America and the missionaries who just moved back to America, we were able to purchase a wonderful 1990 Nissan pickup truck, whose nose you can see in the right side of the picture.

Transferring all the title and paperwork was less of a headache than we expected, taking only two full days in government offices. However, I do have a Thai driver's license and registration in my name to show for it.

It has been a real blessing and has already served the village as a "church bus", "ambulance / limo service" and "Akha clinic on wheels". There are a few upgrades we are looking into including a roll bar and a lift for safety and those great dirt roads, but we have been thrilled by the gas mileage, the ease of transporting so many people and the reliability.

The only thing we regret is that we don't know what to call it. Suzi was such a wonderful and natural nickname for our Suzuki (who, by the way, will continue her work among the Akha and AOF after a huge overhaul). If you have any ideas for the nickname of our new truck, please drop us a comment below - who knows, maybe we'll use it.

Hot, Tired and Hungry

This section should probably go in the baby blog, but the five little kids eating their lunch in the shade in the picture above is a great insight into our last four weeks. After a great second trimester, Lori is really pushing through tough times again and is having difficulty keeping meals down. The joy is that the baby is so strong, but we have had a number of days where Lori can only be out and about for a few hours at a time before needing to get back to snacks and Air Conditioning.

Because of this, and Lori's last trip to the hospital, we have cut back the length of our stays in the village, deciding not to stay more than three nights at a time until the baby comes. This has meant a number of trips up and down, but this pace of ministry seems to do the trick for this season.

If you made it all the way down here, thanks a lot! We'll try to update more often to keep these posts shorter.

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The End is Near

2007-05-07T13:39:00.000+07:00

This is a post of an impending doom, an incredible relief, and an inevitable arrival.

First, the impending doom. Suzi must know that her time with us is almost over. Even though we just had her repaired, she dies every time we tap the brakes and has begun leaking oil as a sign of protest against the prospect of being replaced. Finally, as we were driving out for Lori's birthday on May 5th, she died a few hundred feet from our home and would not restart. Fortunately, A-je was nearby and he rescued us, so the birthday was not ruined. Today we went to our mechanic who sent two of his guys over to look at it. After some tinkering, they pulled out a rubber band from the gas line (this is the result of another long story about an incompetent gas station attendant). That got the truck running again, but they took it into the shop to deal with some of it's other problems.

Now, for the incredible relief. A-je is nearly finished his dissertation. We have one more read-through tonight before he submits it. He will be going down to Bangkok for his oral defense sometime in the next week and hopes to walk in June. Remember him in your prayers as you think of him!

Now that these two events (can a vehicle be an event?) are nearly behind us we can look forward to the inevitable arrival of Curious George.

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A New Truck

2007-04-29T15:43:00.000+07:00

We have had some very interesting vehicle experiences over the last few months. And, although our Suzuki is back in our possession, she is on her last legs - stalling every time we tap the brakes. With a pregnant wife and a future child to care for, it has become obvious that our little Suzuki is no longer a reliable family or ministry vehicle.

So we have been looking around for a "new" truck to fill our needs. Unfortunately, vehicles in Thailand (especially in Northern Thailand) are even more expensive than those in the US. The trucks we have looked at run around 470,000 baht. This number was incredibly discouraging to us, as we are just not comfortable spending that much money on a vehicle.

Fortunately, we have found a truck that will suit our needs that is much more reasonably priced. Our friends the Bazemore's are moving back to the U.S. to have their baby and have agreed to sell us their 1990 Nissan 4x4 for $7,250 (after they gave us a generous deduction in the price as a donation to our ministry). Even more incredibly, we had already received $2,500 in donations to help with this purchase before we asked for any help. God really takes wonderful care of us.

We have a little bit in savings, but if you would like to partner with us by donating towards this purchase it would be very much appreciated. You can print out a copy of our Partner Coupons or send your donations to:

Foursquare Missions International
Attention: Paulette McCammon
PO Box 26902
Los Angeles, CA 90026-0176

Please make checks out to Foursquare Missions International. Please include a note in the memo line which states “Support for Paul & Lori Vernon”.

All donations are tax deductible

No fees or administrative charges are deducted from your donation. One hundred percent of your donations are available to us for our personal and ministry needs.

It would also be helpful if you could contact us to let us know about your donation. This will help us to designate the funds correctly. To contact us, please Click here and choose "Partnership Info" in the Subject box.

Thank you all for your continued support.

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Miracle

2007-04-22T11:35:00.000+07:00

I can think of no other word than miracle to describe what happened last week as we were driving down the road into our village. In some ways, I don't even feel qualified to write about this miraculous event, knowing that my words could never aptly describe God's providence. Yet, at the same time, I cannot let the incident go unspoken, because my heart overflows with praise and thanksgiving for a God who is so good!

We had been in the village for several days and had driven into the little Chinese town of Mae Salong one afternoon to buy a bottle of children's Tylenol for the Akha Clinic. As we were returning, we turned down the steep road which descends into our village to see the road packed with about 30 of our village friends. They were a joyous group, to say the least, participating in the Akha tradition of escorting a young bride from her village to ours for her wedding the next day. Within seconds of seeing the group, our emotions went from joy to panic as we realized that the brakes on the truck we were driving had gone out. I began waving frantically and Paul was honking the horn while we both prayed desperately that our friends would understand that we weren't simply joining in the fun of the wedding procession. As the truck gained speed, everyone began to realize that we were out of control and started yelling to one another to get off the road. Meanwhile, Paul, firmly directed by the hand of God, was swerving from one side of the road to the other, avoiding the various groups of people on both sides of the narrow road, while at the same time trying to avoid sending us careening off the side of the mountain into the valley below!

The final group of people we passed was on the right hand side of the road and so of course, we had swerved on to an embankment on the left. As we came racing down from the embankment, we were filled with horror as we saw a tiny two year old girl all alone and directly in front of us. My only prayer was "Oh God, no!" because I could not think of any way that we could possibly avoid hitting this tiny child. As we passed the point where she was, time seemed to stand still and I held my breath as I braced myself for that inevitable bump... that never came.

About thirty feet later the road leveled out, the brakes on the truck re-engaged and we were able to come to a stop. Both Paul and I, running on pure adrenaline, were out of the truck within seconds and running towards the crumpled heap of a girl lying in the dirt on the side of the road. Paul reached her first, utterly relieved to find her conscious and crying. Seconds later, her uncle who was part of the wedding procession, whisked her up and carried her down to her mother in the village below.

We were left shaky and in shock, but surrounded by some of our best friends. Everyone was immediately shaking our hands, patting us on the shoulder and praising the Lord for His obvious protection as we all slowly made our way down the road to the village. When we arrived in the village a group was already crowded around the little girl examining her for signs of injury. Miraculously, she just had a few scrapes on her chest and back and a bit of a bruise on her hip. No one had actually seen what happened when our truck passed her, but it was concluded that our front left tire must have brushed against her back pushing her forward onto the embankment. Because the little girl couldn't tell us what had happened, and because no one was really sure of what transpired, we were still very worried that there may be some hidden injury. So, the mother, the little girl, Paul and I headed off to the hospital in Mae Chan (about an hour and a half away) for x-rays and an expert opinion. Ten dollars and four hours later we were home again in the village with a clean bill of health for this precious little one.

Even now as I think over the events of the day, I cannot help but see spiritual forces at work. Our adversary prowls around seeking someone to devour (1 Peter5:8), and I'm sure the wedding party looked mighty vulnerable on that steep hill. What better way to destroy a Christian community than to have such a blessed and happy event completely torn apart by what could have been such a tragic accident? But the Lord is ever faithful to protect his sheep. We are convinced that His hand was guiding our vehicle, keeping us and everyone else safe. Beyond that, we know that what Satan meant for harm, the Lord has used for good, increasing our faith in the sure, strong hand of the Lord that protects his own from the schemes of the Enemy!

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