Regardless of what corner of the globe or what ethnic group, it’s important for women to have the opportunity to retreat from their usual daily routines and be with other women for rest, encouragement and spiritual renewal. In January I had the privilege of joining with many women for the annual Akha women’s retreat at Akha Outreach Foundation.

This year was especially exciting for me because a large group of women from the villages around Mae Salong came down for the retreat. Everyone (about 20 passengers total) piled into our truck for the 2 hour drive down to the city. Upon arriving, they quickly embraced the freedom of being away from the duties of children and work. It was awesome to watch women hug and reunite with friends from other villages (most of whom they don’t see except for this one time each year).

The sessions included some amazing speakers and worship. During one session in particular, the healing presence of the Holy Spirit was so rich and the worship was so beautiful that most of the women were weeping (which is quite unusual, as Akha rarely show this kind of emotion.) There were also plenty of times filled with joy & energy ; everyone enjoyed many silly songs, games and dancing (check out the pictures below!)

Last year I merely translated, however this year I was honored to be asked to teach one of the sessions. I taught on parenting, mostly encouraging the mothers that God has prepared them for job he has set before them. Too many Akha parents believe the lie that they are not equipped to raise their children because they haven’t had any formal education. This is the reason that many Akha children are being sent to be raised in boarding homes unnecessarily, which, in turn, is slowly destroying the family system. I taught in Akha (though admittedly, it was rough at times) and tried to use several examples from daily Akha life to further convey that God values the Akha people and way of life and that they have something so valuable to offer their kids!

One of my favorite parts of the women’s retreat every year is the craft time. I’ve lived in an Akha village for 5 years, so I’m fairly accustomed to seeing Akha women working on their various sewing projects, but there’s just something so awe inspiring to see so many women, so much skill and expertise, so much culture all in one room! This year they introduced a new aspect to the time. During this craft session, the Bible students (aged 18-25) living at Akha Outreach Foundation were encouraged to join in and learn from their elders. While most young women know how to do Akha cross stitch, some of the more uncommon skills are being lost to the younger generations. The female students sat amongst the mothers learning how to make pom poms and sew applique, while the young men sat with the grandmothers (whose eyesight no longer permits them to do the intricate work) and wrote down Akha proverbs, Akha stories, and the stories of their lives. It was an awesome sight to witness the passing down of traditions from generation to generation!

reposted from a guest blogging article written at JasonRuggles.com

FOOD FRIDAY: EAT LIKE AN AHKA

Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by April

As we’ve mentioned more than once, last month we went up to an Akha village for a few days to experience their culture.  Part of that was, of course, their food.  My favorite part was using chopsticks to eat it all.  Since we only ate Akha food a few times, we decided to bring in an expert to tell you all about it. Lori Vernon graciously agreed to be our guest blogger today to teach us about Akha food and even share a recipe!

Guest Blogger: Lori Vernon

Akha food is fairly simple compared to Thai fare. Most Thai dishes seek to find the perfect balance between many different flavors (sweet, sour, spicy, salty, etc) using a multitude of ingredients like coconut milk, curry paste, lemon grass, chili peppers, fish sauce, sugar and lime to name a few. Most Akha dishes, on the other hand, are savory and have very few ingredients. Akha dishes rarely use more than salt, garlic, chili pepper to flavor the main ingredient. However, this doesn’t mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that Akha food could be considered bland. Quite the opposite, Akha food is very flavorful and spicy!

Of course, rice is the main staple for the Akha people. At a meal, each person has their own bowl of rice, and the accompanying dishes are served family style. There are 5 categories of Akha food; a traditional meal would include at least one dish from each category.

1. STIR FRIED:

This category can vary greatly. Any combination of vegetables, eggs, meat or beans can be stir fried for an Akha meal. An Akha favorite is a spicy stir fried minced pork dish called sa byeh which is the exception to the “simple-ingredients-list rule” and has many herbs including a special type of tree bark. It is almost always eaten for special occasions like weddings, funerals and festivals.

2. PICKLED:

Greens can be pickled when the crops are in abundance and preserved for use at a later time. Often pickled greens are also dried and reconstituted when ready to eat, increasing their shelf life even further.

3. BOILED/SOUP:

Greens, squash or potatoes are boiled with pork and bones to create a savory broth soup. The Akha also make a thick rice porridge soup with chicken that is eaten to celebrate the birth of a child or to feed to an invalid unable to eat rice.

4. DIP:

The Akha use a mortar and pestle to create very spicy dips to be eaten with fresh vegetables, or spooned directly onto the rice. The most simple version would contain tomato, salt, chili peppers, green onions & cilantro. However, we have tasted many variations of this dish including ones that contained crushed peanuts, sesame seeds, fish, dried beef, and bamboo worms. This is a dish that is different at every house, because each family has their own secret recipe.

5. RAW:

The dip mentioned above is generally eaten with a variety of fresh greens and vegetables. Some commonly served items from this category include cabbage, green beans, sweet pea greens, cucumbers, mint, thai eggplant and other herbs. (which I don’t know how to translate into English.)

Eating Akha Style

If you’d like to taste a bit of Akha food, here’s a simple recipe you can try at home:

Spicy Akha Peanut Dip

This is normally made with a mortar and pestle, but since those tools are not commonly available in American kitchens, I’ve included instructions on how to make this using a Cuisinart (a blender may also work.)

Ingredients:

• 1 small clove of garlic (optional, depending on how much garlic breath you’re willing to tolerate)
• 3 medium plum tomatoes or one large American Tomato
• ¼ cup of roasted peanuts
• 1-5 Thai chili peppers to taste
• ½ tsp of salt (or to taste)
• green onions, chopped
• cilantro, chopped

Instructions:

1. Boil/blanch tomatoes and chili peppers for several minutes… until the tomato skin splits. Remove from water and let cool.
2. Chop peanuts roughly in a Cuisinart.
3. Peel skin off of tomatoes & add tomatoes in with the chopped peanuts.
4. Add blanched chili peppers and garlic clove. Use the pulse setting to chop/mix.
5. Add salt to taste
6. Remove from Cuisinart.
7. Stir in chopped green onions & cilantro to taste, reserving a small amount for garnish on top.
8. Serve with raw vegetables or over rice.

- Lori Vernon

We recently traveled north into the largest country, by geographical area, in Indochina to join in the dedication celebration for a local Foursquare church. As with each time we’ve traveled into this country, the border crossing and weaving through the crowds of “tour guides” and taxis can be a stressful experience… but once you’ve crossed that initial boundary of sellers, smugglers and scams typical of many border-towns, the people are truly wonderful. Despite the difficult conditions they live in (or perhaps because of those conditions) there are few other places that possess such a richness of cultures and an appreciation of the simple pleasures of life.

We woke up very early in order to cross the border in Maesai by 7 am. After going through Thai customs, we crossed the bridge over the Mekong river, which divides the two countries. Once that bridge had been crossed, we found ourselves in a different world. The language, the customs, the people, the food, the vehicles and even the time have all changed. That’s right, having left Thailand at 7:00 am we found ourselves in customs at Tachileik at 6:30 am, as the entire country has set it’s clock 30 minutes off of the rest of the world’s recognized time zones.

Once we had worked our way through customs and the crowd of sellers, we hired a Tuk Tuk to take us to Esther’s home village to see her parents. As is typical in any Akha village, Abi quickly made herself at home, “helping” fix breakfast and playing with all the Akha kids, and (as is also typical) the villagers were all amazed to see a little “foreign girl” speaking Akha and interacting in the Akha world.

After the delicious breakfast and great time in the village, we headed off to the dedication celebration for the new church. It was beautiful, and over 500 people from the various Foursquare churches in the region came down. A majority (probably 80%) of the attendees were actually hilltribe members - most of them were Lahu but many Akha were there as well. We enjoyed speaking with the pastor and Bible students from the church, but Lori and I especially enjoyed connecting with the Akha and Lahu people who came down. (The Lahu are a group related to the Akha, and although the two languages are unique and distinct, most Lahu speak a little Akha and vice versa.) Abi put on the traditional Burmese outfit that Esther had tailored for her as a Christmas present, and even wore Thanakha - the traditional face-paint of the region.

In the middle of the service I (Paul) was asked to come up and give thanks for the offering, I was planning on speaking in English with a translator, but when I got up front there was no translator, so I decided to just stumble along in Akha. Once I finished, the reaction of the crowd told me that most of them could in fact understand Akha, and it was great to connect with everyone in a language they could understand - although they were extremely gracious overlooking the ineloquence of my words.

We really enjoyed our time and look forward to some great opportunities that are on the horizon to continue to build into the new relationships we have with these Foursquare churches.

Yesterday we were asked to appear as subjects / insiders for a media group called Emerge Network that will be coming into our village to create three short videos about our lives and the lives of the Akha in Mae Salong. We’re very honored to help serve this team and are excited to see what stories these media-moguls-in-the-making decide to tell.

An Akha baby girl discovering her tongue... or the recently born daughter of our friend, who humbles us by her perseverance carrying her daughter as she walks 2 miles to church each week?

During our time at the Emerge Network training center, the program directors showed a number of pictures that they had taken while visiting Doi Mae Salong, while sharing the importance of discovering the story behind the images. As the pictures of scenery, daily life, children, and elders flashed across the screen I began to realize that I perceived each picture so differently than the 30 other people who I was in the room with.

When they saw bamboo huts, I saw my home. When they saw jungle and winding paths, I saw my neighborhood. When they saw cute kids, I saw their stories. When they saw headdresses and smiles, I saw the strong, endearing, hardworking characters of our village family.

Lori hit on this point a little when she wrote a post earlier this month about some photographer friends who came to visit. In her post she wrote “After looking at their pictures, we’re reminded how differently we take pictures now that we’ve been here for 5 years. For example, we NEVER take pictures of the chickens anymore because we’re so used to them, but they really are a very important part of the village ambiance!”

Shortly after we arrived in our village in 2005, we posted these photos sharing images of our village kids. Looking back now I see each of those kids very differently because I have laughed, cried and shared in their life stories. The best parallel I can draw to this experience is a comparison to a classroom. As a teacher (or student), during the first days of a new class or new school the people around you are a conglomerate unknown, a shapeless mass. Slowly names are learned and faces are distinguished, but it is not until experiences and stories are shared that those acquaintances become connections, community, and friends.

Now, many of our posts are stories. Individuals. Friends. This post was originally going to be a mass of photos, but I couldn’t get myself to post just the images without the incredible stories that go beneath the skin (which is what excites me about this video team that is coming up this weekend). So, instead, I’m starting a new tag, called stories, where we will intentionally share more than just a face.

We hope that you all enjoy these glimpses into the lives of our Akha friends, because we truly love sharing our lives with them.

From Rusty and Lynette’s blog:

Olive Hope went home to be with Jesus tonight at 6:37. The infection was too strong for her little body. She was surrounded by lots of love as she went. She left us on her daddy’s chest.

in lieu of flowers

So many of you have already graciously been asking where you can send flowers…
Rusty and Lynette would love to do something in honor of Olive Hope, so that her life can bless the Akha children in the villages in Northern Thailand. So, in lieu of flowers, please send any donations to:

Siloam Fellowship
61616 C.R. 35
Goshen, IN 46528
Please reference Olive Memorial Fund in the memo.

If you’d like to see more about the work they have been doing in Thailand with the Akha Youth Development Fund please see: http://web.mac.com/rustylynette/AYDC/Welcome.html