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!

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 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.

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.

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

The silver lining in the last few weeks has been a really nice time as a family. A two-year old can sometimes be a handful, but it’s so fun to watch her personality, vocabulary and comprehension of the world around her as it expands daily.

Abi is very active, but very sweet. Right now, she really loves to be doing whatever her mom is doing. Last night, Abi was beginning to feel better and decided she wanted to help Lori make a dinner - a very American “Breakfast for Dinner” actually.

Here are some images from their time together:

Later that evening (when mom decided she needed the whole kitchen to herself if she was actually going to get dinner made) Abi and I went out to look at the sunset… and to take more pictures of Abi.

Those of you who are looking for even more Abigail than you can find here on the Vernon Journal, take a look at our scrapbook postings of pictures, unedited videos, and other tidbits at Abi’s Tumblr: Our Abi Hope.
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Proverbs 31:10 (NASB)

Description of a Worthy Woman
¹⁰An excellent wife, who can find?
For her worth is far above jewels.

Maybe it’s the weddings I’ve been going to. Maybe spring comes early in Thailand. But I have found today, that even after 9.5 years of marriage, I am head-over-heels *in love* with Lori.

She’s seen her life get more and more difficult as pregnancy turned into an infant and now a two-year-old, and yet she continues to shine in ministry, as a mother and as a wife.

Right now she’s in the bathtub with our energetic daughter, after working most of the afternoon on her computer with Abigail nestled in-between her body and her mouse-operating right hand. We’re working on getting Abi to go to sleep with me and she’s becoming more and more independent as she grows up, but there’s no substitute for mom when things are hectic - which is more often than not in our world.

Sometimes as a father, I feel pretty helpless - I just can’t comfort Abi like Lori can - and, therefore, more often than ever I am being called off in one direction to work and to serve while Lori continues our services of ministry locally, while continuing her role as a mom.

Through it all, she’s been incredible, and is a priceless addition to my life.

Last month, when the Ruggles’ were with us, they captured some of the many roles that Lori plays in our life - and I wanted to share them with you.  (make sure you hover over the pictures for the insider descriptions of each role)

…and all of this doesn’t even cover the professor / nurse / teacher roles that fall in her actual job description.

I love you, Lori. You are simply incredible.

Living in Thailand we try to do a couple of holidays with more of an American flair, for ourselves and for Abi so she can have some connection with her American roots. Our biggest “tradition” holiday - by far - is Christmas. We start the day with an American breakfast cooked by Lori. This year she made an “Apple French Toast Casserole” which was so good that Esther actually ate it (she is generally a very picky eater, and especially adverse to western food). While we eat breakfast, we listen to the Christmas story - first in Akha, then in English - while discussing the characters in the story through our nativity scene.

Then we celebrate a new tradition, initiated by Abi. Since there are presents under the tree, Abi knew that there must be a birthday. For about a month, she kept thinking it was going to be her birthday again, but now if you ask her whose birthday is on Christmas, she will answer “Baby Jesus” or “God” depending on what she remembers of the story at the time. So, we all sing a rousing version of Happy Birthday to Jesus, led by Abi.

Then we open our presents and stockings. Lori and I love this time because we get to really spoil Esther. This year, in addition to clothes & food, the popular gifts were…

For me: a new netbook to replace my dying & incredibly slow laptop. Thanks Mom, Dad, Grandma & Grandpa!

For Lori: a beautiful, original oil-on-canvas (50″ x 36″) of five Ulo Akha women carrying bundles of roofing grass and corn in from the fields. This original composition was painted by Burmese artist Soe Win, who we were able to meet in Maesot where we purchased the piece.

For Abi: a custom-made traditional Burmese outfit that Esther bought from a seamstress in Myanmar (Burma) & a miniature blender so that Abi can make smoothies just like her mom!

For Esther: a huge bag of her favorite dried cherries, photos and a photo album, clothes from America and fabric, thread & sewing needles so she can learn how to sew Akha stitches (everyone has always given her a hard time because she didn’t learn how to sew as a girl, now she can practice in the city. she’s really excited to show her mom that she’s learning to sew!).

After all the presents and playing, we enjoy a wonderful smorgasbord lunch of breads, vegetables, fruits, cheeses, crackers and summer sausage to round out a wonderful - if belated - family Christmas. Hope you all had wonderful times with your families as well!

Paul Vernon 2009 Year-in-Status

Lori Vernon 2009 Year-in-Status

It was a whirlwind of a trip filled with airplanes, car rides and jetlag. I spent as much time traveling to, from and around Southern California as I was actually at the wedding - but it was a wonderful time.

It was really special for me because I got to spend a lot of time with some of my closest friends. Including the groom, eight of the guys from our college days came. Unfortunately, none of the wives or kids were able to make it - but that actually made for a great time. And probably the last time that all of us guys would be together just as all of us guys.

After the wedding we headed out into San Diego to see the aircraft carrier, mess around with photography, pay for parking without actually doing anything where we parked, and close down a microbrewery that had completely run out of it’s house-brewed root beer.

It was a great time with great friends, and although I probably would never choose to make another quick round-trip like that again, I wouldn’t trade the memories of those few days for anything in the world.

Thanks guys, it was a blast.

Jason is an excellent photographer and took some great pictures of their visit (which you can see below). 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!

Thanks for coming to visit, guys!

(To see captions, click the full-screen button in the bottom right corner- from full screen mode you can click “Show details” in the top right to see captions. You can also adjust how quickly the pictures change)

Eventually, however, a little boy from our village was in such obvious pain that I decided to try to pull the tooth for him - and since that successful extraction Lori and I have pulled 4 additional hurting teeth in our village on our own.

Pulling teeth is such a unique experience, because we can see someone go from debilitating pain one moment to relief and peace the next. While caring for emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual health of ourselves and those around us, we rarely get to see such quick and lasting results.

Here are some pictures from our most recent experiences pulling teeth in our village home:

I have spent this week in Southern California, as a good friend of mine flew me in to join in his wedding celebration. It has been a whirlwind trip - in total I will spend 71 hours on airplanes and in transit, while only being on American soil for 120 hours. Despite the crazy schedule & quickness of the trip, I really enjoyed seeing friends that I have not seen for two years, and I have come to realize something…

I miss you. All of you. My friends & family in America. You are very important to me, and my relationship with you is a priceless gift.

After living with the Akha for the past five years, it has become easier and easier to stay in Thailand as our friendships, relationships and ministry have grown - but our relational need for you hasn’t lessened at all in that time.

Sure, we don’t talk very often anymore, or get to see your kids grow up, or visit you in the hospital, or spend holidays or weekdays together - except in the quasi-communities of the internet. But, we are still connected with you, and carry these relationships with us as we live with our friends and village in the present.

We have our feet in two worlds, the one we are called to serve in and have grown to love - and the world that was shaped by you. That prepared us for the future.

Thank you for being part of our multi-cultural, multi-lingual world. We carry you in our hearts as we look forward to 2010, and anticipate the times we will have together again as we are able to visit America in the future - tentatively from April through July of 2011.

Happy New Year!

Let me go back a few years the beginning of Esther’s story (at least the beginning of her story with us!) I was pregnant with Abi and had horrible morning sickness that kept me confined to bed or running to the bathroom most of the day! Paul was running himself ragged, trying to take care of a sick pregnant wife and keep up the with laundry, dishes and the house. Seeing our predicament, Nancy, a seasoned missionary, mentor and friend, encouraged us to hire a “helper”. We grimaced at the thought, partly because we were too stubbornly independent to admit that we couldn’t handle everything on our own, and partly because we hated the thought of having someone do our “dirty work”, it seemed so elitist! However, we were clearly in a pickle and even beyond that, we began to realize that our independence was more a reflection of our American culture than the community-centric Akha culture to which we were trying to assimilate.

So, we began to pray! We prayed that God would bring us someone who would be so much more than a housekeeper. We prayed that He would bring someone who really needed a job to help support her family. We prayed that he would bring someone who would become part of our family, someone who would be a disciple, someone who would be a co-worker with us in our ministry. Esther was the answer to those prayers.

Esther came to live with us full time. When we were in the city, she was there. When we went to the village she came along! We immediately began to see that Esther had so much potential! She is brilliant, passionate, bold and diligent. She has a great head on her shoulders and a desire to learn. We were immediately blessed by her ability to make friends instantly wherever we went; her personality was the perfect fit for our unusual mobile lifestyle.

But even more than that, we could see that she was hungry for God! She had grown up in a Christian home, going to church every week for her whole life. But like many teens, when she first came to live with us, she was doubting the faith she had grown up with, asking hard questions like “Is God really real? If so, how do I know?” Knowing the importance of the these times of struggling, we encouraged her to continue seeking God and stood by her through her journey.

Over the next few years, we had many amazing conversations with Esther. She always initiated the most interesting topics; we discussed polygamy to freewill, ethics to nose rings… and everything in between. About a year after she came to live with us she started saying things like “I think I’d like to go to Bible school… But I DON’T want to go into ministry! I just want to learn for myself.” We secretly hoped that she would one day decide to go into ministry because we could see such great potential in her, but we were happy to see her faith growing and hoped, at least, that she would be a solid member of the local church.

In August, she was baptized, publicly declaring her faith in God. And this last weekend, Esther announced that she wanted to go into full-time ministry, carrying the gospel to her unreached Akha brothers and sisters internationally . When I asked her what brought about the change, she said that she was thinking about her future (she had always imagined herself selling produce like many of the Akha women do) and realized that she wanted to impact people and do something “special” for God! We are ecstatic! We are so honored to be a part of Esther’s life and hope that she will be able to impact areas that we cannot!

Please join us in praying for her future!

Knowing that there was a much larger backstory to this question, I asked Kelly what he meant and he shared the following story: The Gilberts, Foursquare missionaries to Mae Sot, have been in America since August visiting churches and fundraising. Mason and Virgene Hughes were overseeing the ministry, but Mason had some health problems that required them to return to America. Now there was a home, two dogs, and some ministry activities that needed some bodies to fill in for about a month.

I began telling Kelly all the reasons we couldn’t make it, going down my list of activities and opportunities that would make it impossible for us to be away for that long. However, every word I spoke felt like it was more and more incorrect. Soon I found myself stopping mid-excuse and saying to Kelly, “You know what, let me talk to Lori and I’ll call you back.”

Immediately after explaining the story to Lori, she confirmed the check in my spirit, saying “We’re supposed to do this.”

A week later (after hosting Sarah Smith - a short-term Foursquare missionary serving for the summer at Our Home Study Center in Bangkok), we were packed up and on the road (a 7-hour drive) moving to Mae Sot.

Our time in Mae Sot has been interesting. There are many Aid organizations working in the region, including the Mae Tao clinic - an incredible medical facility we were able to visit and exchange information with that “provides medical services for Burmese migrants in Thailand and for the thousands who come from Burma each year seeking medical help”. They have suggested that they might be able to partner with us by sending doctors our way to do mobile clinics along the border in the north, and might also have training options available for us and for nationals who are serving their villages as “barefoot doctors“.

The Foursquare church in Thailand also has a significant presence in Mae Sot. The National Leaders of Foursquare Thailand, John & Sarah Srivichai, pastor the church here and there is also a children’s home, an elementary school, a coffee shop / english school and village churches. We are especially excited to have learned that there is an Akha village about 48 kilometers (30 minutes) from town, and plan on visiting it later this month.

But, as we have found in Thailand and understand to be true in most of Asia, you just can’t pick up and start ministering immediately in a new area. Relationships are slow and history is important. So, although we’ve been to the church, the coffee shop, the children’s home - we are still strangers and visitors, not active parts of the community. We’ve been able to work with the ex-pat community, and Lori has taught some English classes, but for the most part we’re just house-sitting, dog-sitting and sitting around.

This has been difficult, as we’ve been going non-stop for so long that we don’t know what to do with ourselves. Lori and Esther are especially stir-crazy coping with the minutia of daily life and with the culture-shock of a new region and new food options.

However, despite the difficulties, we have found that “just being” and “physically being” here we can still be used as tools for God’s Kingdom. Here are some quick examples:

We’re leaving Mae Sot tomorrow for about 10 days, and are planning on returning here on the 19th or 20th of October for the remainder of the month. We will be going up to Mae Salong to reconnect with our church and village this weekend.  Then Paul will be going to Singapore to attend a seminar taught by Beth Barone while Lori, Esther and Abi will be attending the annual interdenominational Akha Christian Youth camp next week.

Pray for us as in our travels and as our family is separated that we would stay safe and open to what God has for us in this strange season of our lives.

Thanks for following our Journey Notes online!

Please consider giving a tangible expression of love and care by making a financial donation.

Please also join the Olive Hope Wristbands Cause on Facebook. There you will find the paypal link and further instructions as they become available.

Also, continue to join us in prayer and follow the continually updated news on Olive Hope at Rusty, Lynette & Olive Hope Need Our Prayers.

Rusty and Lynette Polinder

Lynette is doing fine, but the baby girl is fighting for life. Rusty is currently in America & is flying out here as quickly as possible.

Please join us in lifting up the Polinder’s and this precious little life that she might gain the strength and health that she needs.

Mae Sot is a border town between Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. Historically, many Karen refugees have come into Thailand seeking asylum and live in refugee camps in the area. Like many border towns, it has a mixture of languages and cultures packed densely into a small area.

It is a little daunting to move from a region where we can speak a very common language, Akha, to a region where there are very few Akha and the majority languages are Thai, Burmese and Karen. We are looking forward to the opportunity to increase our Thai language skills, and are grateful as always for the huge blessing that Esther is for our language needs. We speak to her in Akha, and she can translate it to Thai or Burmese as needed.

We don’t really know what to expect in Mae Sot, but know that the National President of Foursquare Thailand pastors the church there and we are honored to get a chance to get to know him and his ministry a little more. Here’s an excerpt from the Worldbase Thailand website regarding the ministry in Mae Sot:

For a while now, we’ve been trying to capture on film her nightly ritual of counting to ten in her three natural languages: English, Akha and Thai. Unfortunately, our video camera has terrible audio - so we finally got her playing with the microphone @ Dad’s computer. So, for those of you interested in seeing a two-year old counting to ten in three languages, check out the video below!

(and those of you who would rather see some ministry posts & updates, why don’t you look here)

Both dentists have been encouraging us to learn how to anesthetize a patient and perform simple extraction techniques, but we’ve been slow to respond to their urgings (Lori once had a mild fainting spell when watching an oral surgery). Earlier this year, however, Dr. Luce was at a meeting for the Christian Dental Society and saw a presentation training nationals to do rural, village or jungle dentistry and his heart was really stirred to see the young Akha leaders trained in dentistry as well. Dr. Newman, who has also used his skills to minister in Africa, was equally excited by the vision and the two of them prepared a 3-hour training to supplement multiple days of observation, along-side training and hands-on extractions.

The training was a wonderful experience. These young Akha leaders jumped right in to the action, and Lori and I got up the courage to join them. After learning about the root structures of different teeth, safety and cleanliness precautions, and what types of teeth are within our skill set to extract we all practiced administering anesthetic to each other. You know you have a good trusting relationship as husband and wife if you can let each other practice sticking needles into your gums. After the training day, we had a village dental clinic in Doi Chang and we 6 trainees (and our pastor Joe, who couldn’t stomach the shots, but trained as an assistant) treated a majority of the 40 patients we saw that day.

In total, the Dental Team (Bill, Rick, Jana, Lisa and Pam) put up some very impressive numbers in the short week they were here.  In the villages, over 200 teeth were pulled. At House of Joy, 40 wisdom teeth were pulled, 40 fillings were given, 2 tooth repairs were made, 13 additional extractions and 137 cleanings filled their week. In addition, they trained a team of 7 locals to continue dental care for remote villages as we are traveling in and out of them. Pray for M, Nuey, Anm, Adeu, Lori, Paul & Joe Akha as an assistant, that we might have opportunities to continue to minister to the needs of the Akha wherever we might go.