The Village
We were the second group of foreigners ("farang") to ever visit dTan's village... it felt like stepping into a museum exhibit, or an early Native American village. The heartbeat of the village is the river, it is where you get water for drinking/cooking, wash your clothes and bathe. The village had 60 homes, raised up on stilts. This provided a bottom level of shade for afternoon naps, outdoor work, and the animals to rest under. Here are a few pictures from our "orientation walk" around the village.
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| [The entrance to the village. They have a temple, behind us, and a 1st-5th grade school.] |
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| [Some families propped bamboo between nooks of trees as a clothesline, others made use of the ir fences] |
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| [A rice-planting tool and a child's toy] |
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| [dTan and Claire playing with the village puppies!] |
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| [Everything was dry; a few sparse palm trees provided limited shade and greenery to the yellow and red dust.] |
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| [This is the river we had to drive through, not over, through, to get to her village. It was also where we bathed , swam, and did our laundry. The adults would be down at the river in the mornings and the evenings, while the children would leave during their school lunch break to splash and cool off.] |
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| [If you want food, you have to grow it or make it. Everyone in the village has sticky rice that they grow and then store for the year. The fields had already been harvested when we arrived.] |
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| [The villagers occasionally sell a chicken or pig to get money for their families, but their biggest "export revenue" comes from yams. Here's a pile of yams that some of the women worked at chopping up in the shade under their home.] |
While we were in the village, dTan introduced us to her family and friends. One of the couples in the village asked for her to come and visit, and we were invited to tag along. The husband has been sick for years. He was the skinniest person I'd ever seen, with only a papery layer of skin stretched over his bones. He couldn't walk, so he had to scoot everywhere... when he had the energy to move at all. It saddened us, because the village medicine is mostly superstitions and old wives tales. He currently only drinks beer and coffee and rarely eats because he thinks that water makes him sick. Which, is hardly a good combination for good health. dTan talked to them in Laos, and we just sat and smiled. This visit was such a good reminder that we (Claire and I) were not the missionaries to Laos. We don't know the culture, although some things are similar to Thailand, we don't know the language. But dTan is. This trip, we didn't preach or hold revival services, but I hope we did encourage dTan in her mission to reach her people... and also make Christ look attractive through our actions and countenance.
The second day, dTan's family gave us sarongs to wear so we'd look more "Laos." These are 2 meter swatches of fabric that are sewed into a tube and then you fold over the extra and tuck it in. I've never paid more attention to when I stood up than when I was wearing these!
A brief tour of dTan's home!
It really makes you see how much you don't need to survive. These people had to grow their own trees to get wood for their homes. They eat sticky rice, that they grow themselves, for every meal. They have mats on the ground for their "kitchen table" and a coal fire to cook over. The coal is made by them as well. There aren't trash cans in the homes or the villages, because there isn't much waste. Everything is reused, and water is the universal cleaning agent... if your pantless child poops on the floor, just wipe it up and rinse it through the floor cracks. Problem solved! (Also, true story)
We, myself included, can get so easily bent out of shape if things aren't what we are accustomed to, or if a place doesn't have our favorite conveniences. But being here helped readjust my perspective (yet again!) and realize that I can live with a lot less than I think. It also gave me a new empathy for the disciples, who really were at the mercy of the hospitality of others... and were always walking into unknown places, languages, situations and cultures.
Please be praying for dTan, as she is the only believer and missionary to her village. Pray that her people and family would see the hope she has and seek the truth. Pray that the stronghold of false religions and superstitions would not hold them captive, but that Christ would give sight to their spiritual blindness.
...to be continued
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