Thai travel tidbits: Freeze

October 19, 2010

One of the stranger experiences Julie and I had was at the Sunday market in Chiang Mai. Every Sunday evening, the main street in the old city is closed to traffic and filled with vendors of almost everything imaginable: silk, leather, clothing, carvings, food, massages … It’s a noisy, crowded, active place. Then all the […]

Thai travel tidbits: Durian

October 18, 2010

We came around the corner in Chiang Mai one day and were faced with something I would hope to see only in a nightmare: A truck full of durian. A woman was just setting up to sell it, and fortunately she hadn’t cut any yet. Durian, if you don’t know, is a tropical fruit with […]

‘Still being equipped’

October 18, 2010

You’d think after 30 years of church planting among the Prai people of north-central Thailand, Dave Jordan would know what he’s doing. And he does. But “there are so many pitfalls,” he says, for him and his wife, Fran, and their Prai co-workers, Dee and Shy. There are a lot of different things they could […]

The legacy of Adoniram Judson

October 17, 2010

Do you think much of your spiritual forebearers? The men and women of faith whose work made your faith or your ministry possible? Dave and Fran Jordan think a lot of credit for their ministry goes back to Adoniram Judson. Judson (1788-1850) was the first missionary to last in Burma, and the first to have […]

Travels in Thailand

October 15, 2010

Do your travel plans always work out the way you expect them to? I suppose that would be a miracle in this day and age, right? Our travels are working out far differently — but better — than we expected. Julie and I had expected to go from Bangkok to Chiang Mai by train. It […]

The book with the truth

October 13, 2010

The Red Karen used to have a book with all the truth. It was written on animal skins. And when it got wet one day, the man who was responsible for it laid it across some bushes to dry, so it would not get moldy. When he came back from working in his field, the […]

It was all downhill after that …

October 13, 2010

Mountain driving can be dangerous. Have you ever been coming around a blind curve, in the wrong lane, and suddenly seen a car coming your way? I have, but it wasn’t my fault. Really. It was the mahout’s fault. He should have had the elephant in its own lane, which in Thailand is on the […]

Red Karen rice harvest ritual

October 13, 2010

In the beginning there was just one Red Karen, and he was only a head. He lived in a house with his grandmother, and one day when his grandmother was outside the house, the house began to take him up to Heaven. His grandmother grabbed a corner post to hold the house down, but she […]

How to start an outreach

October 12, 2010

Relationships and respect are very important to the Red Karen people. Peter and Ochie Bangcong and the believers from their village could not simply walk into another village and begin teaching God’s Word. They needed to demonstrate that they cared, and that they respected the village leaders. So they asked the village headman, Khun Siah, […]

Red Karen outreach

October 11, 2010

Last night Julie and I had the opportunity to join NTM missionaries Peter and Ochie Bangcong, and some of the believers from the Red Karen village where they work, in an outreach to another Red Karen village. The Red Karen believers did most of the teaching, as well leading the singing and the children’s program. […]