God knows I love pastors. I was a pastor, off and on, for about twenty years. I've spoken to thousands of pastors around the world and expended myself on their behalf. I know something about the challenges they face. But sometimes they say things that I'm certain they will one day regret.
Read More
Yesterday our motorcycles took us along more jungle paths to find two villages that have never welcomed white-skinned people: Upper Chai and Lower Chai, both in the middle of nowhere, consisting of 40 and 60 families respectively. These are some of the poorest villages which I've yet visited. Talking to the elders of Upper Chai, I learned that there are 10 village children living in orphanages hundreds of miles away, and 9 of those 10 have one living parent; the remaining child's parents are both alive.
Read More
A recently-cut dirt road made it possible for us to travel 3 hours to Upper Saidu, another remote village in Southern Chin State of about 35 families. But Stephen had not been feeling well since the night before, so he spent our first full day in Upper Saidu sleeping and recovering.
Read More
When the dirt road ended today, Stephen and I once again jumped on motorcycles whose fearless, young drivers took us on a deep descent into a distant valley, across a river on a swaying suspension bridge, and up a narrow ridge. As the day waned, 180 citizens of Cho Yain Village were waiting on a hand-dug soccer field to welcome us, many of whom were dressed in their tribe's traditional clothing, ready to dance.
Read More
Today didn't go exactly as planned. I don't think there are any level roads in Chin State—you are either going up or down a mountain. For some reason, none of the roads follow the gentle slopes of the rivers. And the four-wheel drive vehicle we've rented, an older Pajero, apparently hasn't been used for some time for what it was built for.
Read More
Through the monthly gifts of sponsors in Texas, Florida, New Jersey and California, Heaven's Family has been supporting the church-planting ministry of Stephen Paing Bu since 2010. We've also provided him with a motorcycle that has enabled him to extend his reach to more unreached villages.
Read More
Our first stop here in southern Chin State is the town of Kamplet, and waiting for us upon our arrival were two indigenous missionaries whom Heaven's Family has supported for a number of years. One of them is Stephen Paing Bu, who was born in a remote village in this region. He is working in a total of 30 villages, most of which are (or were) predominantly Buddhist or animist. Stephen is truly reaching the unreached.
Read More
Although I was here just in December, demand for more help from Heaven's Family among the remote villages of Myanmar's Chin State has called me back again. This time we're targeting Christian villages in southern Chin State, which is even less developed than its northern counterpart, and we know that we're in for a challenging trip.
Read More
Restavek. It's a word that you've likely never heard. But everyone in Haiti knows what it means. Although derived from two French words (reste avec), that mean "to stay with," the more literal translation of restavek is "child slave." Haiti's restaveks are children who are sent by their deeply-impoverished rural parents to work as live-in domestic servants in the homes of city families who are somewhat better off. There are as many as 300,000 restaveks in Haiti, a reflection of the desperation of hundreds of thousands of parents who can't escape the world's poorest nation.
Read More
© Heaven's Family 2024 — Advancing Jesus’ Kingdom | Privacy Policy
