Mingalauba = "Hello"

It's been almost a week now since I arrived in Yangon. My heart is so glad to have arrived. Already in a few (rather long!) days I've begun to get my bearings and attempted to say some intelligible phrases :-) Sarah, a university student from the UK, joined the field a few days before me after spending 3 weeks in a Cambodian slum. She will be landscaping for a partner organization called Servants to find out if it is viable for them to begin work here in the city. I know I will greatly enjoy her companionship over the next two months.

Sarah and I have already shared many hours together, exploring the city, teaching English in the villages, and discussing what it means to be incarnational. We both have a yearning to "move" into the areas of our focus, to be closer to the people whom we want to know, and so we are seeking to learn as much as we can now. Our team here is small, and we are learning how to come together often and share as one. It's amazing to experience diversity of giftings and viewpoints, with the uniting force being our vision. Sometimes this can be quite superhuman, and really hard! So we seek Vision from Above and strength from His Presence.

Try to imagine this...men in long wrap-around skirts, 1970s cars that are more dilapidated than together, money changers everywhere, lines of monks in orange, and then the bus...well, you just pack in like sardines. Standing, arms up to hold the bars along the ceiling. Sometimes I can't keep from laughing as I'm being jostled to and fro every time we come to a stop and people start squeezing through what gapes of space they can find to make their entrance or exit. Maybe I'll get a picture of it someday, if I can manage to find the space for my camera!

This week I went out to two of the villages in which we work. In one area we have a formal English instruction class with three levels. Sarah and I went around to each class and made introductions. In one class they were reading about a lady in Mississippi who lives in a Boeing 727...You never know what you'll learn in a village in Myanmar! The students were commenting that their whole village could fit inside the plane. Playing scrabble with the students was a riot--they're lovingly competitive, really quite gentle. The computer class is quite advanced, and we will eventually work our way through excel and even cover macros...I'm going to have to study up before class for sure. In another area we are working with a local sewing instructor and have provided a few sewing machines for women to use as they learn and create. We've begun to envision running an English tutorial for the women after the sewing class, but we will have to see if this is possible. Yesterday Sarah and I shared at a youth service, telling them about our lives and desires, seeking to encourage them to depend on grace and take courage. They gave us opportunity to play music - Sarah on keyboard and me on flute. We both felt taken away in the music..."flowing" with emotion.

I've gotta wrap up now and begin the one-hour journey back home...thankful to share these things with you so you can pray.

"Never doubt in the dark what God told you in the light." -quoted in this morning's sermon

"Be still and know that I am God. I will do whatever pleases me."
We are so valuable to Him. Look at what He gave for us. His promises are trustworthy.