Bible teaching in Akha village

I apologize again for not updating my blog. The past two weeks have been very full. Besides having no time to sit down and write, I haven't had time to process it all.
So for this post, I will just share about today I think.

Faa asked me a week ago if I would be willing to teach a women's Bible study in her Akha village. At the time I was beginning to loose my voice due to a sore throat. I said yes though.  All week long I have been fighting a terrible cough and lack of voice. The passage Faa told me I was to speak on was Phil 4:13. Wow, did I need that verse myself.   I was so busy though that I didn't have time to really prepare until the night before. I sat in front of a blank piece of paper for what seemed like forever, just praying that God would give me something, anything. An hour later I had 10 pages.
Funny thing is, when we arrived at Faa's village, I discovered that this day was a special day where women from all over the region gathered together twice a year for the event, The men even prepared the meal to give the women a day off.  I was their guest speaker, I'm glad I didn't know how special this teaching opportunity was before I went. When I got up to speak and announced the passage, there was a great stir in the audience.  They pointed to the printed poster behind us. It read Phil 3:13-14.  LOL, I had prepared for the wrong passage.  I told them it was no mistake though because I needed Phil 4:13 because I still didn't have much of a voice.  I needed God to help me! I also said that I believed there might be others in the audience who also needed to hear what I had prepared.
It was such an honor, I can't really explain it. To be there with these women who some can't even read their Bible because they can't read, and to teach and encourage them through God's word, was such a blessing to me. I pray that the words I said, or at least the words Faa translated, touched the hearts of many and changed lives. And I guess I didn't do too badly because I was invited back and to stay and teach longer.

After speaking, we headed to see Pastor Pat in Doi Chang again. He had the coffee ready for me to bring back to the US. I also am bringing back raw green beans to roasters that I was able to connect with last month.  While there, Pat shared with me a message from Tim Boal with Grounds4Good, a ministry that purchases directly from coffee growers at a real fair price and sells it in the US (soon to be available at their and our websites. It said he had roasted some of his coffee and sent it out to test markets and everyone loved his coffee!! And he will be ordering from Pat soon. I am very excited about this.  This opportunity will not only help Pat help his people in his Akha village, but also GROW as a portion of all sales will go to GROW and church planting efforts. I couldn't be happier about all the people that stand to benefit with this.  By the way, his coffee is rated in the top categories of coffee.

Tonight I enjoyed an evening with the GROW kids. Tomorrow I will catch up with the team and spend more time with our Grace Place kids. Sorry I don't have pictures to post right now. You can check out my Face Book page though for pictures.