It is early Thursday morning and the staff and students are gathering at our house for worship before we take off on our mission trip.

Our worship. Asking God to guide us and keep us safe as we travel and work for Him.

Our group picture.

Into the trucks we go!

This happens to be the rainy season, so the rivers are flooded and the dirt roads are very muddy with deep ruts. We were in 4-wheel drive the whole way! So the adventure has begun.

Got stuck! The ruts in some places are over a foot deep! Anyway, tried to pry wood planks under the front left tire for about an hour, but to no avail.

Then they got the students to pull a rope on the back of the truck and others to push on the front of the truck, only for the rope to break. Then they tried again and succeeded.

Here we are on foot, because  the truck we were in got a flat tire. The other truck passed us and we will meet up with them at a certain hut where we will walk to our home base village.

Bamboo shoots that villagers were harvesting.

Continuing on our walk.

A waterfall.

After 3 hours of walking, we finally arrive at a hut where we meet a student’s father and one of the students. The rest of the group has left already. From here we will walk for 1 hour on jungle trails to this student’s village, which will be our home base village.

Here some of us wash our dirty, muddy feet and shoes. We also rested for an hour before hiking again.

The first part of our hike, was through rice paddies. It was fun trying to do the balancing act!

Here we pass villagers planting rice.

Crossing over bamboo fences.

Through fields.

Through flooded, jungle trails.

We finally see the village.

But we have to cross this bamboo bridge before getting to the village.

Here we are at a student’s village. This is the village we made as our home base.

After walking for 4 hours, we are really hungry! Supper is on the way. Most of our meals consisted of rice, bamboo shoots, tree nuts, and jungle greens. Sometimes we had sticky rice with coconut. It was all very good and simple.

Supper finished, we walk through the village to the school to have evening worship. Everybody is welcomed.

Here is the school.

Our teacher-a Seventh-day Adventist.

Our choir singing special music for worship.

Some of the villagers that came to worship.

After worship was over, I was called to go visit a sick boy in a villager’s hut. I and a few students went to see him and found out that he had kidney and bladder infections. So we gave him the medicine that he needed and prayed for him and his family.

Friday was busy. I and some students treated many people in that village. The other students cooked the meals and some built bathrooms. Here they are digging the hole for the first bathroom.

The hole.

Making leaf panels for the bathroom walls and roof. These panels are made out of some kind of palm tree leaf.

Sawing bamboo and wood poles for the bathroom posts.

Here the posts are up, the leaf roof on, the squat pot in, and now they are getting ready to put up the leaf walls.

The bathroom is all done and ready to use. It includes a 15 gallon water container and a dipper to flush the toilet.

A look on the inside.

Enjoying some coconuts after all that hard work. Even the goat is enjoying the coconuts.

After sundown worship, some students and staff wanted their pictures taken.

Sabbath morning has arrived and the staff, students and villagers gather together for worship.

One of our teachers, Thara Nelson, gave the sermon.

Some of our 9th and 10th graders singing special music with Thara Nelson.

Shortly after church service was over, our group headed to another student’s village to give medicine to the sick and pray with them. We hiked for about 40 minutes.

Through the prickly palm trees.

Through muddy, swamped trails.

Through flooded rice paddies…

Crossing flooded streams…

We finally arrive at the village. The hike was quite the adventure!

We treated many sick people with muscle strain, eczema, common cold, bladder and kidney infections, malaria…

and snake bites! Here we are putting on a charcoal poultice. We also had him drink a lot of charcoal. This bite is about a week old with lots of pain and swelling. Thankfully it was not a deadly snake bite.

After treating the sick, we enjoyed a good meal, now we are ready to walk through the rest of the village and head back to home base.

Cute little Karen child!

The mountains are awesome!

We arrived at our home base village around mid afternoon and started a branch sabbath school for the village children. Here, some of our students are teaching them God songs and telling them Bible stories. The children were very receptive and enjoyed it very much.

One of our students telling a Bible story.

Sunday morning we find ourselves at another student’s village. The hike was only 20 minutes to the village. Here we also give out medicine to the sick and praying with them.

Some children that came to see us. What are these children wearing? Karen umbrellas. They are made out of bamboo strips and palm leaves. Very cleaver!

More cute Karen children. The girl on the left was brought to our school so that she could be taken to the hospital for treatment of her right leg. She injured it in a fall 5 months ago.

There were many sick babies.

After we treated many people, the student’s family fed us a wonderful lunch.

We took a different route on our way back to our home base village. We trekked through a lot of mountain rice fields with gorgeous views of the mountains.

Me with one of my translators on the right and my prayer person on the left.

This picture includes the previous 2 boys plus Erick who helped me with treating the sick and Thara Ehkenyah, who is our team leader.

We finally arrive to our home base village were the students are making a sticky rice treat. They cook the sticky rice, then they pound it with sesame seed till it is like sticky dough, then they flatten it on bamboo trays to dry, then they break it into small pieces and deep fat fry them.

Later in the evening, a girl came to our little clinic. She had a nasty boil on the top of her foot. So I got out things that I needed to deaden around the boil and to lance it.

Monday morning we find ourselves going to another village that is about 2 hours away. There were about 6 of us. We needed boys to carry 3 backpacks of medicine and equipment. So here we are walking through rice paddies again.

Crossing flooded rivers.

In remote areas, they don’t have walk-behind tractors to till the soil, so they use water buffalo to till the rice paddies. They go around and around till the paddy is tilled and then they go on to the next paddy. Very interesting!

Some local rice farmers.

More rice paddies and beautiful mountains.

We finally arrive at the village. Here Erick and I set up a clinic in a villager’s hut.

While some work, others take a nap. He carried one of our heavy medicine backpacks.

A sick grandma.

This little fellow was too shy to look at us, because he had never seen a white person before.

Some more sick people.

On our way back to home base village. Crossing a swollen river.

When we got back to our home base village, we decided that some of us would do some home visiting.

This grandma and another grandma, are the only Christians in this village. So we visited with them and prayed with them and gave each one a blanket and a mat. We all had a wonderful fellowship.

Here is another lady that we visited. They really appreciated it when we came to just visit and pray with them.

Tuesday morning, our last morning to visit another village. Here we are crossing a river on a bamboo bridge.

Through rice paddies again.

Getting closer.

Now, if you want a scary bridge to cross, just try crossing on a single bamboo log and holding onto a flimsy bamboo pole. At least you didn’t have to fall too far.

We finally arrive at the village 2 1/2 hours later.

This time, Erick is sacked out–as well as others.

Many villagers waiting to be treated for their sickness.

We treated the sick for a least 3 hours.

Lots of women and children. Mostly with coughs and runny noses.

On our way back to home base village.

As we were walking through rice paddies, a man caught our attention. He and his family live in a small village of 5 huts, and he needed some malaria medicine for a 40 year old man. So we got the packs down and Erick and I looked through the bags to find the medicine.

Picking jungle greens for our supper when we get back to home base village. Yes, she is very wet from all the rain and wading through water.

Our last evening worship with the villagers. Here the village children give special music. A song that our students taught them.

A group picture of all our mission group plus some villagers.

Wednesday morning, we head back to our school. Here is our group pic before we left the home base village. We hope and pray that this will not be our last time visiting these villages. There is such a great need for medicine, toilets, water source, and spiritual. Report has come back to us that the villagers really want us to come back and worship with them. They want to know our God. The students from these villages as well as others, are asking us to go. The fields are ready!

The teacher with some students.