pedo mellon a minno

speak friend and enter

воскресенье, сентября 25, 2005

The Other Side of the Fence

ANOTHER amazing week has passed in this sleepy town. God has tricks up his sleeves you could never out-guess or out-plan for!

Last sunday was the graduation service for the Lao bible students, where we premier-ed four of their original worship songs, including a jazz and Mawlam number! Pretty neat stuff - got the congregation up and dancing!

Ps Thamanoon and wife pi-Mai

Things were nicely quiet at the beginning of the week (and insanely rainy: rained practically non-stop for 2-3 days, with 3 hour respite inbetween); the Lao bible students were preparing for their return to Laos, since their semester ended, and their visit passes were running out. Mainly hung out at home and tried to do laundry, read my books, and listen to great music. For the first time, i realized that too much rain, may just drive people insane. But a cuppa darjeeling, a good book and music works wonder!

insane activities for a rainy afternoon

rainy friend on a rainy day

[side note: i've recently discovered one of the hidden wonders of Thai technology- the mosquito racket. Its a simple device, looks like a tennis racket, but at the flick of a button, its fully electrified, and you can swing it around at flying mozzies, and zap em dead! Totally cool toy... i've since been using it to zap ticks picked off our resident rottweiler. Cathartic! Just NEVER get your fingers caught in that thing...]

The rainy reverie was abruptly interrupted tuesday night, when Hubert received news that 5 of the Lao bible students were caught and detained while crossing the border back to their country. They were found to be carrying their bibles together with bible notes, and promptly arrested. Now, Laos is a communist nation, and although the constitution upholds the right to practice personal belief, unless you're a buddhist, other religions are simply not tolerated. Add to that a paranoia of 'foreign' ideologies in the corrupt communist government, Christianity is barely tolerated, as long as no proselyting happens. Pretty much like China, but more severe... corrupt officials and a disregard for human rights compound the consequences once you're caught.

The situation for these 5 brothers was pretty grave... a few years ago, when there was a massive purge of underground christians, believers caught were imprisoned for a year. Add to that torture and interrogation... if any of them cracked under the pressure and revealed identities, location and strategies, the game was up, and the goose cooked; these brothers were all strategic members of the house church movement. It didn't just affect them, but the hundreds of underground pastors and house-groups across this police state, as well as the various foreign outreaches working covertly in the nation.

vientienne, heightened security for the summit

For us on the other side of the fence, there wasn't much left to do, except to pray. And pray we did! Interestingly, that week Vientienne was hosting a massive international summit- the 26th AIPO (ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization) General Assembly, ironically formed to address social, economic and political issues, to discuss and share best practices. Hubert decided that one avenue was to slip into Vientienne, tip off diplomats at the meeting about the human rights violation which just took place earlier that day, and hope one of them take up the case. So early wednesday morning, Hubert and I went into Vientienne, with a simple strategy: drop off a tip-off letter to the various embassadors of countries represented at the summit... so we did just that. Interesting time roving through Vientienne amidst the diplomatic motorcades, heightened security and sleepy streets, dropping by various embassies and ambassador's residences, always careful NOT to retrace our steps for security's sake. Looped around, and soon found ourselves back at the Friendship Bridge. By 4pm we were 'safely' back home, commited it to God, and sat back and waited.

AIPO

mea culpa

aussie-land

philipine embassador's residence

mmmm

Thursday morning found ourselves setting off for youth camp, in a fabulously ULU wildlife reserve: Phu Wua Wildlife Reserve... 40 campers, a jungle setting, loads of nature =). Worshipped under the stars, fed loads of mozzies, workshop sessions, dancing around the campfire, trekked through a jungle, up a cliff, waded (and slipped) at a waterfall, made new friends. Kids came to Christ, others renewed their relationships w Him, life issues addressed.

on the bus to youth camp at Phu Wua wildlife reserve

toucan at the wildlife park

youth camp: after a zany game... gettin too old for such stuff!

Jeff and Tammy taking a session w the youths

an aggravated jeff with an aggravated bird

vince and me, tin soldiers

waterfall... and happy kids

bus back to church... all knocked out!

Thursday evening, just some 24 hrs after our vientienne operation, we received news that the Lao brothers were released, and were coming to join us at camp! It was amazing news.

The whole time from the detention on tuesday up to thursday afternoon, they were treated badly by the authorities (abused/humiliated?), interrogated, jeered, given little food and drink, stripped and kept in a tiny holding cell. What apparently happened, from their report later, was that on thursday afternoon they were all suddenly being treated very civil-ly , given a polite excuse, and had all their personal belongings accounted for and returned to them. Just before releasing them, the authorities also made a specific disclaimer that they were NOT 'detained' because they were christians, but because of a "slight error on their travel document". What exactly transpired behind closed doors we'll never know; we'll find out in heaven I guess.

The icing on the cake, was that while behind bars, the brothers got to share their faith with the other prisoners, and a few came to Christ! In fact, the brothers were told that the prisoners all knew they were christians the moment they stepped into the place simply because of the smiles that were always on their faces. Oh, what faith and boldness they possess!

So, its been another week. God moving, we sit back and be amazed. So humbled, so blessed, so awed.