We got up early and ate our usual breakfast of toast with butter and Nutella (sometimes peanut butter). The meals have not been memorable; the best meals are the ones we cook ourselves (like last night's chicken and winter melon soup or the congee we eat with tea eggs). Otherwise, the food is usually cooked with lots of MSG, very heavy in carbo (rice or rice noodle) with little meat, an egg or a morsel of chicken, so polishing off a plate loaded with 40 drumsticks last night was a real treat (and about the price of a catered meal) but we usually don't have the time to cook ourselves. At 7, we met with Ching and an OMF missionary from Singapore, Florence, who works among the Shan people and frequently ministers to the Burmese refugees, and Rachel, on a six week short term mission here from Singapore. But by the time we loaded everyone and the gift blankets (remember the duties we had to pay at customs?) we brought from Jenny's sewing ministry, it was 7:20. We left with our driver Boy (who we remembered from our trip here in 2012) and a new driver, Chan, because Kosin's van is older and we were concerned about being able to climb all the mountains. Boy and Kosin have been a great support to us as they are both believers who attended most of our meetings, hung out with us, ate with us and occasionally joined in the prayer ministry. Chan is a new believer who was baptized only last year. We stopped after about two hours for a break. The rest of the drive is up and down curvy hilly roads, climbing up and down a couple of mountain ranges, even passing through low lying clouds on the road. We arrived at the refugee child care center about 11:15, and they were already eating lunch, so we drove a couple minutes more to the Shan refugee camp and met the headman of the camp, an ex-Burmese soldier who deserted from their army. He speaks English very well. We also met the Shan pastor, his son and the youth pastor there. We sang the Aaronic blessing to them, and three other ladies from the village as the rest of the villagers were out at work. We visited the village gift shop and bought some native handiwork as souvenirs and headed back to the child care center where we saw ninety some cute children between three and seven years old. We sang a few songs, taught them a couple of VBS songs, and Sue shared briefly. Most of the children raised their hands but we were not sure if they understood and the pastor told us the kids respond to any invitation all the time. But praise God, one of the five teachers did accept the Lord and Sue spent several minutes talking and praying for her. We then handed out the blankets we brought. Florence then phoned ahead to a local restaurant to order lunch and we drove a few minutes to the church, this church is the latest church built by Singaporean believers and includes both a medical clinic, pharmacy, dental clinic, and dorm rooms for short timers to stay. We prayed for the pastoral team of this church. They want to reach many more Shan villages in the area and asked us to pray that when the medical teams come, these villages will welcome them. We then drove to the Shan temple, located just on the border to Myanmar. From this side, we could see the bamboo fence marking the border just on the other side of a ravine. We sang "Majesty and Glory", knowing that praise to God drives back spiritual darkness. We then prayer walked around the Shan temple, claiming the ground for the Lord. We drove a few minutes back and ate a nice lunch at the local restaurant. We left about 3 PM, stopped at a beautiful view point where we bought some local pears (kind of hard and sour), fresh bamboo shoot (large, about 18 inches long and six inches wide at the base, like a newborn baby, but when cooked very delicious although a little bitter). Further down the road, we bought some orange persimmons (wonderfully sweet and tasty). We returned back by 6:30, met to debrief the day's activities, ate a box lunch dinner which Boy ordered and delivered to us, then did our group devotions from Luke 10:18-24 and called it a day, rejoicing in God's grace to us today.
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