Monday, April 1
This morning, Sharon came in with almost no voice, so we prayed for healing for Christine, Brandon, and Sharon. We also prayed for Lily, Amy and Marshall who have a lot of mucus and might have colds. Our devotions passage was from Eph. 2:11-22, so fitting as we see the animosity between Muslims and Yazidis, the ostracizing of women who had children from ISIS - actually a tradition dating back thousand of years, like the Jews despising the Samaritans. How much we need Jesus to bring unity to this region, in fact, everywhere on this earth. Because Glenn went with Willy to consult at the hospital today, and several of us have semi lost our voice, we had a harder time singing In His Time to the waiting crowd. So Kenny spent a longer time greeting the crowd, telling the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. They were so absorbed, after Kenny was done, they said they had never heard anything like it so they asked him to talk some more (any preacher's dream) so of course, Kenny told them more, including details about his family fleeing the Japanese and emigrating to Myanmar, something these IDP's can readily identify with. Since today is the second non-rainy day since we have been here, we visited several homes and were invited for lunch at their homes. In spite of their poverty, their hospitality and generosity is overwhelming, full spread of foods, even bottled coke. Mei, Christine and their translator, Hollis went to one home but the mother-in-law was there and they did not share the good news. Sharon and Araz on the other hand visited a home and were able to share openly, planting seeds. The funniest story is Kenny's adventure. He was invited by a little boy to his home, where he met the child's grandparents. Since extended families live together in these trailers, Kenny also met the little boy's mom and a young lady who is probable the mom's cousin. Kenny made the mistake of complimenting how cute the boy was and how pretty the young lady (boy's aunt) was. At which point, the grandmother jumped on the compliment, brought her two index fingers together (a symbol of marriage) and asked (via google translate) if Kenny wanted to take her niece back with him to America. Flabbergasted, Kenny quickly turned the conversation back to how handsome and intelligent looking their grandson was, a close shave, indeed! Kenny rushed back to where we were to avoid being asked to stay for lunch. In fact, the grandfather came here and invited Kenny over for lunch, but Kenny explained he had eaten.
After lunch, the ladies came over to do a second session of crocheting while Lily and Sharon collected a group of junior high girls to have English conversation (first photo). Afterwards, Brandon collected a group of boys for English lessons while Christine led the ladies' exercises (next two photos). The weather turned and it started getting cold with lightning and thunder. Then the Yazidi ladies taught Amy and Sharon how to Yazidi dance (see photo), which actually is quite a bit of exercise too. Even though it was raining, Johnny, Christine, Sharon, and translator Hogar went to visit a family, and had a chance to pray for them. Meiring and Marshall went with Araz to prayer walk, met a middle aged man who invited them into his home where they met his mother, his two brothers and a sister. After being served water, cookies and tea, they told how they escaped ISIS by running into the mountains where US helicopters dropped food and water for them and others with them. A lively conversation followed about their beliefs, which basically concluded with we are Yazidis, if we became Christians, we would no longer be Yazidi, and they did not want to be prayed for. We returned back to wrap up the day.
Here is a view of Darkar taken from the hill above it (the red square roof is the school). Note how beautiful it is in the spring time. To the left of Darkar is Berseve 1 and 2, probably less than a mile as the crow flies (last two photos)
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