The training for the men in Chiang Mai went very well, despite
the usual problems with translation but we were able to navigate that okay. The
men have shown such great improvement over the past two years. It really is
remarkable. Daniel, a ReachGlobal cohort, trained with me. It was his first time working
in a training with nationals and he did well. He commented, “If this is the
hardest group you have then this material works really well.” He was quite
impressed with the sermons the men presented.
I continue to learn with each training trip. On this trip, I
saw that some of the tools we teach early on get lost as we add new tools
later. In addition, the men can preach on each section quite well but have
trouble seeing the flow of the message through the whole passage. I think that
the Lord has given me clarity on how to address both of those issues as we go
forward. I also have been struggling to determine how to write our workshop on
the Redemptive Story well. I have not been satisfied with what we have. I think
I finally have some direction on that as well.
We are now at the ReachGlobal Asia conference in Southern Thailand. It
is beautiful here and the hotel is really nice. It is a good break for us after
three hard weeks of training and travel. My back is finally clearing up and I
have little more than a bit of stiffness, especially if I stand a long time but
I can live with that. The massage I got in Chiang Mai was torturous. I had
never had a massage before and everyone advised me that a deep tissue massage
would help loosen my back. It did but the price was high. Wow! A rather large
Thai woman gave me a real workout and it was quite painful. After an hour of
working on me, she took me downstairs and asked a muscular Thai man to finish
because she didn’t think she was strong enough. I had thought she was too strong!
He gave me another half hour of torture, and lo and behold, I was quite
loosened up, limp perhaps from all the pain. Anyway, my back has been improving
ever since. I went to the only chiropractor in Chiang Mai and I don’t think he
helped me at all. All in all, I am thankful to be mostly pain free and able to
get around well now.
Our time here at the conference has been wonderful with good
opportunities to connect with people interested in our Pathways program. We had
good discussions with some Hmong leaders and we are making plans to begin
something with them in a year or so. There are approximately one million Hmong
Christians in Asia, 400,000 in Vietnam alone, and almost none of them have
formal training. Pray with us that we can get all of the issues resolved to
begin training trainers for them by 2016.
In our main session, a missionary give a testimony of
discipling an Indonesian man. It was an amazing story of humble and effective
influence in this man’s life. Then the missionary said he had learned about
Pathways and had begun using it with the men in his area and that it was so
wonderful. He gave us a great endorsement. I had never met this man and had no
idea he was using our material. I was amazed and delighted that the Lord was
spreading our training far beyond us. All glory to Him.
Al
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