This is a ceremony that we recently attended to celebrate the life of a friend's baby. Our friend is bowing down in the middle of the photo while an "Aunt" holds the baby for a Hindu priest to dip coconut frawns in "Holy Water" and sprinkle it on the baby in a gesture of blessing. We have had the opportunity to celebrate with this family as they welcomed their second child a few months ago. We have also prayed fervently that they would turn from their gods to worship the God who saves. This weekend the world stopped turning for this precious family as their 4 month old son took his last breath. We have no answer as to why he stopped breathing, but by the time they got him to the hospital, he was gone. We grieved with them as that Mommy washed her newborn baby for the last time and laid him in the ground. The father is working abroad and cannot be here to grieve the death of his only son. Our heart breaks for them as they grasp for some hope to cling to this week. We know the God who gives hope to the hopeless and who is the peace that passes all understanding. Pray that we will be able to communicate the nature of God with the fragments of language that we have learned and pray that God would reach beyond our limited vocabulary to speak the things our words cannot. Pray that this family would see a vision of the ONE who holds their son now and know that He is the one true God.

This is a picture of the rice fields. The Boomyah people eat rice three times a day and consider anything you eat with rice to simply be a side dish. It rains here for 6 months out of the year. During that season, the farmers build fields like this so that the rain water will drain off the mountains and down through the rice paddies. We live in the city now, but when we move at the beginning of next year, scenes like this will be the backdrop to our life.

August 12, 2007

Thanks for visiting our blogsite! We have been living with the Boomyah people for 7 months. They are a hindu people group in Asia. We spent the first four months focusing on the national language but are now trying to learn the tribal language. Most of the people here have never met a foreigner who can speak their language so their faces just light up when we address them in their own language. They usually run to get their friends so that everyone can enjoy listening to what the foreigner has to say to them in their language (which isn't much yet, but we are dilligently trying to learn more). We are becoming quite accustomed to our new roles as the village idiots!
We have been invited to several traditional ceremonies and dances over the past few months. We try to wear the local attire when we attend special functions and the people get so excited to see us in their clothes. Men and women here both wear sarongs. The men usually wear a short sleeved button down shirt and a piece of fabric around their head. The women wear a long sleeved, fitted top. This is a picture of us in the local attire after a cermony to celebrate the birth of a friend's baby.