Grand Prairie Day 2

Service! We worked Hmong territory in the Dallas area, our group didn't find anyone who was actually Hmong but there were others who had good calls. The highlight of our service day was association.

Talyssa, Keon and I worked with Nina (a sister in the Lao group) and Madelynne (a sister visiting the Lao group from the ASL congregation)

After service Nina took us back to her house for lunch. We ate Fuh which is kind of soup. The hmong, Thai and Lao people all eat soup for nearly every meal.

To be honest, I am definitely not a fan! haha

It is a combination of noodles, meat (they use EVERY part of the animal so who knows what you are eating), then boiling water is poured on top to cook the meat and noodles, they then add various sauces (including Fish sauce..they LOVE fish sauce) top it off vegetables, bean sprouts and cilantro and a bit of Lao hot sauce.

In their cultures it is very rude not to eat what you are given, so we did our best to eat every meal we were given.

The meeting was at 1 on Saturday. We sang the opening song in Hmong (well those of us who could sang in Hmong and the others looked at the print out of the song confused and did their best)
The public talk was in english and the watchtower was read in Thai, questions were asked in engligh and Lao and comments were welcome in English, Hmong, Lao and Thai.

The lao group has put forth diligent effort to learn Thai as well as the Lao language because similar to Hmong, there are currently no watchtowers available in the Lao language.
It was a very encouraging experience, and so incredible to hear comments in 4 languages and yet everyone learned something during the meeting.
After the meeting there was a picnic in the park, we enjoyed ethnic foods, association and practice presentations in multiple languages.

After the picnic the Hmong group decided we would have a little after-party of our own. We piled into caravans and headed into the city to check out a hip Jazz lounge.

Angel was driving very poorly and Both Alma (his wife) and I felt really sick. I love the picture on the right, her face was priceless!

And here is a silly picture of Benny and I seated at our table after a 2 and a half hour wait.

Grand Prairie Day 1

We left for Texas around 3 on Friday afternoon.

We didn't arrive in town until after 9 but our Host family had kindly prepared a meal for us.

Our first meal of the trip (pictured above) consisted of freshly made beef jerky, Lao noodles and sticky rice. It was really good!

Grand Prairie and the nod of approval

We are going to Grand Prairie Texas and will be staying with the Lao brothers and sisters as the Laotion congregation will be hosting our visit.

Mondo and Leah are leaving today
Alan and Theresa are leaving at 4 a.m. tommorrow
and the rest of us will be heading over throughout the day on Friday.

So excited!!!!!!

I had an exciting moment yesterday. Last night was the first Hmong Theocratic ministry school!
We are still waiting for our Hmong songbooks to come in so we were trying to keep up singing in my engligh book when I decided to look over Barbara's shoulder and try reading her song book. To my surprise I was actually able to read the Hmong songs!

My assigned comment last night was about pagans and the cross.
FUN....not.
I had to find the words and figure out how to pronounce them. It was difficult because the Hmong resources do not list words like "Christianity" So I had to look through my Hmong bible teach book and find words.
I was so certain I was going to mess it up, unfortunately the time came for me to give my comment and I managed to spit it out in a pathetic manner before someone pointed out that I had gotten the "nod of approval" from Fuji our Hmong brother. Apparently that is an honor and that is his way of saying "I actually know what you said and it sounded pretty good."
Everyone wants to get a nod from Fuji, He even does it for his wife and she is almost more Hmong than he is!

I was very very proud of myself.

Anyways, Benny had the bible reading in English last night and he did so well! I still can't believe he was able to pronounce all those words right!!

Texas

The Hmong group is taking a trip next weekend.
There are trips at least once a month but usually only a few people go at a time, for this trip the entire group will be travelling together.

We leave Friday all together piled into a couple of cars and will be staying with brothers and sisters (I don't remember where in Texas we will be). We will be gone Friday-Sunday.

Here is the travel schedule:

Friday afternoon: leave for Texas.
Arrival late friday night.

Saturday: Meeting in the morning
Service all afternoon

Sunday: Service in the morning
Shopping in the afternoon (its cheaper to buy things in Texas)
Drive home Sunday evening
Arrive home late Sunday night in time to get back to work on Monday.

I'm excited, it will be a lot of fun!

Changes

We are not getting a Hmong class. Looks like we are on our own for now.
With the growth we have had recently the Circuit overseer has decided it is time we have our own theocractic ministry school twice a month. We are on our way to becoming a congregation!

Currently we meet in a very small back room with no air circulation and only one small window, because we no longer fit back there we have been told we need to figure something out pretty quickly or we will be sent to another host congregation with a bigger library for us.
There is a Hmong family studying with Theresa and they are attending a few meetings so we will also begin having public talks interpretted into Hmong along with the ocassional public talk in Hmong.

Very exciting changes!!

First Bible Study

We gave our first assigned comments at meeting tonight.

My comment was about 8 words and Benny's was 2 full sentances.

After the meeting Leah sat down next to me in informed me in all honesty that I managed to say about 20% of my comment correctly (Benny got about 20% too) but at least our comments are not as bad as some of her mom's comments.

There are a few in our little group who really struggle with the language, and a couple that manage to completely butcher every single word they say.

Then we have Fuji and Talyssa (and baby Keon) who all speak Hmong fluently, and make the rest of us feel like complete failures in comparison.

About the pictures: The top picture is traditional Hmong attire. When I see those pants I can't help but think "Hammertime"

Bottom picture: Baby Keon! :)

English Meeting

The english congregation we are a part of had their meeting last night with the circuit overseer.
Since the only meeting we have as a group is the congregation bible study, we meet with them for everything else.

A little about our C.O.: a few years back they served the Auburn, Grass Valley area.
They are both from deep in the south and have very strong accents and the highlight of the visit so far; he said "I know we get a little nervous with the circuit overseer, I don't know what it is about it him. You act like he just rocks your world! I don't know why!" haha
One thing about travelling overseers here; The majority of the ones around us are hilarious, none of them take themself too seriously and they all manage to have a good time while still helping you to see important points.

Well I don't have any exciting Hmong updates. We are still preparing our comments since Bible study is on Thursday this week.

Day Two

We had a full Sunday meeting today for the CO's visit. Fuji (our only native brother) interpretted both talks and the closing prayer into Hmong.
There were 33 in attendance: The 13 previously in the Hmong group, 10 of us desperately hoping to start the Hmong classes soon and 10 visitors.
Brother Luka (the congregation photographer) had us all gather around for pictures.
Our comments went pretty well! I was surprised I had the courage to open my mouth and speak.
For the first time today my brain thought "What have we done?"
We are serving in a foreign language field, preaching to people in a language we don't speak, giving assignments in a language we don't understand and then I realized. We will never be missionaries but this is a pretty good taste of what it must be like.
I am so impressed with the willingness of our missionary brothers and sisters. Leaving family and friends, moving to a foreign contry with strange cultures, preaching in a language you don't know to people who do not speak your mother tongue. I always wanted to be a missionary and this is my little chance.
Realistically my health is too poor to travel out of the country anyway, we have been offered a wonderful opportunity to get a taste of Missionary work without having to leave home.
We have received our first assignments for meeting this week. It will take so much work to prepare our comments. I will be going in service with the Hmong group as an official member for the first time on Tuesday.
Will let you know how it goes!

Day One

As of this morning Ben and I are officially part of the small Hmong group in our area.
We just finnished up our first morning in the field and I could not sum it up better than taking our first steps into Macedonia.

First let me tell you, our Hmong consists of one word: Hello.
We made arrangements with a brother and sister we are very comfortable with and trusted them to show us the way. The were kind enough to take the first few doors, door one a young man opens the door and Leah has a conversation with the man in english only slipping n a few Hmong words here and there. I can so do this!
Door two: Leah and I approach an older woman sittng on a very small wooden stool on the front porch, as we approach it becomes clear that the woman is chopping a chicken for the days meal, A WHOLE CHICKEN! I'm the only one in the scenario that finds this at all abnormal, Leah tells me "This is Thailand. If the house were a mud hut we would be in Thailand right now. The woman speaks almost no english and Leah has a short conversation before leaving the tract in the door for her to pick up later.
Door 3 we were on our own. Benny and I step out of the car hesitantly, walk up to the door..No answered. We walk toward the car and "Grandma" is standing in the driveway with a baby on her back. "Nyob zoo" (said like Nie-jong) benny says to greet her. It becomes clear she ONLY speaks Hmong. Benny gracefully presented her with the brochure and we thanked her.

Here is our presentation:
"Nyob zoo! Does anyone in your family speak Hmong? (if yes) We would like to leave this brochure in Hmong for your family to read."
End of presentation.

We had a wonderful time, it was different and scary but we are so happy.

We have the CO visit this week, he doesn't speak Hmong either. The sister we worked with in service this morning helped Benny and myself as well as our new C.O and his wife come up with comments for meeting tomorrow. They are very simple and we are VERY bad at saying them but here they are:
Benny: "Nws ua tav pab peb" meaning: It can help us
(new oowa tow ba bay)
Mine: "Kawm txog Yehauvas" meaning : Learn about Jehovah
(Gar t-saw yayhova)

I can't wait to give my first comment in Hmong, I know we will say them completely wrong but hey..it's our first day.

One last thing, I have a joke to share!

A flock of sheep are grazing in a field, happily going "baa baa" to each other and discussing life as usual when suddenly they hear a "moo mooooooooooooooooooo!" They look around and see only sheep. They carry on grazing as before. "Moooooo mooooooooooo mmmoo!" One sheep can hear it all too clearly next to him. He shuffles away a little from his friend, a worried look on his face and then asks "George, why are you mooing. You're a sheep. Sheep go 'baa!'" His friend replys gladly: " I know, but I'm serving with a foreign language group!"


If I don't get the words right, I will just MOO.