Children's Camp at Xing Wang

Xing Wang village is an Akha village. Most of the villagers moved here ten or more years ago from Myanmar, and by the grace of God, 80–90% of the villagers are believers.

Before we arrived, many children were already waiting outside the church. When PY started to pray, the children followed him, repeating one sentence at a time. We were so delighted to hear them repeating the prayers. Mei Qin shared that they teach children to pray in this way so they can learn to pray and one day pray by themselves. Lee led the worship song “Today I Can Be Different” and the dance part, and all 80 kids jumped to their feet, singing and swaying in joyful unison.

After worship, Ken and I used the five-color wordless book structure to share the gospel and encourage them. Gold represents the perfect world God created at the beginning and the golden streets in the future heaven; black represents sin entering the world, destroying and defiling the beautiful creation; red is Jesus’ blood that saves us; white is us purified by the blood of Jesus; green is the new life that flourishes and grows in Him. Mei Qin helped us throughout by interpreting from Mandarin to Thai. Pastor Zhang later shared with us that Mei Qin does not speak advanced, fluent Thai, but she tried her best to help the children understand us.

At craft time, the lower-grade children made hand chains with five-color beads. The kids liked them very much. Even some upper-grade kids, after finishing their own crafts, came over and took beads to make hand chains like the little ones. It was just a little chaotic when distributing materials to such a large group of children.

Finally, Mei Qin led the children in singing two Chinese worship songs: “Can It Be” and “Love You with My Entire Life.” Ken had recommended these songs, and John had taught them ahead of time before we arrived. We could not believe how well they sang. Sitting there, hearing them sing aloud together—declaring, “I will love and follow Jesus my whole life”—we were deeply touched. May these kids never be led astray and always walk with Jesus.

We also visited five families in the afternoon. Most have large families, unstable incomes, and husbands who have abandoned them. A few villagers came for massage and acupuncture treatment as well. On the coming Sunday, more people—around 70—needing treatment will come. Please pray that God gives us strength for the treatments; that PY preaches well; that I can share a short testimony clearly and relevantly for this context; and that God provides for these poor families.