Dear Phyllis,
I am in Vientiane Laos f ull
I scarcely know where to start. When I am in Vientiane f years ago I
said, “The spiritual atmosphere in the meeting was so hot you could take a
corpse out of a meet f reezer
and in 15 minutes it would thaw out and be clapping his hands shouting
Hallelujah!” Today was dif f erent.
It was more like a ride on a rocket sled. Today would have been more like the
time in Nain when Jesus stopped a f uneral
procession and spoke to the dead man in the casket. The young man immediately
sat up. This morning there wouldn’t be the 15 minute thawing period. The f rozen
corpse would have stood up shouting Hallelujah immediately.
I have been in many Pentecostal meeting where they are
having an exhausting time trying to worship the Lord. People are jumping up and
down like an aerobics class, singing 7-11 songs (7 words sung 11 times). It is
just hard work. That is f lesh trying to be
spiritual. This was dif f erent.
The room was packet with every seat taken and people standing clear to the back
wall. Shortly af ter it started I f ound
myself shouting “Wheeee”. It was like a take of f
in an F-102 in AB (af ter burner). The presence
of the Spirit of
Christ was so strong in the place I was singing at the top of
my lungs – which is pretty loud – but I could scarcely hear myself .
I thought, if this keeps up I am going to be hoarse.
But soon I stopped singing, and just stood there in amazement at what I was
witnessing. The vast majority of the people
there were Lao young f olks. The average age
couldn’t have been much past 25. Most were students who were some where between
19 and 22. The singing was in English but the Lao words were also there with the
power point projected on the screen. I honestly don’t know which language they
were singing. It may have been English or maybe more were singing in Lao – I
couldn’t tell – but the spirit was the dominant f actor.
The singing was loud, but I could see several, like myself ,
who weren’t singing, but just quietly standing there with their head bowed worshiping
the Lord. For most of the rest of
the worship time my contribution was basically the tears that were running down
my f ace soaking my shirt.
A week ago I really wasn’t planning on being in that
service. My objective was to travel around Laos f ound
myself miraculously standing in f ront
of a Hmong church in Xieng Khuang in northern Laos f the major miracles
of my lif e
and a very long story. But I asked the pastor if
they had any Bibles. He said they had f our
Bible that were brought up there by an American f our
years previous. Through that contact, in the next six years, we were able to f unnel
in thousands of Bibles into northern Laos f our years since the last time
I was up north.
I rented a good Honda motor bike in Vientiane Vientiane f irst
experience f or a long distance trip by bike.
That is some of the most breath taking scenery
in the world. Much of it is long stretches between
villages of gorgeous towering vertical mountains
– and a lot of very curvy road. I had to watch my f uel
as there are very f ew gas stations along the
road in the mountains. I was thinking the road to Phonsavan turned of f
at Kasi and planned to f ill up there. I was
getting low and went by a couple of gas
stations but didn’t stop as I wanted to f ill
up just bef ore heading out on the long stretch
to Phonsavan. I was thinking Kasi is just a little f urther
ahead. But as I kept going I kept thinking “this doesn’t look right”. At last I
went by a police check point and asked how f ar
it was to Kasi. I was terrif ied when they told
me I had gone by it and Kasi was 20 km behind me. The gas gauge said I couldn’t
make it. I turned around and headed back, kicking the bike into neutral and coasting
all I could down hill. I was almost bone dry when I, miraculously, saw a shack
with a hand crank gas pump. Praise God I was saved! But I still wanted to go back
to Kasi to get f illed up at that gas station.
While I was there, a man came up to me to speak in English.
I asked how f ar it was to the road to Phonsavan,
and he told me that was still ahead of me
another 50 km. We had a nice chat f or 5
minutes when I asked him his job. I was stunned when he replied a “Christian
leader.” I couldn’t believe my ears and asked him three times. I gasped and
asked, “Are you a Christian?” “Yes, I am a leader. This is my wif e.”
When I told them, “I am a Christian missionary.”, they both teared up. He
invited me to his house but I had no idea where that was and didn’t intend to
interrupt my trip.
But when we parted, I was going at high speed up the road
and he was staying right beside me with his wif e
on the back pointing to the lef t. I tried to
loose him, but he was persistent. So I stopped and asked again if
he was trying to get me to come to his house. He was. We went back about half
a kilo and turned of f
on a muddy alley way. Soon we came to his house, that would have been a poor
man’s chicken coupe. He invited me in, and his wif e
served me a glass of water, which was the most
elegant courtesy she could of f er.
I asked how many gathered there each Sunday. Thirty f ive.
He had just baptized twelve in the past year. I asked if
they had enough Bibles, and he said they were f ine.
He got his Bibles f rom an open (registered)
church in Vientiane f
years ago. I asked, “Why did you speak to me?” He said he was passing down the
road on his bike when Jesus told him, “Go speak to that man.” He turned into
the gas station and started up the conversation with me. How about that f or
miracle guidance?!! I was only there f ellowshipping
with them 10 or 15 minutes but that brief
encounter was the highlight of this trip to Laos
bill
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