Loas Adventure

8 September 2011

 Dear Phyllis,

Recently we have been working with a very unusual lady from Laos who is a close friend of Pammy's. Keosiri was fascinated by some of my Laos adventures and asked me to write some of these stories. There are two that I probably have written you before but but I will try to put them down again.

I had been in Laos three times but I had zero contacts in that country. I didn't know one Christian or know where there was one church. One night I was up in Luang Prabang, which is probably the number one tourist spot in Laos. I was in a little hole in the wall restaurant having supper by myself, when a backpacker walked in., He came over to my table and asked, “May I join you?” In my travels, I had met a lot of backpackers, but I had never met a Christian. I didn't feel too spiritual but wound up giving nearly a one hour testimony on how I got saved. He was a very unusual quiet man. He gave no indication where he stood with the Lord, and said almost nothing. But as I was sharing my testimony I kept asking him if he knew various Christian words and experience. The only indication that I got where he stood was that he knew too much. When I finished I said, “Alright, it is your turn. When did you get saved?”

He was a secret missionary. I asked,“Do you know this country?”

“Yes.”

“Let's get out of here where we can talk.”

As we were walking the dark streets of Luang Prabang at 9:00 o'clock at night, I asked, “Alright, please tell me where are the churches and Christians.”

He checked me out in Laos. He told me where to go and where the Christians were. We had been talking for over two hours, and when we parted I stuck my hand out to shake hands and said, “My name is Bill Cook. What is your name?” He replied,“Names are not important.” (Gen. 32:29). I never saw him again, or met anyone who had ever heard of him. I went where he told me to go, but I am 99% sure that he did not have a mother or father. That was not a man but an angel I was talking to that night.

In the early days when I first started working in Laos I had a great desire to go to the Plain of Jars, which is a very famous place in Laos. I had read about it many years ago in National Geographic. I asked around and was told it was illegal for foreigners to take a bus up there. The only way in was to fly, but that was very expensive. I went to the bus terminal in Vientiane and asked for a ticket to Xieng Khuang.

The next morning I got on a bus at 6:00 AM and rode forever. It was a very old bus and frequently had breakdowns. At 11:00 o'clock that night we pulled in a field and everyone got off. Obviously we were stopping for the night. I didn't want to loose my seat, so I left my backpack on the bus. There were little bamboo huts to sleep in; so I paid 30 B for a place to lay down. No one spoke English, and I couldn't even communicate with my fingers. I had no idea when the bus was leaving the next morning, and was very concerned that I not miss that bus. Around 3:00 AM there were several people walking around outside, so I got up and asked again what time the bus was leaving. It seemed like they said “6:00 o'clock”. I got up again at 5:00. It was pitch black, but there were three buses sitting in the field, and I wanted to check to see which one was mine. I looked at all three, but my bus wasn't there.

An hour later they put up a table to sell tickets, and I asked what time the bus would be leaving for Xieng Khuang. They said, “The next day.”

PANIC TIME! BIG TIME!”

I was terror struck! Here I was in northern Laos standing in a field with no idea where I was. My bus was gone with my backpack. You talk about a bad feeling; now there is one for you. I asked, “Is the any other way to get to Xieng Khuang?” They said I could take a plane. I didn't think there was an airport within 200km. I asked, “How do you get to the airport?”And they told me I could get there by motor bike. A young boy was there so I gave him 20 B and got on the back of his bike. It was just breaking dawn when I looked up and saw the sign, “Luang Prabang Airport”. My goodness, I was in Luang Prabang and didn't know it.

I had to wait two hours before the airlines opened up, and I tried to get a ticket to Xieng Khuang. At first they said there were no seats, but later there said there was one seat open. I was delighted to be on that plane, but my main concern was to get my backpack back.

When we landed at Xieng Khuang, there were several tour guides vying for the passengers patronage. One fellow had an open face that I immediately was attracted to. I asked him, “Do you speak English?” Reasonably good. I told him my main predicament was to find my backpack and I would give him$10 if he could find it for me. That was a lot of money – almost a months wages for him. Another fellow was more aggressive, and most of the passengers went for him. Somehow I didn't like him. Naturally speaking, I should have gone with him like the rest of the crowd, which would have been considerably cheaper, but that guy was just too greasy. It was a lot of money to hire a guide all by myself, but I preferred the open fellow.

I had been told that all tour guides in Vietnam and Laos had to be members of the Communist Party and all of them were very dangerous. I had been told never to tell a guide that I was a Christian or speak to them about the Lord. That was a sure way to get in troubled with the police. But as we were walking around the Plain of Jar looking at the historic huge vases sitting in the fields, Sang was saying a lot of things he shouldn't. He was quite anti-government and wasn't careful about his criticism . This encouraged me to talk more openly about the war in Laos. He told me that his father had been a soldier with Van Pao, the famous Hmong general. I asked him if I could meet his father. I also asked himself he was a Christian. He told me that he wasn't, but there were a large number of Christians in his village.

That afternoon he took me to his village, which was the largest Hmong village in Laos. Technically, that was illegal but Sang was willing to stick his neck out. As we were waking around his village, suddenly I stopped in front of a fairly large bamboo building and looked up to see a bamboo cross. I thought, “Oh my goodness; I am standing in front of a Hmong church.” Of course gaijins (foreigners) were a very rare sight, and soon a large crowd of people began to gather. Sang's Christian vocabulary was very limited. He didn't know the word “pastor” but I asked him who was in charge. One man stepped forward. I had no idea what kind of Christian they were and there was no way to talk doctrine. Finally I asked them to sing a song for me. About 20 people began to sing, “Come Thou fount of every blessing , tune my heart to sing Thy praise”. He sure did! When I heard that familiar hymn my heart nearly burst. I had found them! They were my people! They were the real Hmong Christians in northern Laos.

I asked the pastor if they had any Bibles. He said they had four. Only four Bibles in that area northern Laos. I asked the pastor to show me one. They were the same ones that we were distributing. I asked him how he got them. He said an American had brought those Bibles to them four years ago. Would they like some more? What a stupid question! That was like asking a starving man if he would like a meal.

I turned to my tour guide, Sang, and asked, “Do you have a drivers license?”

“No”

“What would one cost?”

“One hundred dollars.”

Neil Verwey had given me $100 before I left Japan. I reached in my pocket and handed that $100 bill to Sang. I told him, “You are going to get baptized in this church, get a drivers license, and drive us all over northern Laos distributing Bibles.”

I went to the bus terminal several times that day, but my bus wasn't there. I spent the night in Xieng Khuang. Before I left I decided to try one more time. To my utter astonishment the bus was there and my backpack was still on it! The driver told me that they had looked all over for me, but when they couldn't find me they came on, and the backpack was still there. Now there is a miracle for you! And I gave Sang the $10 that I promised him.

A week later I got back to Chiang Mai and told Mark what had happened. He couldn't believe it! He said they had been praying for four years, asking the Lord to open up a route to get Bibles into northern Laos. This was the first break they had had. It was an enormous answer to prayer.

Three months later I was back on Chiang Mai, and had the privilege of leading the first team taking a large consignment of Bibles to that church. In the subsequent years that was the main route to meet the needs of Christians in that part of SEA. Many teams have gone there taking thousands of Bibles to waiting souls.

That was 12 years ago. Much has changed since then. There was a very foolish team that went up there one time while I was in Japan. They were rank amateurs and made a serious mistake. Through that error, the contact person was arrested, and that more or less closed things down on that route.

I heard that a very fine missionary was living in that town now. Two years ago, I was back in Laos and rented a motor bike to ride to northern Laos. While up there, I visited the resident missionary asking him about the situation there now. He said to the best of his knowledge that area was adequately covered. He had his own ways of getting what Bibles he needed and said he had more in his house at the time than they could use. That is good news.

It was 13 years ago that I first boarded a plane in Tokyo to go to SE A with zero contacts. I planed to walk th streets of Saigon and trust the Lord to lead me to someone. What has happened since then has substantially gone beyond my wildest imagination. I hadn't been in Bangkok three days before the Lord miraculously led me to Mark. It was through Mark that I was introduced to the underground church in Vietnam. But the work in Laos has been different. Most of that has been the direct miraculous guidance of the Lord doing things that are beyond human achievement. I believe the encounter I had that night in Luang Prabang was with an angel. And the opening up the route in Xieng Khuang came as a result of that terrifying experience of losing my backpack on the bus. It is nice to tell stories like this afterwards, but it sure was uncomfortable at the time. The only thing I can say is that we don't experience Jesus undergirding arms until we get out in water that is over ankle deep. It isn't until you get where you can't touch bottom, then Jesus steps forward to hold you up.

What an awesome privilege to follow Him.

bill