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SUMMARY OF RIVERLAND TRIP.

Short Version:
“Watching the river…” My Trip to Riverland –My first vision trip went very well - pray for some friends whose homes were destroyed or damaged in recent flooding.
“I remembered the stories…” –a local believer who found encouragement in the stories, in spite of his home being flooded.

Longer Version:
“Watching the river…” My Trip to Riverland…
In spite of the rain, we still went to a few villages to share stories and do some story training. Along the way we crossed several bridges over rivers. At each bridge, there were people just standing apparently watching the water. I thought, ‘this is South Asia, what else do you have to do?’ But on our way back, I realized they weren’t just watching the water. They were actually watching the water rise. That night, the river rose about 3-4 feet over the bridges. The next day, we walked nearly waist deep in water on the main road! The local people said “flooding is normal here, but it’s never been this bad in our town before.”

“I remembered the stories…”
One of the hardest things in Riverland was seeing the flooding. We ate dinner in the local Workers home one night and the next day, he had 2 feet of water in his house. I wanted to cry seeing some their situation. I asked him and his wife, “how can you be smiling?” He said, “I remembered the stories you told yesterday in the village about David and the tall man (Goliath), and about the three friends in the fire (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego), and how God was with them. I am asking God to be with us now, and I know that just like He was with those men in those stories, right now He is with us too.”

To recap in short, the past week contained the following:
- meeting with national Workers who showed me their ministry in different areas
- visiting a training center (a great place for future storying workshops!)
- visiting an elementary school (where I shared two stories with the students)
- visiting a village where some of the women aren’t fully clothed and in which they have their own tribal religion.
- visiting a Buddhist village where chickens, pigs and other animals share the same house with the people
- discussing how storying could be used in some unreached groups there
- enjoying a great cultural discussion with a monk
- traveling by motorbike everywhere (in the rain too)
- traveling to a village by boat because the rising river had made travel by land impossible
- doing mini-storying training in a bamboo hut with mud floor
- people swimming to come to the training
- being escorted by policemen to different places – there was increased security in that area due to a recent kidnapping in the area
- walking in waist-deep water to visit national friends whose home was flooded
- eating rice three times a day
- making friends with large cockroaches

P& P for Riverland
- Praise Him for the contacts and relationships made in Riverland.
- Praise Him for the storying training I was able to do in two villages with new believers.
- Praise Him for safety while traveling and during the rains
- Pray for the people whose homes were damaged/destroyed by the flood
- Pray for how I may continue to pray for and serve the people of Riverland.

In Him,

~ Elizabeth
“The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me…” Psalm 138.8