In the week since we returned, we have reconnected with our coworkers at Akha Outreach, our home church in the city (where we were asked to preach – surprise!) and our village family in Doi Maesalong. Amazing things have been happening everywhere, but especially in Maesalong, where their project to build a new church is really moving along. The pastor, who had been living in our home for the past two years, has moved into the parsonage on the bottom floor of the new church building. This means we get to “take ownership” of our village home again and Lori has grand plans to spend extra time with Izi and Jak in the village over the next year exposing them to more Akha language and culture while Paul continues to work at the foundation and produce Gospel media in the Akha language.

To prepare for our arrival, the village gave our home an overhaul: redesign and repair – and we are so thrilled with what we returned to! It is a blank slate and we are already dreaming of what our “Akha Hut v.3.0” will become. We made a little video for you to enjoy a tour of our new place:

For years, Lori has loved looking at the beautiful Akha headdresses on the heads of our close friends. But she wouldn’t buy one.

Her reluctance reflected our ministry goal to incarnationally meet the Akha where they are spiritually, physically, emotionally and culturally. Although there were, and always will be, obvious differences between ourselves and our Akha friends, we did not want to show up and throw money around to make our outer appearance seem more seasoned, more accepted, than we actually were.

Our first truck was testimony to that, as was our first Akha home, and the fact that we didn’t have a bathroom in our hut for the first year.

In the same way, we didn’t want to just walk in and buy amazing Akha costumes and parade around in them as if we were Akha, we wanted to grow with our people incarnationally. Through the years we slowly received gifts of beautiful Akha bags and clothes, we purchased simple and then more ornate Akha coats and built our appearance as our language and relationships grew.

But Lori still didn’t have a headdress.

A few months ago we were going through our things and came across some old US silver coins that Lori’s grandmother had given her before she passed away. These pieces had new meaning to us after spending so many years inculturated with a people whose traditions lie in passing silver coins from generation to generation. We knew that we wanted to add these pieces to Lori’s headdress when the day finally came.

And after 9 years of full-time service, after naming 3 children and spending countless hours laughing, crying, teaching and learning in the Akha language, the day has finally come.

We bought Lori an authentic Akha headdress (made of metal, not silver) which she will wear “out” for the first time at the Akha Outreach graduation 0n March 1st.

The process of buying a headdress is involved because once you have found one that meets your standards, it then has to be customized to fit to your head… which means more Akha community! So Lori brought out her new headdress at the Women’s Conference last week and all the women joined in in customizing her crowning Akha glory.

Even this headdress is something that we will continue to build into through the years. We will slowly add real silver pieces to replace the metal ones, attach additional silver chains and ornaments and personalize it to my beautiful wife.

But for now, our American Akha beauty is very satisfied.

Pastor Aga is a graduate of Akha Bible Institute (ABI3) and pastored the Akha Outreach church in Maesalong for about 2 years. We want to thank all of you for your partnership with us and with Akha Outreach over the years. If you would like to know more about how you can be a part of equipping Akha leaders for life, marriage and ministry please read more!

Some of those early funerals were shocking experiences, like the time when I was awoken, placed on a motorcycle and driven to a neighboring village without any understanding what was happening until I came into a hut and saw the body of a woman who had died from AIDS on the floor, a casket beside her, and a family of mourners looking for a pastor. Other funerals were almost comical experiences, like the time when Lori and I tried to walk with two 60-year old women to a funeral during rainy season, only to arrive an hour later covered head-to-toe in mud and the butt of every joke that the mourners told that day.

But as the years went on and our Akha family grew, we have gone from being outsiders observing a funeral to mourners attending one. But nothing has been like this past month.

We have been to Maesalong three times in this past month. We have taken part in a funeral each time.

It has been very hard. Not for those who have gone on to peace, but for those of us who remain behind and who feel their absence.

We lost an Akha mother, who has cared for us and for teams that have visited our village. Who loved and served the church, her family, her people and even strangers until she succumbed to her battle with kidney failure.

We lost an Akha grandmother, who invested her life into her grandchildren and held tightly to Akha traditions, never removing her headdress, even as she held tightly to her Saviour until her advanced years took her peacefully.

We lost an Akha brother. A young man, and one of our first and greatest village friends. One whose massive frame held a gentle spirit, and who always would put others ahead of himself. He was taken from us shockingly, when his poor decisions and the irresponsibility of another driver took him from us suddenly.

It is in these events that we know we have become knitted together with our family here. When our tears fall alongside theirs, when we question “why?” together.

And we answer the “Why?” together as well, by sharing peace from the Author of peace; by the life of the community that goes on; through the Word that brings hope; and through the truth woven into the fabric of Akha culture through their proverbs:

To every thing there is a season.

Please join us in prayer for our Akha friends and family in Maesalong as we walk through this season of loss together.

Less than 24-hours after his birth the messages began coming in from our Akha friends via texts and Facebook: “Your son is 2-years old!” “Happy parents of a 2-year-old!” It was a modern twist on a cultural phenomenon that we have witnessed for years. The Akha calendar follows a 12-year agricultural cycle with an animal representing each year, similar to the Chinese zodiac. The animal year you were born on is your age-1 year. So Jak was 1-year old when he was born on the last day of the Akha year of the Dragon* and on the next day, the first day of the Akha year of the Horse, he turned 2. All this before he was 24-hours old as we count!

We were able to observe another wonderful tradition this past weekend, but this was one that we have seen before with Abigail and Izabel. When we went up to our Akha village in Maesalong, Jak was given his Akha name, Yaelah (Yaerlanq), by the elders of our village. After he was named, all the people came up and held him, shook his hand, greeted him in Akha by his name, and placed money (20-100 baht) and/or boiled eggs into his hands. This is a beautiful tradition in Akha villages where neighbors can bless a family with money and food without it seeming like charity… very similar to our casseroles and baby showers back in the United States. It is beautiful and humbling when our friends who have so little are so generous to us.

We truly love our life with the Akha!

* Actually the Akha year for 2013 wasn’t Dragon but another mythical creature that we don’t know an English equivalent for.

Many of you have been asking about how Lori is doing and we wanted to share that she is handling this pregnancy better than the rest of the family! The weather in Thailand has been beautiful for the past month, making it much more pleasant to be 9 months pregnant. Lori has really been comfortable and peaceful this last month as she waits for the little guy’s arrival but Paul and the rest of the staff at Akha Outreach are jumping every time the phone rings, and Abi and Izi are starting to wonder if their little brother is ever coming out to play. Please hold all of us in your prayers, and keep your eyes here for updates as soon as we have news for you!

We hope you are all enjoying the anticipation of the Christmas season and look forward to connecting again with many of you during our America 2014 travels. More details to come!

We are in the middle of dubbing a major production, the Book of Acts, into Akha, but because it is the season for bamboo worms we paused the Acts project to put together a short video to teach the lesson of James 1 which teaches about our path from Preperation to Pain to Perseverance to Perfection. The video is centered around a typical Akha experience: the gathering of bamboo worms in the early fall.

Our entire family went up for a weekend to work on this film with our Akha team of actors and production crew. In our 7 years here, we have grown comfortable eating what we like to call “exotic” foods, but can still relate to the many people who would simply call them “gross”. Intestines, fat, skin, hair, blood, fermented meat, raw meat, birds, dog, bugs and worms have all become common encounters. A few of these items have become favorites, but some still require a big breath before I dive in. Bamboo worms fall in this last category.

But our girls have grown up in a world where a bamboo hut is more common than a skyscraper, and where bamboo worms are as much of an annual experience as a turkey at thanksgiving. So it is through their eyes that I want to share with you the joy of eating bamboo worms:

Thanks for taking the time to catch up with us, feel free to drop us a comment below or a message on facebook so we can stay connected to you!

Near our village is another small Akha village very close to our hearts called “Ayi Akha”. They are very poor, and have no access to electricity or clean water. The water source they have been using for all their cooking, cleaning and consumption is a 200-yard walk down a mountain, must be carried back to the homes in bottles, and is filthy. Through the years we have reached out to this village, building relationship, bringing medicine and even hosting a summer camp specifically for their 30+ children.

Late last year, we met a wonderful couple named Wade and Sarita who visited our village. After learning about our friends at Ayi Akha they gave us 12 Sawyer water filters, each of which can be used to clean water for a family for up to 50 years. Earlier this month, we presented the filters and instruction on how to use them to the twelve families in the village. Every family had at least one adult and child who listened attentively to what we shared with them and who now all have filters to clean their water and the knowledge to care for those filters for many years to come.

Next, we’d love to add some solar bottle lights to continue to brighten and bless their world. Anyone want to sponsor that project? $100 would add light to these homes. Leave a comment below or contact us with “Solar Lights” in the subject line for more info.

Please make a secure online donation to the Vernons through Foursquare Missions International at http://give.foursquare.org/vernon. For other tax-deductible methods of giving, please view our partners page.

Thank you for your faithful support!

At the end of December, Christian churches around the globe celebrate the incarnation of the Eternal God, the dwelling of Emmanuel, Christmas: the birth of Jesus Christ in a humble manger. The songs, the scriptures, the stories awake something eternal in us. We began Christmas early this year, and in an unexpected way. At the beginning of December we, along with fellow FMI missionaries in SE Asia, hosted a team of 8 pastors and leaders from the Gateway district, led by George Cline as they came on a short trip to two SE Asia nations to see what was happening out here and how the US church could partner with the work in Asia. This team was an encouragement to us in a way that few, if any, prior teams had been, and we would like to highlight four reasons why:

They Came, They Engaged, They Imparted, They Testified (and will continue to do so!)

click the images below to view the full-size image:

To read the rest of this article,  follow this link over to the mommyhood memos where I had the honor of  writing as a guest blogger this week. If you’re visiting from the mommyhood memos… Welcome! Here are some posts from our archives that you might be interested in:

On Cross Cultural Pregnancy, Parenting & Kids:

• My Akha Pregnancy Guru
• The Birth Story
• It takes a village
• A Million Butts Can’t Be Wrong: Elimination Communication
• Diaperless Update: 3 Months
• EC Update: 1 Year
• Our Trilingual 2 Year Old
• A Different Kind of Milestone: Noodles and Chopsticks

Or if your interested in learning a bit more about the Akha people, our work, or our crazy life in the village, here are a few posts you may like:

• About the Akha
• Traditional Akha Vocals
• Vernon Vidcast #1: Our most recent ministry update
• 5 Minute Documentary about the Vernons
• The Akha and the West: Relevantly Traversing the Cultural Divide
• Pulling teeth on our own
• How to take a village shower
• The Rat and the Cat

Whether you’re an old friend or a new visitor,  thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment below and let us know you were here!

Thanks for taking the time to catch up with us, feel free to drop us a comment below or a message on facebook so we can stay connected to you!

For those of you who haven’t heard the update on the direction we will be moving in ministry over the next few years, please view our update card, or contact us on facebook. We’ve done a number of presentations over these three months and wanted to share with you this slideshow of images of our work and life with the Akha people of Southeast Asia.

This image was created for an introduction/update printing we are about to do, but we thought that it would be a great thing to share with all of you here as well.

However, for the AOF 10th Year of Ministry celebration we cut a recording of one of our Akha pastor’s wives singing her version of John 3:16 in the traditional Akha style. We hope you enjoy it!