Well I am halfway home. I am in Tokyo waiting to get on a plane to Chicago and I have to say I cant wait to be home. It was an awesome trip accomplished almost all we set out to do, however I truly believe that we accomplished exactly what God wanted us to do. We made some great new friends and we establish several new contacts for future mission adventures in this part of the world. I am looking forward to future adventures and taking some of you along to experience it first hand for the work is plenty and the workers are few. Thanks for all your prayers and financial support. I have a ton of pictures if I can figure out how to get them up I will or just contact me and I will be happy to share with everyone
God Bless
Al

Well we made it back to Chaing Mai yesterday afternoon. We are in slow down mode. After a tough couple of weeks we weren’t able to get all the trusses up, but we did get 2 trusses set and we did get the cross up. After a moving Sunday service and some sad goodbyes we headed down to Chaing Mai and we plan to just relax and reflect on the 3 weeks we had in the village. We are going to try to get all of our pics downloaded and put on to disc for all of us to have copies to share with everyone. I think Jason may get some new ones posted today and then I will give a link to them or I will figure it out when I get home. I leave out of here tomorrow at 11pm and I hope to arrive back Wed nite 5pm. See you all then. Thanks for all your support and prayers
Al

Well we are down to 1 work day and it is going to be a struggle to get all the trusses up. We went into town today to find ladders and all we could find was some short ones (go figure since everyone in this country is short) So it will be a challenge trying to set these trusses 13 feet in the air from 8’ ladders that are made for people less then have my weight. We are going to give it our best shot I must admit I am ready to move on because I am really struggling with the way they do things here square and plum is not something they understand. However I am really impressed with the pastor and his wife they are just the nicest people and just truly happy. I hope that we are being as much a blessing for them as they have been for us. I will write more soon
Al

Hello,
We have been busy the last couple of days Tuesday we went down to Chaing Klan and purchased the windows and doors. When we got all the stuff back we found that the windows don’t fit the frame and we spent the day yesterday cutting and planning windows to fit frames so I got a fast lesson in carpentry. We got 2 of the windows in and will get the other 3 in today. If all goes well we will get the rest of the brick set today and start setting the steel around the cap. With only 3 days left we have a tough task in front of us, however God willing we will get as far as we can hopefully trusses set. I will check back tonight. Have a great day
Al

We had a good day yesterday got a lot of bricks up. I had venture in to Chaing Rai to get the right corner bricks and to pick up some nice steel to build the cross out of. Today we are going to go into Chaing Klan to get some doors and windows as we are to the point of actually figuring out how to get them installed. Check out pictures on Jason’s face book site. Have a great day
Al

Greetings!! Today we had quite the interesting day. First off Mike and me got up early and went up to Phu Chi Fa to see the sun rise it is about 12Km from here and about a 20 min walk straight up the mountain. I am guessing we climbed around 1000-1200’ in elevation. It was quite the morning workout, there were about a 1000 people up there when we got there we watched the sunrise and tried to get some pics looking over Laos I am not sure how good they are going to turn out as it was quite hazy out this morning. We then headed back for an 8am breakfast, then after our morning devotion we went to a house of one of the guys from the congregation for what we thought was church but turned out that they wanted us to rename his younger brother. It seems the best I can understand that in this culture when a boy reaches manhood they give him a new name so we gave him the name John Mark and then they served us breakfast and toasted the boy and we all prayed together, then we all got in LaSongs truck and went up the hill to the next village where we would do church and where Jason would name the baby girl of which he named her Rebekah after we got to lay hands on her and pray and I got to hold her and have some pics taken and then they served us food again. Meanwhile a load of bricks came and were unloaded at the site. We drilled in some rebar’s that needed to get done and checked the mortar that was set yesterday and found it to be very good. Then we came back to our little cabin and did some reading and some napping all in all a great day. Have a blessed day
Al

Hello everyone we had a great day today we got another load of bricks delivered today and we got them all set now we are pushing them to deliver them a little faster. We believe that we can be done by Tuesday with the bricks if they get delivered and then we can get the trusses set and get the roofing materials ordered. They are supposed to have an order up to us first thing tomorrow; however first thing in Thailand seems to be the crack of noon. Hopefully they will prove us wrong, they will probably show up in the middle of church and they will stop service so we can go up and unload brick. Church in the morning should be real interesting since we do not have an interpreter, so explaining how Jason came up with the name Rebecca should be fun. We are hoping to get up early enough to go up to Phu Chi Fa in the morning to watch the sunrise up over Laos and then get back down here for breakfast and church, hopefully I will get some cool pictures to share when I get home. Click on the link below. Talk to you all soon
Al

Check out Jason new face book pictures
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=84651&l=a5f02&id=630621196

Well the last 2 days have been hectic. Jason has been sick for the last couple days and now he is starting to feel better, so please lift him up in your prayers.We finally got the perimeter of the building poured (about 14 cubic meters of concrete). We have had about 6 to 8 Hmong guys just working their butts off then in the afternoon the wives come up and show them how to work. I have worked harder the last 2 days then I can remember working in a long time. We are having the time of our lives we have been without interpreter for 4 plus days now and we are getting it figured out, well everyone is still smiling. We got 1 LD of bricks (380) delivered and unloaded by hand we have about 6 or 7 more to come. We got the slab graded and stoned and wires mesh down and hope to get a big portion of that poured tomorrow. Had to drive in to Chaing Kham (45 kilometers away) today to settle up with the building supply store so that they would keep delivering materials, doesn’t sound like much but it is definitely an adventure. First me getting into the small truck and driving on the wrong side of the road, having to negotiate mountain roads, and not being able to read the signs, and not speaking a word of Thai. Happy to say we did it and we didn’t kill or mame anyone. So all in all I think it has been a great couple of days. 7 more work days left for us and a whole lot to do. We are setting our sights on being able to get walls up and stand the trusses before we leave God willing. Talk to you all soon
Al

Hello everyone! All Is going well here we have been working real hard the last 2 days setting forms and breaking rocks. Tomorrow we will start mixing concrete and hopefully we can get the perimeter poured so we can start setting bricks by this Sat as we are running out of time we are down to 9 working days on the site. The last day and half have been real fun since we have nobody to translate for us so we are building great communication skills, although I don’t really know what they are saying and I am sure they don’t understand me; however we are still having a blast. Will talk to you all real soon.
Al

Wow! Things are really starting to move along. Yesterday we went to church in one of the villager’s house whose son had been injured in a motorbike accident and they had about 30 people show up. We got to lay hands on 5 individuals and pray for numerous things from illness to gunshot wounds, really a moving experience. My past experience from being here wasn’t them praying and this congregation really does trust in the Lord. I am really blown away, and then there was one of the ladies asked us to name her new baby girl. So Mike and I think that Jason should have the honor since we already have named our own children. This is really cool. We got Michael Phillips to take down to Phaeyao to visit Jundee a Hmong girl that he sponsors in college and what an adventure His mountain truck blew the radiator on the way back to his house to pick up his other vehicle after it cooled down enough to get water in it we got it restarted and we had only 3 kilometers to go, we had to stop and add water once to get home then when we got to his house his other car was dead so we swapped batteries and still couldn’t get it running so we pushed out and his neighbor came and jumped it and it started then we drove for an hour stopped and got gas and then it wouldn’t start again and a jump wouldn’t work, but a God sent us this very help Thai guy to help us get the car running after an hour of messing around and many phone calls to his little brother who is a mechanic in Chaing Mai he figured out how to get it started then he proceeded to lead us to the university that we couldn’t find (we were 20 kilometers off) an unbelievable blessing. To make a long story short Mike had a great visit and we got back about 11:30.
Today the excavator finally showed up to finish his job and we got the building pad that we can start setting forms God willing we will start mixing crete and start moving towards getting a structure up. If all goes as planned On the 8th we will have service in the new church and have communion with them. We are having the time of our life meeting all these new people who are in the mission field. Today we met a guy named Kevin who is from New Zealand and he has been here for 7 years and his calling is photography and he is making a documentary video up here in the village and getting to share with all these guys has just been awesome. I will bring back some great stories and some pictures. Take care and will talk to you all soon
Al

Well after a real busy and exciting day yesterday we hit a small snag today. The excavating contractor said he would be back in the morning to finish his work but never showed up. So after many discussions we have a meeting set for in the morning with him, so that he can finish and get the site ready (level) to start forming the building. With any luck Monday morning we will set forms and start mixing the concrete and if that all works we could possibly start setting bricks by end of next week. Tomorrow is my day to give my testimony at church so this should be interesting. I am looking forward to watch God pull this all together and how he intends to use us as his instruments. Please keep coming back to check our progress
In Him,
Al

More pictures.
Time lapse of work site.

Well today they started to bring the machine up the hill, however the truck broke down somewhere on the mountain and now they are saying they will get it here in the morning. We have been moving forward with other things like building trusses, and what an adventure welding here. Mike, Jason and me broke up most of the concrete from the old building yesterday; we got the layout figured out for the new building. We have some good ideas how we are going to grade the site, now we just need the machine or a real lot of guys. The problem now is time is working against us. With just around 2 weeks left and no ground moved it is going to be tough. I figure we have about 18 Cubic meters of concrete to pour and approx 3200 bricks to set. I think God must be trying to teach us patience. We are still confident that it will get done one way or another.
Jason has posted a lot of our pics on his facebook site please check them out
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=82274&l=681cf&id=630621196
God Bless
Al

Hello Everyone,
Well we been up here in the village for 4 days and not alot to show yet. We are definately on Thai time, there is alot of hoops to jump through here. The machine they were supposed to have here when we got here still hasn't arrived. We are waiting on some approvals from the head guys of the area, being that we are exactly on the Laos border they are afraid to just do something. I think that of the insecurity of the machines arrival we are probably just going to start excavating by hand LawSong (the Pastor of this village) thinks he can get us 30 men with shovels or picks to work with us so we can get something done. We have got the design done and finally approved by the congregation so we have ordered materials. Ordering materials is of course a challenge because we are doing things different than they understand (mainly cause of the time constraints) however we are moving forward and steel is being delivered today and we are going to start building trusses. I would ask everyone to just lift us in prayer that things may come together and we can be a full blessing to his kingdom.
If you want to Google Earth our location here are the coodinates
19○ 47.372N
100○ 24.353E
Talk to you all soon
Al

Well we are all here ( Mike Mieritz, Jason Weber, and me) in Chaing Mai finally. Today we did some shopping for tools to take up to the village and got some money exchanged and met with an old friend. Tommorrow morning we will head up to the village to meet them and meet with the gentleman that we are hopefully going to be able to rent the machine from. The plan is to meet and look at best possible solutions for the project and to set the ball in motion. We will worship with them on Sunday and get at it on Monday. In talking with our friend here, he informed us that building materials are down about 40% therefore we should be able to accomplish even more than expected. God is good. I will post another post when I am able so please keep checking back
God Bless
Al

Well I survived the first leg of the trip and after spending a night in Tokyo I am getting ready to board the plane for Bangkok and then Chaing Mai. I will talk to everyone soon God Bless
Al

Getting the final packing done and watching the weather. Really looking forward to the sunny and 80 degree weather. Just totally amazed at all of the support everyone has shown with donations and prayers. God is truly great. Talk to you from the other side. Have a blessed day.
Al

My buddy Mike gave me the idea to keep a blog of our trip. I am going to do my best to keep this updated for everyone to know what is happening on the other side of the world. Check back often and see what is new.
God Bless
Al