A Church for MooDooKey Village

Bli and his wife: MooDooKee (MDK) village

Bli was the Baptist leader in MooDooKee, (MDK), village, but as he read his Bible, (and he could barely read), he found the command to worship on the Seventh-Day Sabbath. He was in his seventies, (Adults rarely know their age). He determined that he must keep the Sabbath holy before he died. This is when someone told us that he had questions about the Bible. By the time we met him, we found out that he had already begun to keep Sabbath, and had stopped eating unclean meat! It is a huge step for the people in our jungle mountains to refrain from eating unclean foods! (They eat everything including: Rats, dog, grubs, spider, frogs, snakes, crawfish, termite flies etc.). He and his entire family were all baptized after our evangelistic meeting in 2019. Isn’t it incredible that an ignorant person way back in the jungle, who can barely read, can be shown the great truths of the Bible by the power of the Holy Spirit, when doctors, theologians, scientists, and highly educated people do not respond to the truth or don’t see it?

“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” 1Corinthians 1:27

Bli told us that he paid for everything on this church accept the Baptists paid for the roof. He wanted it now to be a total Seventh-Day Adventist Church, so he paid for the roof!

Bli, his wife, 2 daughters and one of his son-in-laws were baptized 2019

He became our most devout SDA church member living up to all the standards of the Bible that he knows, and earnestly praying for his unconverted family members. He is such an inspiration for us! Light in a village filled with darkness!

March 14, 2024, Bli showed us a piece of land he had cleared near his house and asked if we would please build him a church there! The old church he had built was falling over due to wild elephants breaking it and rotten posts. Also, he is too old and weak to climb the steep hill up to that church. We are so thrilled and delighted to be able to fulfill his dream, by God's grace, we’ll do whatever it takes to build a church in his village.

The climb up to Bli’s church. We knew God wanted to do great things in this village because many miracles of healing had taken place here. God’s power has been clearly evident. Meet DeeGaLer age 9!

DeeGaLer is a naughty boy. One day he urinated on devil worship idols and trinkets which were in the middle of the village. Instantly the devil struck him dumb. Evil spirits completely possessed him. He became like an infant with no control over bladder and bowels. He foamed at the mouth, screamed and cried from time to time. We found out about him and visited. We talked with the mother and explaining the difference between the devil and Jesus and asked her if she wanted to believe in Jesus, then she could cut the devil strings off this boy and we would pray in Jesus name to cast the demons out of him. We visited her several times and taught her simply about the true God. After many days she cut the strings off of him. We prayed for the demons to leave immediately by the blood of Jesus and in His name. He was totally restored and we praised the Lord. Just look at the difference when Jesus takes control!

God has saved this boy’s life - CaNaWood. When he was 2 weeks old we visited the family and I saw he was septic, meaning he had a serious blood infection. He had a fever and! would have periods of apnea, meaning he stopped breathing for 7 seconds. We wanted to take him to the hospital, but they refused because it wasn’t the right time with the spirits. A ceremony must be performed with all the family present. We visited every day and watched the babies’ breathing stop for longer and longer periods of time. I was desperate. We had been praying earnestly. By the 3rd day when his apnea was 12 seconds I pleaded with the father. His baby was dying! The father said he thought the baby would die during the night. Finally he got into our truck and we “raced” to the hospital 3 hours away. As soon as we arrived I grabbed that baby and ran into the Emergency Department. As soon as I laid him on the stretcher he stopped breathing and he was in full cardiac arrest! I called for the nurses who immediately resusitated him. He was transferred to a larger hospital and from there he was taken to a larger hospital and we heard he was on the respirator. Medically speaking there was no way he could survive, but we kept praying. In a few weeks he was dismissed and sent back to the original small hospital and dismissed, well and strong!

Going home on a motorbike while being held by his big brother. Praise God!

This is CaNaWood today at 10 years old. His father tells him that if it weren’t for me, he would be a ghost! Both DeeGaLer and CaNaWood love me. They hug me every time I see them. Memorials of Gods healing power!

Now we are in earnest about building the church. The entire process began by locating a good builder. We contacted 3 good builders that we knew about, but one by one we found out they were fully booked through May. That won't work for us because the rainy season will begin about that time, so we trust in God to provide a better plan. Sure enough, providentially, we came in touch with BoJaw, a young Karen guy who had helped build our present clinic/house in BYT twelve years ago! BletJhaw had heard from him occasionally. He had always felt drawn to us. Because of our health message, he began drinking more water, and asking us questions about the Bible. He especially liked how we practice what we preach! He had never seen people do that. He said all the preachers he knew would preach to others, then go and live entirely different lives! After our clinic/house was completed in BYT BoJaw had returned to his home in Burma. He knew very little about the Bible. He checked around for a Seventh-Day Adventist Church near him where he could learn more - there were none. He began to doubt if he should continue practicing what he had so recently learned about the Bible. All his relatives were Buddhists and nobody liked the change in his religion. One night he felt a terrible turmoil in his heart. He knelt down and asked God to please show him what is the truth that he should follow. At that very moment, his Bible fell off the shelf above him and landed right in front of his folded hands! There was no earthquake, no animal, no person, no visible hand to push it off. It simply moved off of the solid position that it had held on that shelf! Somehow, somewhere through the following years BoJaw got baptized into the Seventh-Day Adventist church!

Now we were able contacted BoJaw and he consented to come and build for us beginning in January 2025! He had become a professional builder and was building commercially South of Bangkok. We met him in MaeSot, January 9, along with his cousin, PeSeeWah, who is also an experienced builder from Burma! What a team they are!

BoJaw on the right, PeSeeWah on the left with the Marijuana shirt!!

Our work began long before that time. We were able by God's amazing grace and the generosity of the people who were willing to help, to buy a work truck. It is a Toyota 2 door cab, with a long bed. We raised it, put extra leaf springs for heavy loads along with mud tires, bumpers and a rack! ...And to work it went!

I might just call this truck Savannah, because a little 9 year old girl named Savanna, from Idaho had heard my need for a work truck during my presentation last year. She told me she would NEVER forget me. She cried when it was time for us to leave. Later she raised $2000 toward this truck all by herself! May God bless you Savannah and your heart for missions! So the white truck that we use as our ambulance is called: “Jesus Truck!” So now this work truck is “J-2 Savannah!” The “J-2” means Jesus Truck #2!

This truck is worth its weight in gold, because we made 21 heavily loaded trips into MDK, driving through the ‘elephant playground’ and super bad roads every time! We have met so many wild elephants on that road in the past that we thought we would face many more. Our most heroic episodes with wild elephants have happened on that rugged pathway! However, on all those trips we never met a wild elephant!

Only this tame elephant with a 3 day-old baby

It was certainly a miracle of God because people at times strongly warned us not to go that way. One late evening the forest service men told us to stay at their place for the night. "It is too dangerous and too late," he said, "There are 2 elephants on the road, a big one and a little one. The little one is the most dangerous, he had just charged 2 people!" But the work must continue so we travelled on! Another time someone from CooDooMai village at the pagoda told us that several elephants were at his house that day. One had destroyed a small building where rice was stored. He ate much of their valuable rice! They had gone directly up that road. But the work must go forward no matter what! At times we felt like Nehemiah building on the wall: "Why should the work cease, while I leave it...." (For the sake of an elephant)!

We are driving all the time - the white truck is taking patients to the hospital, and the grey truck bringing in the supplies and trying to keep up with the needs of the builders. So we are working 2 jobs! We are so tired of traveling that sometimes we get silly!
So, the materials came into MDK, and the builders and others helped carry heavy things from where our truck parked, all the way up to the building site. The village young men took cement bags etc., loaded them on their motorbikes and hauled them up, trip after trip after trip.

It took us 21 trips to build that little church, at 4 hours one-way! Add up the time!

What precise, strong, excellent work our builders have done in building that little church! As we compare that building to the clinic/house in BYT, we really know how weak our house is! As a matter of fact, that reminds me that on March 28, 2025 we felt a heavy earthquake in BYT, as we sat at our table eating! At first, I thought someone was under the table shaking it! But no - it was an earthquake! As we ran outside, I heard a loud crack and later discovered a large crack in the storeroom wall.

As you can see the epicenter is in Mandalay. The news reported that extensive damage was experienced in Vietnam and Bangkok. But you can see the circle of purple is where we are. We are much closer. God has protected us. Nothing can disturb us because the next day is the dedication service in MooDooKee village!

The little MDK church was completed after 3 months! So incredible that in that dense jungle mountain nestled in the trees with a little brook babbling along in front of it, stands a beautiful little church. It is there as a monument to the praise and glory of the God of all the earth! Soon we will do a 5-day series in that village to present Jesus simply to those poor people dwelling so primitively, worshiping the ghosts, the devil, and the evil spirits, in their absolute and total ignorance! God loves them and so do we!!

March 29, 2025 was our dedication service. Six pick-up trucks from BYT, WST, and GeGhah village, came to the dedication service. loaded with as many people as they could hold! Many visitors attended from all over the place, and from MDK village. It was wonderful. That little church measuring 71/2 meters by 5 meters could not hold them all of course, but what a service it was. Before entering the building, all the people sang: "Oh Come to The Church in The Wildwood!" Then we silently filed in.

Our favorite pastor from the Karen Mission, Pastor Kalusa did the service. He ended his sermon by singing from Psalm 103, a song he wrote himself. He is so gifted to sing scripture songs that he composes himself!

Food was served after the service up in the shady jungle where they constructed benches and tables. A lot of work went into that dedicatory service. God Himself was there, the Holy Angels were there, and the Holy Spirit moved upon us all with power!!

BoJaw and PeSeeWah are attending our church in BYT almost every Sabbath! They honor our holy day by not working during the Sabbath hours. BoJaw even sang a special song and played guitar for church one week. He said he was so nervous that he couldn't look up at the people and his knees shook! But he did it! Later he asked BletJhaw to teach him a certain song in English just for me! It brought tears to my eyes when he sang it in church!

Three months later I was in Finland presenting to a lively, enthusiastic group of 32 “Arise” students. During my 4 presentations I showed this video, telling them how nervous he had been - knees banging together. Then I played this little clip. At the end they cheered and clapped. It was so surprising and energetic we thought we’d play it again and record their reaction! I have to show it to you here, because no group has ever responded like this before!! You’ve just got to see it!!

I’m proud of him because in spite of his fear he keeps getting up front to sing. Now he has a new plan. He wears super dark sunglasses so that he cannot see the people out there. Like a horse with blinders on! I often think to myself. What if I didn’t hear God’s voice 17 years ago? What if I refused to be a missionary because I was too broken hearted and grief stricken? What if I just laid down in my misery, feeling sorry for myself and reliving the pain of rejection by taking antidepressants, and seeing counselors? I tremble to think how one misstep can mean lost souls. Sixteen years in this location with all its trials of endurance and struggles, pales into insignificance when I look at BoJhaw, and see all intensely interested faces of the people trying to understand the sermons each week! “Oh dear Lord advance Your kingdom I cry!”

Now we are in the middle of building a detox center in BYT. However, we have encountered many problems that greatly hinder our progress: Early rain! Elephants! Big road detour! Sick builders, Covid-19! God has a plan. You will hear all about this next time!

OCCUPY

FOR THE LOVE OF A BABY