Kayla Balangue

Hi! From the other half of the team! We started our weekend with worship with the rest of the team then split off. We took taxis and some of our fieldworkers cars and rode 2 1/2 hrs on a lot of scary roads to a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Emily was in a taxi where the driver was used to the crazy roads so he drove fast. In Emily’s words “he was zooming!” We then had to walk from the parking lot to our campsite with our heavy backpacking bags on. It was a challenge and some of us definitely took a few breaks to finally get there. We then set up tents and ate instant ramen.

The next day 3 of us (Josh, Emily, and Tabitha) went on a challenging hike up to the lake. It was a 2,500 ft altitude increase from our previous 8,500 altitude. So we were struggling!! The view was totally worth it though and we got to see the snow and frozen lake at the top!

While we did this Cass and Alyssa went on a “walk” that ended up being more of a hike around the lake then soaked their feet in the lake after. It was during this time they sadly got really crispy. Some of our team stayed up late enough that night to enjoy the beautiful clear sky of stars that night!

Then we headed out the next morning. Alyssa was very happy about all the goats, sheep, donkey and cows we saw on our way back. She even tried to pet them through the car window. We were happy to be reunited with our shower and our team when we got back!!

To close the weekend we had a movie night tonight with some of our field workers and another short term team. It was a very intentional film about the underground church in Iran and how they’re growing amidst the persecution they face. It was very eye opening seeing the things they’re doing in Iran and how it’s connecting to the things that our field workers are doing here in country. After the movie we had good time to debrief what we watched and prayed over the ministry in Iran and the other Persian countries.
Called: Sheep Among Wolves 10/10 recommend it’s free on YouTube!

If you would like to share your prayer support with this team, please feel free to use THIS FORM and we will share your encouragement with them.

Thursday:
We started the morning off with worship and prayer time in a place called the Upper Room in the city. The Upper Room’s service was done local style (everyone sitting on ground) and included worship and praying scripture over the city and villages around the area.

Next, the team split up to go around the city to meet people. Josh and Dominic met a young local man, walked four miles and spoke two hours with him, eventually leading to a deep conversation about Jesus and the gospel. After that, the two boys became friends with their taxi driver and got invited to eat a national local dish with him.
Girls had lunch at the Moose Coffee (a local favorite) Then went shopping for the back packing trip and items for the house and met some great people along the way.

Lastly, for dinner we decided to make a simple dish of Chicken Nuggets and Rice and debrief with our fieldworker.

Friday:
This morning Deb, Dominic and Hannah were not feeling 100%. As advised by their field workers, they decided to stay back from the Friday activities and backpacking weekend. They had a restful day and are in full recovery.

The rest team went back to the upper room for more prayer and worship. After that, they pulled into cars and headed up the mountains for a full backpacking experience. We will be giving a full update once they return back.

Saturday:
Us in the city had a restful morning and went to grab bread from the local “bread hovel” that makes the best “non” in the neighborhood.

We were then invited to a local house church service by one of the field workers. This house church was filled with prayer, worship through music, reading of the scripture, and small group discussions.

After church, we went to a popular cafe recommended by our fieldworkers. Dom and Hannah order a “burrito” that was definitely just a wrap they served with sour cream and salsa.

Finally, we needed to make a trip to the grocery store for a few items and the workers there were the most helpful people we have encountered yet. Through the use of broken English and lots of Google Translate, we were able to get almost everything on the list! ( a really hard challenge so far) they even bagged our groceries, haled a taxi for us, and wanted to take us to a second store to help us find the rest of the items on our list.

We are taking the evening to rest, but are all in good health and excited to hear about the adventure the rest of our team has been on.

If you would like to share your prayer support with this team, please feel free to use THIS FORM and we will share your encouragement with them.

Our morning started off with an exploration by Hannah, Josh, Emily, and Cass to go to one of the local bread shops around the corner from our house and get some fresh bread and honey, which we devoured pretty fast. We then had the opportunity to receive an in-depth language lesson from one of the national partners, who was also a teacher. He was able to help walk us through the different pronunciations and how to say several sentences that would help us while we walk around the city. The whole team was struggling with remembering what was the number six was in the language.

After our wonderful lesson, we were unleashed onto the main town to start making connections with the locals who spoke English and were willing to talk to us. We all paired up and took taxis to various coffee shop, restaurants, and shops to start making friends.

Emily and Alyssa started off in a wedding dress store where they made friends with a friendly woman who knew very little English, but was very eager to talk to them. While Emily and Alyssa were at lunch at the local KFC there was a language miscommunication and they accidentally almost ordered six buckets of fried chicken instead of a three-piece combo. On Josh and Dom’s adventures, they had the opportunity to pray over a local youth pastor they met while in the shop. Along the way they had very interesting taxi driver experiences that made the day even more interesting. Hannah and Tabitha found a bookstore where two young women were working and was able to strike up a conversation in English about the various books that they sold in the store and our similar interests in book series. Deb, Cass, Tabitha and Hannah learned the hard way that the National Library of this country was not open to the public by accidentally getting stuck in a very long library tour that took you to see all 9 floors of the building. At the end of our long day, we found a Chinese restaurant that had a takeout option and Tabitha decided to give our hosts pug a bath. We can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s adventures have in store for us!

If you would like to share your prayer support with this team, please feel free to use THIS FORM and we will share your encouragement with them.

Today we had lots of crazy adventures!!
The day started off with worshipping with the team in a room they sound proofed for safety. The first song was a lively local song and we danced and sung while worshipping. We then sung worship songs that we all sang in our own language. It was beautiful to hear a combination of the languages in praising God!! We then had an intercessional prayer time where we prayed the verses John 3:16-18 over the people of Central Asia.
Then all the girls got to put on kurtas and head scarfs we borrowed from our field workers for going into the village.
Our drive to the village was beautiful full of rolling green hills and heards of cows/goats then a mini flash flood started and our drive was full of flooded Streets and hills with mini mud waterfalls (we called them forbidden chocolate fountains). For lunch we were invited to one of the national partners house. We ate on a beautiful carpet on the floor with a display of food in the middle- the soup was delicious. We had great conversations with how they came to Christ. They are very hospitable people and were very excited to talk to us. There we had the fun experience of figuring out how to pee in a hole!! They showed us their house and it was funny to see a goat after eating one. He also showed us his wedding video which was really cool way to see into how a wedding here works. We got to show some of God’s love to the believers wife who is still skeptical of following God because of the social impact.
After the village, we walked to get pizza from our house and during the walk Josh almost fell through an unstable man hole, but everyone came back in one peace and we enjoyed our pizza!! We’re excited to see what God has for us tomorrow!!

If you would like to share your prayer support with this team, please feel free to use THIS FORM and we will share your encouragement with them.

Assalom Alaykoom (Hello)!

We are so thankful and excited to be received ed by our fieldworkers here! We arrived to our house at 4:30am on Monday morning 🙂 then had a few hours of rest. Then we started our time here with a lesson in Tajik (tah-jeek) basics. Our afternoon was spent having lunch with the entire team, including the national partners who shared testimonies from this past week (they minister to the local in the villages). We’re inspired by their faith, obedience, and passion for how God is working through them. Lunch was an amazing experience with most of our team eating on the floor like how locals prefer.

After lunch we bazar and the ladies got material to be fitted for Kurtas. Traffic here is high key scary since traffic laws are seen as a suggestion. A few of us came very close to getting ran over by cars 😀 (but we were good!) Some of the team were able to experience their first taxi that end up breaking down.

We were so thankful that our lead fieldworkers, the Bennet’s invited us to their home for dinner. It was really cool to hear how God had called them here. Their children are adorable! They’re such an amazing family and truly an example of sacrificing their lives for the purpose and call God has placed on their hearts.

todidan (until I see you again),