The three widows

The bus screeched to a halt at San Fen Chang Road Junction. Together with three friends, we alighted from the bus into the smothering heat. Across the road, we saw a lady waving at us. Her name is Mi Sou. She has gotten two other friends from the village to come and fetch us on their motorbikes. And so, off we went—cutting across the luscious green fields, on the meandering dirt track, toward the hills.

At the base of one of the hills is Hong Zhuang, the largest Akha village in Yunnan Province. It is home to 120 households (Most Akha village has about 30-50 households). Situated on the hill slope, at the tip of the village, live three widows and two young children. Ah-pi’s father has passed away, so has her husband and son. She has two grandsons—one is 9-year-old, the other is 7. Every morning, Ah-pi wakes up before the first streak of sunlight paints the darken sky to pray. Her morning habit reminds me of Mark 1:35 “Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.”

While many villagers are seizing the golden hours before daybreak to tap the rubber trees*, Ah-pi has decided to dedicate her first waking moment to talk to God. Her faith is simple; her relationship with God is real. Can that be said of me—and of you—too?

Let us pray with Ah-pi and her family. By God’s grace, the children’s education is being paid for by the government. But the children are being bullied in school.

* The trees must be tapped very early in the morning, at daybreak, so as to harvest as much latex as possible. If one makes the cuts late in the day, the harvest will be at least one third less.

By poh fang chia




PRAISE GOD
BLESSED BE THE ONE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD