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It's January 2nd. I'm working today... in Albuquerque. A couple of days ago I was on the other side of the world with some buddies in a country totally unfamiliar with natives that don't have anything and don't know my language. It's crazy looking back. It feels like we spent 3 months in Thailand instead of three weeks. We experienced too much for it to be 3 weeks; we saw too many things. I have mixed feelings - I have missed my friends and family (and the food here), but there are many things and people I miss in Thailand. Thanks for praying for us and sharing this journey with us. It was a wild ride.

-James

Just Look at these. Seriously.

The Crew. It smelled like bat droppings. Our smiles are fake. There is a huge cave behind us. We make the cave look good.

This is one of the Karen Huts in the Thai Village. In america, we call this the barrio. The Thailand government does not want these people here, so they do not let them have any electricity.

AJ's game face. This is when we were interviewing the Karen people to see how we can help. English to Thai to Karen to Thai to English. We think there might have been a few "lost in translations".

Me throwing a rock at Burma. --(P.C. correction: what Josh meant to say is that the Burmese government isn't being too kind with its people and we don't think it's right. I did really swim to the other side even though we heard there could be army guys in the jungle.)-- James swam to the other side and touched it even though their might have been crazy jungle armies with AK's hiding in the trees. Now his leg is infected.

This is our boy Blue. Pastor Manat's brother in law that has been traveling with us the whole time. Thats not an undershirt. Those are just sleeves that he puts on his arms. Thai people dont like the sun or getting tan. In fact, you would not believe how many ads we have seen for whitening cream and anti melanin medication. They are very backwards in these parts.

A girl at the Burmese/Karen village. These people seem hopeless. They can't leave this village and they can't go back to Burma. Very sad situation, but this is where we are going to help.

Christmas Celebration. Another village. We actually pulled his pants up for the photo.

Pastor Manat. He has been our guide. Believe it or not, he was a teacher 2 weeks ago. God told him to quit and do ministry full time. He stepped out in faith and now has shown us most of Thailand. By the way, that jacket....doesn't make any sense. We are all in the back ground with no shirts on sweating and stuff.

Pictures from 8600 miles away. Finally.

The Motor Cycle Diaries....

We have covered several hundred miles in a very short time. Most of our traveling the past few days was by motor bike.....Through roads, jungles, everything. One of the bikes burned James so I drove it into a river. (Seriously)

This is our first look into the Burmese Refugee Camp from the road. It is a breathtaking site to see how these people live.

A sunken boat. On one side Thailand. The other Burma.

These kids ran up to the fence when we stopped. It was sad seeing them behind barbed wire, but their faces were all smiling which eased the site a little. Aaron gave all of them a handful of gum through the fence. You should have seen their faces!

This was taken from the school inside the refugee camp. The school inside is Christian based sponsored by an Australian organization.

(Click on any picture to enlarge)

Heading South

(James wrote the last blog...He got the burn on his leg not A.J. :>..so pray for James more than A.J.) Ok, Here we go. We went to a little church up in the mountains for a christmas celebration! They had a christmas / king of Thailand celebration! The King is like a really big deal here and his birthday was on the 5th and I guess this church didn't really celebrate it so they celebrated it together with the christmas party. The funny thing is they put "Happy Birthday to the King, Dec. 5th" on the wall of the church for all the pictures...but the real date was like the 20th! Pretty funny stuff. We showed up with some balloons for the kids and of course they went over very well. We played with a bunch of the kids and took pictures! There was the cutest little boy with his pants falling off the whole time. These kids were all amazing! Its awesome to see how happy a kid in this little village gets over a balloon! American kids are hella spoiled. The celebration went really well for the most part. We ate traditional Karen food and the pork still had the hair from the pig on it...ya, not so hungry now. We met a few american girls who are working with some foundation there and have been living there for like 6 months. pretty rowdy! Hopefully we can combine forces to help out in Thailand. We drove the motorbikes home in the dark and josh and james got lost for awhile. everyone rides a motorbike so sometimes it is hard to follow people and pastor Manot doesn't really drive all that slow either. More Thai food for dinner and another night on the floor! Lovin it! We head to Chiang Mai to help Blue with his Visa to the U.S. He wants to come and take English and go to Bible school. Pray for that situation. It will be like 7 hours travel to Chiang Mai, probably truck, van, bike. Mom I love you very much! You too pops! God. Love. Live
-A.J. Jackson

So it's been a little while... first of all, i just want to say that the most beautiful place on earth is the Burmese-Thai border where we are staying. This terrible computer wont let Josh put up any pictures, so you'll have to wait. I can tell you that i swam to Burma and made it back alive. We visited a Karen village. I'm trying to think of how to describe it....it's kind of like a ghetto, but in bamboo huts. It's in the middle of a Thai village, but the Thai government doesnt want them there, so they arent allowed to have electricity. The roofs of their houses are made of leaves and everything else (litteraly everything) is bamboo. These people don't have papers, so they cant go to the refugee camps. They cant go back to their country because the Burmese government will try to kill them. The men do whatever work they can for almost no pay (60 Bhat - $2 a DAY). This is who we are going to help. We got a Thai-Karen translator and Pastor Manat translated English from Thai for us (kinda a process). We want them to eventually be self sustaining, so we're going to do some stuff to help them (I wont bore you with the details).

After that we took a motor-bike ride through some sketchy dirt trail/road thing. I was pretty fun, but the village wasnt what we're looking for. On the way back, Josh and I decided to take our motor bike (Josh was driving and i'm sure they arent made for 2 full-sized american men) through a river crossing. Let's just say it ended with waist-deep water and us fishing the bike out. I'm not a mechanic, but i doubt that's good for the engine. I truck came by literally 30 seconds after we got the water out of the exhaust pipes and the guy happens to have the exact tools (keep in mind we are in the middle of freakin no where) to take apart the engine compartment and drains another liter of water. It started, ran, and we drove it for the next 3 days. Thanks God.

Next day, we visited a church that they are trying to build (dont have the money). They have the support logs and the roof, but no walls or floor. by the way, the columns were brought off the mountain by elephants. We're going to pay for it to get completed and get electricity. Pastor Steven (this little rad Thai guy that we swear is our gaurdian angel/ninja) is going to live there and pastor this village. It's going to be cool.

Thats all for now. I have a madly infected ankle burn from a motor bike, so pray God heals that before it gets gangrenous. I took a picture 3 days ago and it looks way worse now.




I should have labeled this post. Sorry, but it's James. Aj is fine. Thank you Aj's family for all of your concern. My sister/doc gave me a joyous cornacopioa of antibiotics to get, so hopefully the infection will subside soon.

Burma Border

We are currently a stone throw away from Burma. There is a big river that seperates Thailand and Burma. We are staying in Blue's little "cell phone repair shop" about a block from the river. (the shop is a side job for him) It is absolutely breathtaking here! Beautiful! God's craftmanship really shows in this place. Yesterday we went and visited a Burmeese refugee camp. This camp holds 50,000+ people. It is like a small city. I thought are purpose might be here, but God seems to have other plans for us. Google, 'Burmeese refugees in Thailand' to learn more, but long story short, our purpose is not in these camps. There is a ton of support from all over from big organizations. After the camps we jumped on the motor bikes and rode 2 to a bike the 50 Kilo back to Blue's house. Uncomfortable, but the scenary is way legit! I had spoke with Pastor Manot about our priorities and how we feel God is leading us and we made a decision to head North to where we are now. I am sorry, I dont know the name. We visited a small community of Karen people living in Thailand just across the river from Burma. These people have been forced out of Burma by the Burmeese Government. they cant go to the refugee camps because they have not I.D., they have no I.D. because they were part of small farming communities in Burma. They are confined to these small villages now because the Thai government does not really want them here. It is a very bad, poor, sad situation. I have personnally felt God calling me to these people. I feel this is where are work here will be! Today we will talk to the people with a Karen / Thai / English translator and figure out what we can do. Your prayers our greatly needed and appreciated! I am truly thankful for everyday I can serve here. I am doing great. These people need God and physical help and we have been blessed with the ability to help them. Talk to you soon!

A.J.
(please no grammar correction, i know i suck at spelling good)

XC

We've spent last night traveling across Thailand. We went from next to the Laos border in the far east to the Burmese border in the far west. We've literally traveled all night and despite our upbeat spirits are tired and weary. We went from bus to van, van to pickup-truck-taxi thing, pickup-truck-taxi thing to motor bike/scooter in the span of 12 hours. Please pray for Josh, he has a narly stomach thing and is having a tuff time keeping a smile on his face.
We are going to visit some Burmese refugee camps tomorrow with Blue. Should be an experience. Get a little education on what happened to them. It shouldn't be too hard with google and a fast internet connection. very sad.
Thanks to everyone who is along for this ride via this blog! please dont judge me for the spelling errors
-James