It’s tragic.  It’s a mess.  That’s the only way you can describe it.  NS, a young Mien fellow of 19, is in hospital struggling for his life.  Yesterday evening he and his younger brother drank and then quarrelled.  A short while later he tried to commit suicide by drinking a weed-killer they use for spraying their crops.  Fortunately it was discovered and he was taken into hospital.  We learnt about it when the phone rang at 6.00 o’clock this morning.  Unlike others we have seen in the past who committed suicide by drinking pesticides, he was fully conscious and was vomiting.  We prayed with him for God to spare his life.  We told him that God’s will for him is to live and not to die and urged him to put things right with God.  For some of his education he was in a Christian hostel.  He probably heard the Gospel on a number of occasions.

Late last night in this Mien village up in the hills, whatever was it that drove this young man with all of his life before him to try and commit suicide?  We don’t know.  May be we never will.  He grew up in abject poverty. Both his grandparents and his father were opium smokers.  There was never any money for anything except opium.  His house was an appalling, dirty bamboo and grass shack.  His grandfather and father are now dead.  Just 2 weeks ago his mother suddenly left to live with another man.  NS and his younger brother of 15 were ‘abandoned’ - left with the old granny to fend for themselves.  Granny is really too old and sick to be of any support to them.

In the past we have prayed with NS and encouraged him to follow through on the teaching he heard at the Christian hostel and to allow Jesus to take control of his life.  He replied, ’Yes, yes,’ but he has never darkened the door of the church but he did go to the Mien Church Conference at the end of March.

17 June 06 -   NS died at 3.00 o’clock this morning

Bible translation
Praise the Lord only 9 more ‘Minor Prophets’ remain to be checked in order to complete the first major round of checking of the whole Bible.  Round two will begin next week and will be much faster and then it is onto the final proof reading in all 4 scripts.  The maps and glossary are in progress.

Church Planting
There is uncertainty over whether the majority of the people who attend church regularly in P village have actually come through to an understanding faith in Christ.  Conversion is a process but at some stage the ‘plane’ actually has to take off and become ‘airborne’.  Please pray for encouragement for the Christian workers in this village that they may see the Holy Spirit at work in peoples’ lives.  P is a spiritually tough assignment.  Pray to for the absolutely essential work of the Holy Spirit in bringing spiritual light and understanding.