Myanmar 2023

 Don't start here... oh no... here is the order (with links to show you that I want to make it easy and that I understand technology :) that you should read them in. Don't worry... this is the last one and has no links in it... other than the ones below...  

Family 

Jamaica 

Thailand 

Myanmar (no link. You're already here.😀

If he really understood technology, wouldn't he just have posted these in the correct order? Good question... 

Myanmar. The third and final overseas destination on my busy summer of traveling! I was home about two weeks after Thailand... just enough time to get over jetlag before heading back. I had a great final day with my family before heading off to the airport to start my lonely journey to a country just a little north and half an hour behind time wise from the last country I had been to.

God smiled on me and I had three seats to sleep across on my 13 hour flight to Seoul. I nearly fell asleep at a lounge in Seoul before getting on my final flight to Bangkok. Great flight! I slept nearly the whole time and arrived at midnight. I gathered my bag and headed to the hotel and met James Covey for only the second time ever in person. 

The trip into Myanmar was fairly seamless. We met up with a nice missionary in Yangon who took us out for a nice lunch of authentic Myanmar food. This is a popular breakfast dish.  

The fun really started when we got to Myitkina. It has the most interesting and tiny airport I have ever seen. The tiles in the baggage claim have not been glued down, most of them are broken. There is no luggage carousel, you just go and get your bags off the cart as it is pulled closer to the terminal. They checked our visa and passport yet again and made sure they knew where we were staying and then talked to the guy who picked us up and got his number. They then called him a few days later to verity that we are actually staying at the hotel where we booked. Foreigners can only stay in designated hotels... we couldn't stay with the team even if we wanted to. There are many closed off areas to foreigners. When he called our host later on to check in on us they realized they are from the same people group, language crosses barriers! Now they are friends. 

The hotel had nothing for us to eat, but it is sandwiched between two other really nice hotels that do have kitchens open for dinner. After a nice meal we went to bed. James is coming from Spain... a whole different jet lag than Dallas. While we were together I would get up really early and he would stay up really late. 

Amazing carving outside a restaurant you are about to see. 

Facilitator dinner the first night! Amazing food on the river.

I love interesting vehicles! 

The labyrinth of forgiveness. It's not a straightforward process!

I love seeing the creative ways facilitators from different countries come up with to teach the material. This is fight flight or freeze... if your Burmese is a bit rusty. 

James and David! What a fun couple of guys!

Indian food with Tom and his wife! Tom was a widower who remarried someone from Myanmar. He lived in Yangon through COVID and the coup and now lives there permanently working with the Seed company. A very cool story!

Trip advisor recommended visiting this temple. Really cool from the outside. Not a lot from trip advisor in the area :). There is a great pizza place just past the temple. 

The door into a church, inlaid with jade. Amazing. 

Our fantastic gifts! They are so generous! 

The incredible group!

I love watching them doing with the youth what we just did with them! 

James and I visited the four groups of teens before he left. They were in two locations. 

My amazing $6 haircut that cost me most of my beard. But the shampooing and head massage and facial cleansing was incredible. That is before the beard left me. No I'm not sharing a picture of the loss. 

The training was fantastic. How often do you get to do Teen Trauma Healing with one of the authors?! It is so cool to learn from James and hear the things that didn't quite make it into the book and also understand the behind the scenes better. James and I are very similar, both extraverts, both up for a good time and full of energy and with a similar sense of humor. I had such a blast working with him and having fun with him while he was here. He left Saturday and I'm here until Thursday. 

I have never done the training with a translator before, this was a new and growing experience. Sometimes you say a few words and it turns into a long translation and vice versa. Overall it was great having James to share the load with and to watch and learn from. 

David is our host and an amazing man with a heart of gold! He did all the translating and is local and speaks incredible English. He is behind bringing Children's, now Teens, and Adult Trauma Healing to this area through a capable team that he has mostly hand picked. He showed us where he plans to build the future TH headquarters.

Things here are very cheap due to radical inflation. No one wants this currency, unless you are here and must use it. Once you have it, it's yours and you can't turn it back into dollars or even baht. This has really hurt the people who have lived in uncertainty for the past three years since the coup. Many children missed two to three years of school which is a real hardship. It's hard to have hope for the future. Things were getting really good hear before the coup, since then the train has stopped, inflation has sky rocketed and government services in general have stopped working. Many officials are fearful as there are still freedom fighters looking to put things back the way they were. 

But on an average day you can barely tell that any of that is happening behind the scenes. The people are hospitable and kind, they aren't pushy or desperate at all. Crime has gone up due to the inflation but I have felt very safe in all the places I've been. 

God did great things through the training. 12 facilitators got trained and they are doing a camp for 50 plus teens! Healing is happening and God's kingdom is advancing! Nothing can stop that for sure. Here it sometimes feels like I get a front row seat. There is a Hindu teen in particular that was so touched by the lesson on laments. She wept and wept as she poured out her pain to an unknown God! May she come to know and love this true God who came to take her pain and give her beauty for ashes. 

I miss my family and am looking forward to finishing my time up here strong before heading home... for more than two weeks in a row :). The power goes out here all the time, but then comes right back on. The voltage is very irregular. It makes life more interesting and really warm sometimes as the AC struggles to keep up. The training was toasty! I have caught a cold (I wanna throw it back) with all the warm cold transitions and lack of sleep. 

For whatever reason after the facilitator training I was told that I don't need to be there all day for the camps. That is nice since I wouldn't understand anything anyways. I come by for the debriefs. I have today off and tomorrow will go in for the closing ceremony. I'm trusting God to make the most of this time and trying to view it as a sort of spiritual retreat. Yesterday I got my hair cut and lost most of my beard too... lost in translation :). 

I miss you guys! I'm looking forward to getting back to my amazing family and friends and my work back in Dallas... and Football is here! Camp is a week and a bit away and I'm excited for that too. I want to pick up the pieces of life back home, but I'm grateful for the adventures. Thanks for being worth missing. And thanks for your prayers and support while I have been away. For checking on my family and for your words of encouragement. 

Higher up and deeper in! 

I'm up for coffee... not so much rice of any kind :)... if you wanna get together and hear more! Love you guys! Grateful for you! 

Fin 

Blessings, 

Caleb 

If you want to support what I do a little or a lot, on a one time basis or with recurring gifts, the easiest was is to use Zelle. You can follow this link zellepay or scan the code below. That will start the process of getting you set up to use Zelle with your bank or If you already use Zelle it will direct you to the banking app you use and give you instructions from there. To send me money use my email caleb_robbins@sil.org. If you would like any help setting that up feel free to contact me directly! 214 558 8431.

Another way to donate to the ministry if Zelle isn't an option is via check. If you write a check to "Holy Cross Lutheran Church" and put "Caleb Robbins Ministry" in the memo line, it will get deposited into my ministry account. If you would rather set up a bill pay or have any other questions you can call the Church at 817-451-7561. Let them know you want to Support Caleb Robbins and his ministry serving Missionary Kids. 

The address is:

Holy Cross Lutheran Church 

4400 W Arkansas Ln

Arlington, TX 76016

Diane is my beautiful wife and the mother of my precious children Creed 16, Asher 13, Liam 11, Echo already in heaven, Bella 8, and Serenity 7 years old.

Thailand 2023

 Don't do it... don't read this masterpiece out of order... I know it's tempting... go to this link and start here... then read about Jamaica and then you have earned the joy of reading this :). 

Due to the extremely sensitive nature of this trip I really can't post any pictures of the people we went to work with... I assure you I didn't just go on vacation and take pictures of my friends sleeping... but that is kinda what it looks like. I've been doing this trip for 16 years and it was an amazing privilege to be back one more time. 

Here we are getting ready to leave! I have a shirt I always try and fly in... not sure you can tell :)

Sleeping is so important. Doctors say that getting inadequate sleep is worse than smoking a pack a day. You will die early if you are not rested and you will get sick and compromise your immune system. Next to wearing sunscreen, getting sleep is maybe the best most practical thing you can do for yourself. An adult needs close to 8 hours a day to stay healthy and teens need much much more. Maybe if we had more examples of people valuing sleep we would be more likely to value it ourselves. I know... I read an article annnnnndddddd watched a Ted Talk. 

My cousin Sami is quite the incredible travel agent... if you are planning a trip you can give him and his wife Joanna a heads up and some incentive and see what they can do for you. It was amazing! He booked the nicest bus I have ever been on for us to get where we were going (secret). I rested while my team planned. I know... servant leadership is important for me in a team. 

It was so great to meet up with old friends! One of the great joys of the tip was getting more time with this lovely young lady and to hear all the cool things she is up to. Our first night there she invited us to go and see Indiana Jones! It was the first time I'd been to the movies in Thailand... it was such a fun experience. 

The place we stayed had so many wonderful places to spend time with the Lord. It was so cool to be surrounded by such beauty for that whole time. They also had a really nice gym, so I was able to keep my workouts on track. That was such a gift from the Lord and has never happened to me before. 

We needed to change rooms half way through the time there. Here is where I did most of my preaching the second half of the time there. Fond memories. I also was able to record four of my messages (thanks to Diane asking me to). I'll put them here in case you are interested. 

I didn't record my first message... so here they are in order from 2-5. 

2. Receive How: Like a child

3. Receive When: I lose my life

4. Receive Why: I'm Gods child

5. Receive Where: In my weakness 

This picture speaks for itself... I was duct taped covered in candy and made a human piñata for the Lord. 

I love the banners we do. I have been trying to figure out how to make this into a t-shirt. I have all the old banners from years past and this one we gave to a lucky participant to cherish. These are great ways to remember the time we had together! 

These people will live forever! 

They say that exercise is more important the eating healthfully! I know! Often we don't have to chose between the two, but the reality is that if you have to choose, say you are in a situation where all you can get are simple carbs... like rice for every meal or something, you should exercise and know that you are doing something amazing for your body. There are lots of things that you can do with just your own body weight, like push-ups for example. You can even make them really hard, like doing clap push-ups or one armed ones. And, that is just the beginning! Strength training your whole life will give you a longer life! They say that they have linked longevity to arm size... I know that's nuts right? Any way I'm thankful for the examples of strength training in my life. 

Sometimes you lose a bet though and need to pay up in the airport where you are stuck over night. On a different note we had an overnight in L.A. where we got really intimate with this corner outside of the Southwest counters.

This was a really great trip... really healing for me to get to see so many people again after so long doing things on zoom with them. I helped keep the youth group alive doing zoom once a month. It had been about five years since this event happened. It was amazing how they bonded so quickly, faster than any other group I have ever been a part of. They were hungry and God had a feast for everyone!

We played soccer, went to a water park, cried together, video scavenger hunted, had a baptism, watched silly videos, laughed together, sought God for an hour every morning, devotioned, guys/girls nighted, fun nighted, ate so much ice cream and much much more!

 God took all the time and made so much of it. I can't remember a time where I have received more from God. I shared 6 messages, the 5 on receiving and then my testimony, I did two group devotionals and also shared at the teens graduation. I was so blessed that God kept pouring out living water as I trusted in Him. My cousin encouraged me so much (my team does encouragements every morning at breakfast) saying "I don't know how you keep having more good things to share after all these times sharing, you don't run dry." That meant so much. 

I wanted to share some of the feedback from the kids! 

"It was so great to have you as a leader. In past conferences, I would see you with the youth, and be looking forward to the conf I could have you as a leader, so I'm very grateful to have you as a leader now. You always have such a contagious laugh, and are very fun in all our games. But of course, the best part of seeing you everyday is the 45 mins you spend yelling at us (the sermons). I've learned a lot from you, so thank you!"

"There's so much I could say. I really admire your steadfastness in the Lord. You have such a gift for teaching and I enjoy each time you share something. You are so much fun and just spread joy and laughter wherever you go. Even just your presence is encouraging. I love how you inspire us and challenge us to press into God more and more. You are such a good leader (and know that it's okay not to do everything by yourself). I appreciate how you've been so real and shared about your weaknesses as well. It encourages me to do the same. I'll miss you! You're awesome to the power of awesomeness. Go Superman!"

You are a huge part of this trip and all the fruit that it is bearing. Your prayers, love, encouragement, financial support and more and more go into making these things  a reality. As you partner here with me you also take part in advancing God's kingdom all over the world in all the places he sends US! Thank you so much for being in this with me and helping me and my family while I'm gone. My heart is tired and ready to be home... but so so full! 

There is so much more to share and things that I can share in person that I can't share here... let me know if you want to get together and hear more! 

Now head back to the Family post and keep the adventure going! Maybe take a small break first :)

Blessings, 

Caleb 

If you want to support what I do a little or a lot, on a one time basis or with recurring gifts, the easiest was is to use Zelle. You can follow this link zellepay or scan the code below. That will start the process of getting you set up to use Zelle with your bank or If you already use Zelle it will direct you to the banking app you use and give you instructions from there. To send me money use my email caleb_robbins@sil.org. If you would like any help setting that up feel free to contact me directly! 214 558 8431.

Another way to donate to the ministry if Zelle isn't an option is via check. If you write a check to "Holy Cross Lutheran Church" and put "Caleb Robbins Ministry" in the memo line, it will get deposited into my ministry account. If you would rather set up a bill pay or have any other questions you can call the Church at 817-451-7561. Let them know you want to Support Caleb Robbins and his ministry serving Missionary Kids. 

The address is:

Holy Cross Lutheran Church 

4400 W Arkansas Ln

Arlington, TX 76016

Diane is my beautiful wife and the mother of my precious children Creed 16, Asher 13, Liam 11, Echo already in heaven, Bella 8, and Serenity 7 years old.