The noisy din of travelers told us we were nearing the bus station long before it came into view. A cacophony of strange dialects rose above the piercing call of the vendors, whose simple wooden carts were piled high with bananas or steamed buns which would bring a few coins for their pockets and a bit of relief for the travelers' awakening hunger. Sunrise glistened off the dew that nighttime had sprinkled on the palm tree fronds and red geraniums gleamed brightly along the cracked, uneven sidewalks. Soon the dew would be replaced with dust as the city stirred to a new day.
Piling into a crowded van, we rode past vibrant green rice paddies and fields of rape seed plants waving their little yellow blossoms in the strengthening sunshine. Our destination was a village hidden high up in the rainforest, and upon arriving at the foot of the mountain, the driver's challenge was to create his own road, which he accomplished by following a trail that was surely engineered by the tramping feet of water buffalo and their herders, year after routine year being led from field to home with the rising and setting of the sun.
Wide, shoeless feet kicked up dust as the villagers hurried out to greet us, and we soon banqueted together on rice and vegetables with the sense of being at a family reunion. Following the simple, happy meal we gathered on the rustic bamboo floor of our host's home as Peter, a local teacher, shared from the Bible and led in songs of worship that he had painstakingly translated from English into their native tongue. We found ourselves so far from everywhere yet at home in the Kingdom of God, there on K____ Mountain.
Then one young woman stepped out of her inherited shyness and asked me to pray for her. She explained that during the revolution, the government had thrown their indigenous drums and musical instruments into the river, forbidding them to sing their songs or dance in their traditional ways. Years of oppression later, their own sound and steps were long forgotten. Her request: For Holy Spirit's anointing to release the newlsounds and steps through which He would receive glory from the K___ tribe.
With a sense of destiny being lived out, I laid my hands on this young revivalist's head and prayed that her cry would bring heaven down to this earthen vessel, that she might pour out rivers of praise. Hope for a visitation of God's presence among her people was restored as her voice and feet were quickened in response to His love.
As late as 2001 the world hadn't yet discovered the hidden beauty of the forgotten K___ people in Southeast Asia. When a team of missionary doctors discovered them, we were asked to pray for an open heaven and access to interact with them-not an easy task in this restricted-access nation.
As the Spirit of God has no boundaries, we began thanking Him for His strategy to reach them with His love. Within a few months, five young K____ women accepted the invitation to come into the city to learn simple medical procedures such as hand washing and how to tend a wound. During those few weeks of training in an environment other than they had experienced before, four out of the five met a Father they had never known and accepted the gift of Jesus.
There was a newfound respect afforded these "educated" women upon their return home. Their words now carried weight and authority. So when they shared of a God who is love, the seeds of life found heart soil that was tilled and fertile. Many in the K___ tribe soon became filled with the presence of the Lord as the knowledge of Him began to fill every place that had been low and broken and empty. There on the top of this dusty mountain God's rain came, and a River began to flow.
In the years since, God's presence began to be expressed to the degree that the authorities became concerned and tried to stifle it again. But the unstoppable Kingdom is there, and when I think of the K___people, I picture my sister, stepping a new way into the rice paddy, singing a new song over the seedlings as she plants and the grain as she harvests-releasing the Sound of Heaven over the hidden beauty of the villages at the top of the mountain, past the end of the road.
