A trip again, so soon? Well, yes, though a much different kind of trip than our last one. In some ways it sounds crazy. But for some reason God has put this on our hearts for a while now…

Katie, my two brothers, and I are preparing for a mission trip to Southeast Asia this summer. Some of you may have heard already….and some of you may be getting letters soon explaining the trip further. In any case, we plan to post updates here about how preparations are going, and what we’re hoping to do.

Just so you know, I will be intentionally vague with some details, for security measures. The Internet is a public place, and the people we are talking about are in danger in some ways, so this is to protect their lives.

A quick summary: Christmas 2004 was the dedication of the completion of translating the Scriptures into the language of a people group in that part of the world. Now, the hope is that the people will use these books, and that changed lives will result. However, the inland people in more remote places have not yet heard the good news, nor received the books. We intend to spend 15 days hiking to these villages (though the entire trip will be a month or so), bringing them these books that have been waiting to be put into their hands. There has been talk among some of the coastal people of doing such a thing but impetus has slowed down since the dedication ceremony, and our return would lend encouragement and momentum to the movement again.

Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, we’d like to bring the light of Jesus’ love to them through our presence. There is a tendency among the inlanders to feel forgotten, yet they have responded very positively in the past to visits by coastal people. Our coastal friends believe that a visit to the inland villages will convey to them, in a way that well-meaning words cannot, that God truly does care about them. In particular, we feel God has placed us Peckhams in a unique position to convey this to them, as they already have a deep connection with our family after the years of translation work.

That’s a quick summary; we’ll add more details later. Right now we are hoping to raise enough money ($2,500 for each of us: Daniel, Katie, Joe, and Andy) to make this trip a reality. Sounds like an impossible task, but God seems to be directing our path, so we’ll just go along and see what He does.