Front matter
ASCENT TO THE TRIBES
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CENTRE D'ETUDE
ET DE
COOPERATION INTERNATIONALE
Centre d'Etude et de Coopération In ternationale 4824 4 Chemin Cote-des. Nej Montréa] 247, Qué, gzes — Tél: 735.4 61 MONTREAL
ASCENT TO THE TRIBES
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ae Map of North Thailand showing tribal areas.
ADOCENT .LO ite LR IBES Pioneering in North Thailand By
ISOBEL KUHN
LONDON
OVERSEAS MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIP
AGENTS: LUTTERWORTH PRESS
A ¢ gd C {
January 1968 Made and Printed in Great Britain for Overseas Missionary Fellowship, Newington Green, London, N.16, by A. Wheaton & Co. Lid., Exeter
Trade Agents: Lutterworth Press, 4, Bouverie Street, London, E.C.4.
Contents Map of North Thailand ( facing title page) Chapter Page Breaking of the Dawn Te
"The Lone East"'
Strategy
Base Camp
Exploration
Advance Camps
"Entering the Lists"
Summit Camps
Into His Marvellous Light
Men Without a Country
The Earthen Jar High-water Mark
On This Our Stretch of Shore Appendix I Progress Reports Appendix II Phayao Bible Camp
e Va ° 'a ho ju
hee J a; ry vw ttt' geek a
] Breaking of the Dawn I ROLLED over on the bamboo platform and opened my eyes. There was no wall to the east end of the sala, so I could see out over the edge into the night. All seemed but a sea of bumpy darkness, except the far horizon which was rimmed with translucency. That far reach of distant mountaintops was black against a streak of dark crimson. Slowly the whole eastern edge of the world flamed, and as the ruby colour spread, the "'sea'"' paled to grey, and the bumps resolved themselves into the shapes of mountain ridges in the close foreground. Dawn was breaking—breaking through the stillness of a long night, and I seemed to be the only one privileged to behold its pulsing beauty. Redder and redder flamed the horizon and whiter grew the grey world. Little shanties took form on the opposite ridge and on our ridge close at hand: shanties with the curling smoke of a breakfast fire festooning each roof. Then through the scarf of crimson light, up sprang an unbearably bright spot. It shot golden gleams of glittering splendour right on to our sleeping platform, and pierced the muffled forms of the recumbent coolies stretched out there.
At next glance, the spot was a half circle, too dazzling to engage the eye directly. Then with a burst, the sun rose in fiery brilliancy, a complete ball, above the distant mountain range and—day had come.
How I found myself sleeping in an open bamboo shelter with native coolies, on a wild mountaintop in North Thailand, is quite a story. And like every respectable story it has a beginning: a beginning that, like the dawn, arose out of darkness.
Dawn "'breaks,"' we say. And the first sign of it is that rim of translucency. And so the first chapter of our story must be of the darkness, and then of the coming of that little thin edge of translucency.
The years 1950-51 were dark with grief and uncertainty
ASCENT TO THE TRIBES
for the China Inland Mission. Communism had taken over our beloved Chinese church and our work in that land was finished. Denominational missions could transfer their missionaries to their work in other lands—we worked only in China. Was the China Inland Mission to be liquidated?
Each one of us was involved in the same uncertainty and the same inward grief for spiritual children left behind. To pinpoint the focus, our own case was this-wise.
In 1950, I had felt it necessary to get our little six-year-old son to school in America even though it meant leaving my husband behind in China. At that time we were told it might be possible for me to return to him; subsequently, it was obvious that the opposite would happen—he also would have to leave China. So Danny and I had refugeed out over The Hump, through Upper Burma's jungle land, and thence to America. The communists had already conquered, and I felt in my heart that I would never see our beloved Lisu again. Although I believed that "'still reigns my Lord beyond these curtained skies," my heart was torn with human grief.
In January, 1951, came the news that the C.I.M. had decided to evacuate completely. Our presence in China had ceased to help and had become a danger to any who loved us. What we had thought was our lifework had finished. Now what would we do? Especially we, who were old? I was approaching fifty. If the Mission liquidated, we must look for work at home, so I began to "send out feelers."
Then, for the Mission, came that "rim of translucency"
—the call of China's Doorstep. And the Word came, "If it be thou .
. bid me come!" And He bade. The China Inland Mission Overseas Missionary Fellowship was launched, committed to evangelize the Chinese and the unreached people of the countries around China in the Far East.
But that was far from comforting to me. It would all be pioneer work. Well I knew the physical toll that mountain pioneering takes of even a young body. I had done that kind of climbing work for more than twenty years, and of late had been conscious of an inner wistfulness for something a little easier. Begin a new work at fifty years of age?
I felt like collapsing at the very thought. That should be left for the young. And then, as if to pat me comfortingly on the
BREAKING
OF THE DAWN
II back, came a tempting offer for Christian work in the homeland. Surely this must be God's plan for us! So I wrote to my husband at Hong Kong, where he crossed Liberty Bridge in July, 1951: "Please do not offer for the new fields until you get home and we can discuss everything together!' He did not yet know of the homeland offer.
And so I tried to feel comfortable about the breaking of our dawn, but I had no peace.
"Who is among you . . . that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? .
. . Behold, all ye that kindle a fire .
. . walk in the light of your fire. .
. This shall ye have . . . ye shall lie down in sorrow" (Isa. 50:10, II).
A little Voice within said warningly, "Beware of kindling your own rim of translucency. Remember what the Lord said to you on the ship coming home."
I had been reading to Danny that little book of profound truths, Sir Knight of the Splendid Way. We had reached the place where Sir Constant was coming to the end of The Way.
He had fought for long years, valiantly and steadfastly, and now he was old and tired. Suddenly at a crossroads he met a fine-looking knight named Sir Plaudio, who urged him to take a certain path which would lead to the comfort and ease which was his due after these long years. Sir Constant was about to do this when he beheld a man, trudging along the opposite road, loaded down with a heavy burden. His knightly heart urged him to his duty—he must yet be a lifter of burdens as long as strength was granted. And so Sir Constant refused Sir Plaudio and turned after the toiling labourer.
Only then was Sir Plaudio's disguise revealed, and the old enemy of Sir Constant, se/f, shone out plainly. It was a perfect picture of what was happening to the Mummy-reader.
To hear the truth of divine guidance criticized gives one a feeling of helplessness sometimes, because only God and the person concerned can know if in seeking guidance he is being perfectly honest with God. "The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness"
(Ps. 18:28). 'Darkness was under his feet" (Ps. 18:9). That is all true, and may be any Christian's experience at any time, through any darkness. But we must be honest, and we must obey light as it is given. We must be willing to be enlightened. It is not our Father's
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purpose that we remain in the darkness, be it grief, or insecurity, or whatever it is. Departed loved ones may not come back to us. Youth certainly cannot return, and sickness may not be healed, but the darkness is under His feet. The dawn will break into blessing of some kind prepared by Him. Light will come just as surely as we put our hand of trust into His.
You know that beautiful quotation which King George VI presented to us all one New Year:
I said to a man who stood at the gate of the year:
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied:
*""Go out into the darkness And put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way."
So I went forth and finding the hand of God, strode gladly into the night, and He led me toward the hills and the breaking of the dawn in the lone east.
Minnie L. Haskin It is, of course, only Christ who can help us find the hand of God, but my own hand had long been surrendered to His.
That step was taken. I only awaited the Light as to where to move next.
When John came out over Liberty Bridge in July, a message from Mission headquarters asked him to defer immediate furlough in order to survey the tribes of North Thailand for a month or so before coming home. He wired me he was going, then added, "I have not promised anything. I note your desire that we confer together first, and truly no decision would work out satisfactorily if we were not united in heart about it." Praise the Lord for a good husband who saw so clearly! So my heart was at rest about the North Thailand trip.
BREAKING OF THE DAWN
In the meantime, I had been given a book by Amy Carmichael, called Figures of the True.
It contained a picture of a bleak snow-blizzard mountaintop, and she had a crisp comment: Climb or die. That picture made me shiver; it was so like the Hpi Maw Pass (10,998 feet) over which Danny, the carriers, and I had had to climb in our escape from China.
We had left the last human habitation (a tribesman's log cabin) in the early morning, and by noon found ourselves in a snow-sleet storm crossing the pass. It was very cold and the wind was driving the snow so that the slight trail would soon be obliterated, if we did not hurry on. Other travellers had crossed into China an hour earlier, and their deep footsteps were our only guide. If they got covered up we would perish.
It was climb or die very truly. Sitting on my mule, I saw the snow change to sleet as it hit me, and then run down my raincoat into my galoshes; my feet were in ice water for several hours, and all feeling left them up to the knees. Yet we had to press on. Climb or die! It was death to stop. From halfpast seven in the morning until six at night none of us had a meal, for it would have been fatal to delay long enough to eat.
And so the picture pressed the truth, physical and spiritual, home to me.
For there is a spiritual counterpart. The Christian needs to press on continually, even if it seems unmerciful. Miss
Carmichael is very right. Spiritual death begins to set in when a Christian slackens his pace and begins to look around for ease.
'We don't have prayer or grace in our house and nothing has happened yet," said a girl to her minister. He answered sadly, '"'No, dear, nothing has happened but deterioration ..
. prayerlessness means slow rot, not sudden calamity." That slackening up was the pit into which King David fell. I was reminded that he was probably about fifty years old when it happened! "'At the time of the year when kings go out to battle' David elected to stay home for once, and the one terrible stain of his life was the result.
So the Lord was trying to prepare me for my husband's proposal, before he arrived home.
North Thailand ? The mountains are plentifully sprinkled with tribespeople (aborigines from China, Burma, and Indo-China)
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who had no one to tell them of the gift of God. That is, most of the tribes had no one. As a matter of fact, in 1951, the American Baptists had one couple for the Sgaw Karen.
And in the eastern side one couple of the American Siam Churches of Christ had a station among the Yao tribe, but no converts, and they were preparing to leave for furlough.
Our own Lisu tribe, numbering some five thousand, was utterly unreached.
'"'Moreover, Belle," said my husband, "we can use the Chinese language in contacting almost all of the Thailand tribes. I always found someone who understood me. And Orville and I were even able to point some souls to the Lord in the short time I was there. The field is before us. The door is still open. The government is friendly.
The tribes are approachable. The time may be short. Missionaries have been in Thailand a hundred years, and yet have not been able to reach past the Thai to the aborigines of the mountains. If we don't pioneer, they may never be reached."
But still I hung back from committal.
"But John, we are old. It is a young man's job! And we would have to leave the children again!"? And then I did the wrong thing. I let my imagination examine all those difficulties.
We would have to learn a new language, for you cannot live in a land if you cannot answer questions from police and government officials. We must learn some Thai. (A tribal worker in the C.I.M. is required to pass two Thai language sections before he begins to study any tribal tongue—this will explain future references to Thai language study.) Then there was rough mountain climbing with no clean Christian homes to welcome you, once you arrived. And so on. Of course my heart fainted. In counting the cost before we build, we must face the fact of difficulties, but, as someone has wisely put it, "Don't look at God through your difficulties. Look at your difficulties through God."
Once I stopped contemplating the disagreeable things that might happen and turned single-eyed to the Lord, He counselled me: "Of course there will be hard places. What of it?
To choose ease rather than effort is to choose slow decay. Do you think your children would benefit by being with parents who made such a choice? You and John are needed out there. He has been appointed superintendent. You two can
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hold the fort while younger people are studying the languages.
Your experience of nearly a quarter of a century of missionary work will benefit the others. The younger ones may have faith, courage, and strong bodies, but they don't have experience."
And so the night of uncertainty broke. We knew we were both to go.