High-water Mark

High-water Mark

High-water Mark O Wave of God, arise and overflow High water mark on this our stretch of shore.

Great Wave of God, deal with us till we know Something beyond all we have known before,

Far, far beyond all we have known before.

O Following Wave, from utmost deeps arise, We yield to Thy majestic urgency.

Forbid we ever or in any wise Refuse to yield our all, lose all in Thee.

Sweep on O Wave; we yield ourselves to Thee.

DoHNAVUR HE highest watermark which God has yet allowed us to see is the tribal work of the C.I.M. in China. After having seen what God did there among different tribes, we shall never be content with a lower watermark. Having had no experience with the C.I.M.'s large Miao tribal work, or with the Nosu, the Kopu, the Kadu, or other tribes, I must confine myself to that comparatively small section which J. O. Fraser pioneered, the Lisu of the Salween River valley.

Mr. Fraser began at the very same point where most of our workers in Thailand began. First he had to explore where the tribes were and make contacts with them; then learn their language; then put that language into writing; then translate a catechism, hymns, and a Gospel or so—and all this time he was also evangelizing them. In Thailand, it is true, the Lisu,

Lahu, Shan, and Akha tongues have been reduced to a script and there are some books already translated, but with the Blue

Miao, White Miao, Yao, and Pwo Karen the missionary had nothing on which to build. He started just where Mr. Fraser began.

Within some twenty years after Mr. Fraser initiated the Lisu work, there was a thriving indigenous church which has

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spread out for ten days' journey to the south and a month's journey to the north, But it will be more convenient to look at that work from the angles of self-support, self-propagation, and self-government.

SELF-SUPPORT

In the very beginnings, Mr. Fraser and Mr. Talmage Payne did use some money to spur on evangelism in the church, but John and I never saw it done in our day, and we entered the work in 1934. At that time and since, the Lisu tribe never received a cent of money from the Mission for building chapels, or support of their native pastors. The district of Oak

Flat, where my husband and I were sent to minister, was only one of four big sections of this Lisu church, but it can be taken as representative of all of them. In Oak Flat district we had twenty-nine chapels in as many villages, and the church fully supported six native pastors and their families. In addition to this they also supported single evangelists who did mainly forward evangelistic work.

The Oak Flat church built a school and dormitories for the secular education of their children, and they called and supported a schoolteacher with his family.

More than that, the Oak Flat church supported the Rainy Season Bible School every year. This was held for three months during the monsoon season when it was dangerous and inadvisable for white people to travel. When John first proposed this to our head deacon, Me-do-me-pa, he expostulated in horror that such an expense was beyond them. John asked him if he would just try it and see, and that dear godly man consented to give it a trial. The Lisu villages surrounding Oak Flat village, where R.S.B.S. was held, were so blessed by the ministry of the Bible students who visited them during the weekends that gifts flowed in, and at the end of the school the deacon body voted unanimously that R.S.B.S. be held every summer! And R.S.B.S. continued until we had to leave China.

Our first school numbered something under twenty-five; our school in 1950 held one hundred students (though two were not able to stay to the finish).

The Lord prospered the Christians for this giving, until in 1941 the local feudal laird told my husband that the most

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prosperous of his citizens now were the Christians. Please note this, lest a false sentimentality should prompt some to say the tribes are too poor to give so much.

From the start the church took its stand against opium smoking, planting, or trading. Yet opium had been their chief crop when they were heathen, just as it is now among the tribes of Thailand. It seems at first glance to the trembling heathen like economic suicide to give it up, and we are having trouble in Thailand to get the new babes in Christ to take a stand on this point. But I want to tell a little story which will throw light on the matter.

Visiting a deacon one day at Pine Mountain Village in China, we both stood on the very steep mountainside and looked admiringly at his stack of golden corn far below us.

He had recently harvested his fields and, according to Lisu usage, the corn was stacked up in high frames to dry. The wealth of a farmer was measured by the height and breadth of his corn stack! This was a huge one, and he eyed it with satisfaction and I with admiration. So I turned to him and asked, ''Did you get as much as this when you were a demonworshipper

"This much?" He snorted at the very idea. 'No, never, when you smoke opium you have not strength enough to work your fields well. No, I never had a harvest like this before I became a Christian."

Now for the second angle view of our Lisu church in China.

SELF-PROPAGATING

The tribes are no more likely by nature to carry the Gospel afield than anyone else. The duty of evangelism must be taught them, and the most successful teacher is the missionary who does it himself. In other words, evangelism is ''caught" from the missionary. Mr. Fraser and those who followed him travelled around their districts continually, often taking with them young men to carry their loads, but who also studied reading, writing, singing, conducting, and the Bible during the evenings, or the days when the missionary was ministering for a week in one particular village. They witnessed as they went, and the young men of the church caught the joy of it. There is a temptation to

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the missionary to settle comfortably into his tribal home and just do translation work. But such will never establish a selfpropagating native church. In the early stages, Mr. Fraser translated as he went. He taught the Christians to build a little room at the back of their chapels, which they called The Prophet's Chamber, and which he occupied when he visited them. There are always long rainy periods when the missionary is tied to his home, and those periods can be used for the bigger translation jobs.

In the forty years the C.I.M. worked with the Lisu church, we saw the Lisu reach out to neighbouring tribes and even go over the border of China itself.

Among the Lidi tribe a church was established by Lisu evangelists.

Among the Lahu tribe several villages had chapels, overseen by the Lisu church.

The Atsi-Kachin were evangelized by Lisu who went with Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam for the purpose of winning them.

Mr. Eric Cox ministered to them later.

Two families of White Miao in Burma were evangelized by Lisu.

They went preaching to the Wild Wa and won several families among the Tame Wa. It is interesting to hear that, since the Mission had to withdraw from China and the indigenous church was left behind the Bamboo Curtain, this evangelism has not stopped, but one whole village of Wa has turned to the Lord. bars families were won to Christ among the Jing-phaw tribe.

Four or five families turned to Christ among the Shan who live up in the mountains.

It was from Lisu evangelizing in the Upper Salween that the Goomoo group in Upper Burma heard of Christ and accepted His salvation.

Mark of Goomoo, moved with compassion for his neighbours the Maru Kachin tribe, learned their language in order to preach to them, and there were one thousand believers when

Mark died.

A Nepalis was saved through the testimony of these Burmese Lisu Christians. Brought to Burma as a soldier in World War II,

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ony he met with these Christians, was impressed with their joy and faith and was baptized by them. No missionary had anything to do with this. The first we even knew of it was when this

Nepalis appeared at our R.S.B.S. among the students from Burma.

After many of our evangelists came out from Red China as refugees, some of them evangelized among the A-chy tribe and other tribes of Upper Burma. The A.B.M. has taken on the support of some of these refugee preachers, but some are still ministering with only the support they receive from their native church.

On the banks of the Yangtze River, two weeks' journey east of Oak Flat, is a group of Nosu Christians who were evangelized by the Salween Lisu.

In the Upper Salween canyon lives a different branch of Nosu who were also led into the faith by the Lisu.

And south of the Burma Road an educated Lisu Christian has witnessed to the Chinese on the plains near him—and behold a Chinese church with a Lisu as elder!

With the exceptions specified, all this evangelistic work was paid for by the Lisu church.

Before going on to discuss the third principle, self-government, I would like to make a little comment on the interpretation of the word indigenous. I have found that there are some national leaders who call their work indigenous merely because it is self-governing, while at the same time they draw support from America or England. Self-government alone does not make a work indigenous.

Then there is the missionary who firmly believes in the people supporting themselves, propagating the Gospel themselves, yet he is reluctant to yield the reins of government to the nationals. Such work is not truly indigenous. Let us discern this matter clearly; no work which does not have the three principles all in use can rightly be called indigenous.

SELF-GOVERNMENT

Can a primitive, illiterate people, never trained in organization, be taught how to rule their church affairs? We say

Yes, because we have seen it done.

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"But they will make mistakes!" is the cry. Mr. Fraser used to answer, "Of course they will. So do we. Allow them the privilege of making their own mistakes. Man learns by his mistakes."

My husband made a rule for himself, that he would never baptize, marry, bury or administer the Lord's Supper if there were a national Christian present competent to do it. And competent should be interpreted by New Testament standards of spiritual leadership, not by the seminary degree possessed.

The church in our village had its own leaders, who chose the Sunday speakers, and did not always write the white man's name on the bulletin! John and I (more often I, of course) were frequently left in the audience, where, instead of being jealous, we rejoiced to have one of our spiritual children get up and minister the Word of God to us all.

(Usually he had come to us privately for help the day before.) Sometimes one recognized a sermon-child, or even sermongrandchild! Your sermon's child is an outline that someone heard you give and has tried to reproduce; and the grandchild is when he got it from someone who got it from you! A sermon outline three times removed is a most curious hybrid, and often is the occasion for some private tuition after the meeting!

But so they grow.

John stayed in China a year and a half after Danny and I escaped over The Hump and came home to America in 1950.

He told me he was present at the big Christmas deacons' session that year, when all the major problems of the twentynine chapels are thrashed out together by the main church leaders. With moist eyes, John told me how it had touched his heart to see that large semicircle of godly, experienced men. "There was such a contrast in the handling of the agenda from those first years,' he said. "Now they recognize minor matters for what they are, and push them through summarily, giving their real deliberation to those problems which really warrant time and thought. No time is wasted over unessentials!""

Mr. Fraser had laid the foundation of this church upon New Testament lines, so it was a disciplined church from the first. Although some mistakes may have been made in the beginning, the total result was very salutary. I would like

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to record my own last experience of their church discipline as a keyhole through which you may see it functioning.

It was just before I left them, and my husband and our co-worker, Charles Peterson, were both away travelling. One day our Lisu pastor dropped in to see me and asked me to attend the deacons' meeting that afternoon, as there were two cases which required discipline. Our presence was not necessary, but there was always a strong filial love between the Lisu and the white missionary, and they invited one or other of us to sit in on such occasions. This was the one and only time

I had ever been invited (because I am a woman, I suppose).

The diaconate of Village of the Olives were all young, the oldest being in the early thirties, and all men, of course. The first case was a difficult one. A young husband and father named Sosthenes had given concern and shame for some years at his inconsistent conduct and his loose tongue, but he was so wily that they never could present a definite case against him. Today they had it. Sosthenes' younger brother Bartholomew had emigrated to Burma, and had verbally given one of his large fields to a friend, named Asaph, to farm. Sosthenes, who was lazy, had waited until Asaph had ploughed and sown seed, and then suddenly claimed the field as belonging to his family! Asaph had neglected to get Bartholomew to write down on paper this loan of land, so Sosthenes would have a good case at court. But it was a mean and contemptible trick to wait until ploughing season was finished and the hard work on the land had all been done before pressing his claim. The deacons had called in Sosthenes and Asaph, and now decided that Sosthenes should repay Asaph the cost of the ploughing and the seed, which amounted to five dollars.

'"'Can't,"? said Sosthenes, slouching down in his chair with a sulky look. "I don't have five dollars."

"Then borrow it!"? said someone. ''Your harvest will easily repay you."

"IT can't borrow," replied Sosthenes coolly. "No one will lend to me."

There was silence; such was Sosthenes' reputation for untrustworthiness in the village that they all realized that this was true. No one would be fool enough to lend Sosthenes money.

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Then their young pastor spoke up. "Well, I will lend you five dollars! I do not have it now, but I can borrow it.

People will lend to me. If I lend you five, will you repay Asaph?" My heart was touched. That young pastor was receiving no salary from the church, as he had said that his farm was capable of supporting him. He did have all the grain he needed, but he had no money—not even five dollars to lend.

But Sosthenes was sullen by now. He was feeling, perhaps for the first time in his life, the weight of public opinion against his unrighteous conduct and it made him peevish. "No, I won't give it back. I don't want you to borrow it for me," he snarled.

Then his young pastor turned on him a face working with emotion. ''Sosthenes, if you refuse, do you know what you will force me to do? You force me to publicly take your name off the church roll next Sunday in church." The grief on his face was veritable anguish. But the sinner was stubbornly arrogant, until at length they told him he had sealed his own fate; he should leave the room. The next Sunday his name was publicly read out as being removed from the church roll. A year or so later I was told that this discipline had much softened the man, whom no one had been able to control before, and that he had applied to be taken back into membership.

Whether he was or not, I have not heard.

The second case concerned a girl named Susanna. She had been going to weave her cotton at night in the house of a girl friend who was a heathen. Also she was displaying a fountain pen, and that type of pen was only sold by a young man in the village who was known to be immoral. No definite case, just suspicious circumstances. At first Susanna was angry and lied boldly. "I found the pen lying by the side of the trail to the watercourse."

Quietly, the pastor and the deacons quoted Scripture to her about avoiding all appearance of evil. They pleaded with her earnestly, and finally she broke down and confessed and cried. She was told she must confess to the church on Sunday morning, and then she would be reinstated in good standing. She rebelled at the public confession for a few weeks.

(It was not required that she give details of her fault—everyone knew about it anyway; she must stand up and say she had sinned against the Lord and ask His forgiveness and the

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prayers of the church.) But the Sunday morning came when Susanna stood up before us all and, with sobs that shook her whole frame, asked for our prayers. When John came home to America, I asked him about Susanna, and he said that she had eventually married a Christian boy by the name of Publius and was in good standing.

I would like to record one other case of discipline which, as it involved an inquirer and not a baptized member, was not referred to the missionary. It was told me by our cook,

Lois. ""Ma-ma, did you know that last night Pastor and Azor had an affair of discipline in the village?"

"No," I replied. "Who was involved ?"

"It was Azor's wife's sister. She had been going to a heathen hut to weave her cotton at night and Azor suspected her of ill-conduct. Last night late, he came and got Pastor, and the two of them stole up the mountainside to that hut and came upon them unexpectedly. Sure enough, two heathen fellows were there. Pastor was angry. He whirled upon Er-aa-me and, pointing his finger at her, said, 'Since you have chosen sinful companions, you might as well marry a heathen! Don't call yourself a Christian if you are going to act this way!" With this, he strode out of the house. But Azor went to the woodpile, picked himself a good stout stick and went back in and beat up those two fellows!"

Later we heard that Er-aa-me was pregnant, but the heathen father refused to marry her. The baby was born (the Lisu hold an illegitimate child as a thing of shame) but lived only a few weeks.

On our way out of China we met Er-aa-me on the trail.

Her face showed plainly the suffering she had been through.

I got off my mule and went over and called to her gently.

"Little girl, don't you think you have had enough of sin?"

Her eyes flooded with tears so that she could hardly speak, but she nodded her head in assent. The village pastor happened to be with us, so I said to her, '"Then go and tell Pastor."

She went up to him immediately and I heard him answer, 'All right. You make your confession in church this coming

Sunday morning." And that lamb was brought back into the fold.

These leaders of the Lisu church, men of God, wise in the

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Scriptures, were not the product of higher learning. They had not been schooled in the ways of the world. School and seminary training are a good thing, if they develop spiritual life and holy living, but education is not necessary for the self-government of a church. The New Testament church depends not upon education but upon obedience to the Holy Spirit. The tribal church may call upon Him for help from the start.

On This Our Stretch of Shore N North Thailand the C.I.M.-O.M.F. has accepted the responsibility of evangelizing eight tribes: the Lisu, Lahu,

Yao, Blue Miao, White Miao, Shan, Pwo Karen, and Akha. Of these eight, three had never had their language put into a script and they had no literature.

Our Mission, being entirely new in the land, made some radical changes in the beginnings in Thailand as compared with China. For instance, Mr. Fraser learned the Lisu language while still stationed among the Chinese where Mr. and Mrs. W.

Embery were carrying on a vital ministry. In other words, he lived at an Advance Camp for some three years, making journeys from there into the hills, but always returning, before he attempted a Summit Camp. During those three years of travel and returning, he was learning the language, scattering the Seed widely, and writing a small catechism and hymns for new believers, so when he finally established his Summit

Camp he was more or less furnished with the language and some literature. Our first Summit Camp of Thailand, on the other hand, was set up in order to learn the Lisu language.

It was established by women who could not travel around in heathen villages and thus scatter the Word widely, as Mr. Fraser had done. Our need cf single men of the J. O. Fraser type is heart-rending.

More than that, whenever Mr. Fraser returned to his Advance Camp, he still had a ministry among the Chinese there.

He merely fell into step with the Emberys in preaching, teaching, and helping souls. Our first workers who found themselves back in Advance Camp (sometimes on consular orders, for there was fighting in the hills) were frustrated by the feeling of having no ministry. So the tendency was to push up to the hills perhaps before the work was quite ripe for residence.

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Nevertheless, God gave the initial encouragement recorded on these pages. Accounts of the subsequent progress are found on pages 247-278. But the need is still for more prayer. The surging up of the Tide of Life among the tribes in China was largely due to the prayers of those at home. As the moon, so many miles distant, is able to pull the tide, so the prayers of the saints in the home churches have power to pull these poor benighted tribesfolk out of their darkness into His kingdom of Light. Some are praying faithfully, but the pull is not strong enough yet.

Great Wave of God, deal with us till we know Something beyond all we have known before.

The Overseas Missionary Fellowship needs young men for all its tribal work—in the Philippines and in Taiwan, as well as in Thailand. But we need young men who are living at Calvary, as Don Rulison put it once: "Calvary where you died with Christ (and die daily) unto sin, so that he (sin) can no longer control your life through his subtle tools

. self-esteem, self-pity, self-consideration, yes, all the things which contest with the Lord Jesus for control of your body, mind and affections; your time, your possessions, and your aspirations."

Mr. Fraser lived at Calvary, and experienced the power of the resurrection morning far beyond his dreams. There are very few places left on the earth where real pioneer work is now possible, but we would have you look upon this open door.

Surely this present generation can produce what past generations have—young men who are living at Calvary.

As we close our picture of the breaking of spiritual dawn in the hills of North Thailand, we do it with humbled hearts.

We have told you of our toils and our sobs; of our laughter and our hopes; of our opportunities and our needs. But our hearts cry oat with Walker of Tinnevelly: "Oh, for selfhumiliation before God for all the great Undone, and for real sorrow of heart over the Untouched."

Day is breaking on the far Thailand hills. A sense of something new coming has been scattered over the mountaintops.

A new name, the name of Jesus, is heard on the lips of tribe after tribe. Some wistfully wonder if He has power to dispel the darkness of their bondage to demons; others whisper His

ON THIS OUR STRETCH OF SHORE

name in secret, fearing the consequences of open confession; but there are a few groups who own Him as Saviour and worship Him as the Son of God.

The rim of translucency has appeared. Oh, for the full coming of the Light! Who will come over and help us?

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Appendix l

PROGRESS REPORTS

1. The SHAN work The People The Shan people are not by Lyman Reed a "tribe", but an ethnic branch of the Tai race, like the Northern Thai and the Lao. They live on the plains and cultivate "paddy" rice. Many are skilled artisans (goldsmiths, silversmiths, blacksmiths, shopkeepers)—keen business people.

They have their own written language and a circular script similar to Burmese. The complete Bible was translated into Shan by the American Baptists in the Shan States of Burma earlier in the century. The Shan are ardent Buddhists and intertwined with their religion is a strong mixture of animism.

Fear of the spirits is prevalent. The provincial capital of Maehongson is a town of approximately 3,500 population and has twelve Buddhist temple ;. The Shan population of the entire province is estimated at about 25,000 to 30,000 persons.

The Beginnings A town called Pai, in the northernmost district of Maehongson province, was chosen as the first centre for witness to the Shan in 1953. A young man resided there for one year, but later moved to Maehongson. Long journeys were made in this predominantly Shan area to sell Gospels, distribute tracts, and make known the Gospel through the use of Gospel Recordings records. In 1956 Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Dunant became the first

OMF family to reside in Maehongson.

Disappointments Hardness of heart and lack of response characterized the work from the start. Many hear the Good News, but it seems to make little impression upon them. In Maehongson and Khun Yuam children's meetings have been used over the years to sow the seed of the Word, but adults have been disinterested.

In June 1965 a Friendship Club was started in order to reach the 12-14 year old age group, and an English Club

APPENDIX I

was begun for high schoolers. Attendance at these clubs has been spasmodic, with good attendance and much interest at times. At other times pressure of school exams or local Buddhist activities have caused interest to wane, leaving only the weekly children's meeting to continue with a keen attendance: hundreds of children have been introduced to Jesus Christ through this means.

More than fifty Shan villages throughout the province have been reached by trekking with Gospel Recordings, posters and tracts in Shan and Thai. People have listened politely and even received the missionaries into their homes, but no response to the Saviour's beckoning call has been evident.

Medical Work Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Melbourne who opened Khun Yuam as a centre in December, 1958, commenced a leprosy and medical work in 1962. Leprosy patients were treated in eight scattered villages accessible on foot. They were joined by Mr. and Mrs. Reed in 1960. In January 1965, Dr. and Mrs.

John G. Webb, for eleven years BCMS missionaries in the Shan States before being forced to leave Burma, came to Thailand to join the Shan team. They took over the medical responsibilities from the Melbournes and opened a clinic in their front room. The work, including many minor operations, has kept them very busy in Khun Yuam and in eight to ten surrounding villages. Daily the Gospel is proclaimed while physical needs are met. The prayer of all is that the hardness of the Shan may be softened and that some patients will come to a living faith in Christ. Of the four professions of faith in the Khun Yuam area, three are Shan adults and the other a Thai student.

First-frutts In the Maehongson area there have been about twenty professions of faith during the last ten years, mainly among students. Some of these were insincere and soon fell away.

About six were Shan, one was Karen, while the others were Northern Thai. Many of the students reached have moved away to other provinces for education or work. The first two baptisms took place in September 1960, but neither is still in active fellowship. Three subsequent baptismal services have

APPENDIX I

been held—in 1962 (one believer); 1964 (two); and 1967 (three), making six believers in all. At present there are three active believers, all girls, two inactive but professing believers, and one, Mrs. Blue, who is involved in gambling and is out of fellowship. One believer is teachi.

7 in Chiengmai, one is in nursing training in Central Thailand, another is a student in Bangkok and yet another is living in Maesarieng, one hundred miles south of us. As far as families go, one Christian family, a Shan husband with a Karen wife, is living in a small village near Maehongson, and one Christian family lives in a village in the Khun Yuam area.

The work has been very hard and disappointing. Yet, as the Word has been proclaimed far and near, many hundreds have heard the Gospel. The three young ladies baptized in May 1967 were a great encouragement to God's servants: one was a Shan, one a Northern Thai and one a Karen.

May they be the first-fruits of a harvest in this area!

The present distribution (mid 1967) of Shan workers is— Dr. and Mrs. Webb in Khun Yuam; Mr. and Mrs. L. E. Reed with Misses Judy Crossman and Liselotte Fehlmann in Maehongson. The Lord willing, a BCMS single lady worker is expecting to join us in the Shan outreach in January 1968.

The Lord's Word to us is: "Be steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15.58).

June, 1967.

2. The PWO KAREN work The Initial Witness The conby Edwin and quest of Satan's Thailand Pwo Norma Lee Hudspith Karen bastion has not been "much 'fun'"? as Mrs, Kuhn predicted (page go). Joe and Laura Cooke moved into the Carlsons' rented house at Wanglung which the landlady, wizened old Granny Sook, assured the new-comers, "only leaked when it rained', and whose low roofs were to deal many a humbling blow to the tall missionaries. From this strategic Advance Base many encounters came with the 23,000

Pwo Karen of this 200 village concentration. Seldom did a day pass when the Gospel was not presented to Northern

AT H

APPENDIX I Thai, Lawa, Pwo Karen, Sgaw Karen, Lahu, Lisu or Meo visitors either from posters or by Gospel Recordings records.

The Shan received the witness when a boy stole Christian books from the lending library, and the K'mu heard the Truth when

Dr. "Bill" Smalley of the American Bible Society came on a visit for consultation about language and translation problems.

While language analysis and study were given priority, the Cookes maintained a witness to the Thai. A venerable former Buddhist abbot came to Christ. Maha Thiang grew in grace and witnessed faithfully, but with T.B. racking his body he had only a couple of years of bedridden service for his Lord. Through Sunday Schools and holiday Bible Schools, four Thai children were led to the Lord, but the pressure from Buddhist homes and schools soon broke their tender faith.

Wide Itinerations When illness snatched the Cookes from the field, Ed and Norma Lee Hudspith took up the reins. The offer of a better and more strategic location by the friendly townsfolk was gladly accepted.

Days of much excitement followed as the young missionaries through intensive persistent visitation on the plain and in the mountain villages, learned to know and love the Karen. They were also days of great spiritual battles. The Enemy seemed to shroud each village with his ominous presence. Women and children shrieked at the sight of the ugly pale faces, and ran. House ladders were hoisted and men appeared from behind every hiding place with drawn matchet-like knives.

(Karen law of self-defence allows three slashes on the back of the intruder's neck. It usually does not take three to effect good self-defence!) Their knives were soon busy whittling or entirely laid aside when the embarrassed villagers identified the visitor with his Holy Book as their own legendary brother, who, it was prophesied, would return their lost 'Book of Gold and Silver". One particularly belligerent "dowager" could not be appeased—until she was told the visitor had "'pictures of God'' (posters). "Pictures of God ?"' she said. "I want to see them!" and hailed the missionaries up on to her porch and before satisfying her curiosity set a delicious, ripe jackfruit in front of them.

APPENDIX I

Desperately ill folk began to call on the foreign preachers for medical help. Some who were apprehensive about offering traditional Karen hospitality to them soon lost their fears as their guests tucked in with their fingers to the delicious mountain rice, "curries" and peppers. Little did they know the apprehensions in the missionaries' throats and stomachs as they were confronted with such delicacies as whole frogs, field mice, dried buffalo or rotted venison! On second visits they were sometimes treated to four or five meals at different homes for one meal time! To have refused would have caused great hurt and deprived the giver of his share of the merit.

Move to Sandy Creek When Jim and Louise Morris joined the Hudspiths they quickly picked up the language and gave much valuable help in the overall witness. But it was a full six years before the Karen sufficiently overcame their reserve to invite the missionaries to live with them in the village of Sandy Creek on the border of Wanglung. A Karen house was purchased and the missionaries moved in—probably the first ever missionary residence in any Karen village in Thailand, certainly in a heathen one. It represented a significant advance against the powers of darkness, for every Karen village is presided over by a male guardian spirit from without—and each household has its own female guardian spirit within, besides three special spirits in the stairs, door and fire-place respectively.

Sorties from Sandy Creek began to bear fruit, spiritual fruit, through which the power of the Almighty could be clearly seen. As there are no living churches around them and they have no written Word in their language, changed lives alone can reveal Him.

First there was the leper, Uncle Silver, to whom God showed His love and power to provide and to arrest his disease. His growth has been stunted because he prefers to beg rather than to work and trust God. His wife was an orphan and orphans are feared in Karen society. The common belief is that their misfortune is a retribution for evil committed in a previous existence, and their spirit is thought therefore to be particularly strong and evil.

APPENDIX I Next was Mrs. Glass in whom the Lord revealed His power to deliver from demon possession, the thing they fear the most.

She had broken Karen taboo by marrying her maternal cousin—hence, so it was believed, her demon possession.

Conversions The Karen are just as materialistic as any race and the Lord used the economic appeal of Christianity.

Is not Satan an expensive taskmaster, who demands one or two pigs and many chickens in the process of his worship? Christ's absolutely free offer of salvation is far from easy to comprehend, but most attractive. So it was that when Shway Po, the Sgaw Karen evangelist, came to live with the Boy Jee family in order to learn their dialect and work with the missionaries, they observed the "better way" in his life and grew displeased with their evil spirit ways.

When Mr. Gawk, a former neighbour at Sandy Creek, was dying of tuberculosis, he pleaded in desperation with his wife to call the Hudspiths and let him "'enter the Jesus way"'.

His faith was honoured, and his complete recovery in just twenty-one days demonstrated the power of God to heal.

Mrs. Gawk, however, refused to believe and became demon possessed, before she too bowed to the Almighty! Her eldest daughter-in-law was brought to Christ through healing and many manifestations of the Lord's grace to her and her children, while her opium-smoking husband cooled his thieving heels in jail. When he came out the grace of the Lord in his wife so overwhelmed him that he soon came to Christ too. About nine others have professed faith in Christ in the area, four being

Thai. But the battle for their souls continues unabated. At least eleven, including seven Thai, have reverted to the ways of sin; few seem to be able to make an honest living, others are heavily in debt; divorce and marriage to heathen have ruined five promising young people; the opium sot still clings to his opium pipe and, to maintain his supply, resorted to stealing a power generator from the missionary. With such a record the witness of the Church is virtually meaningless.

Literacy and Translation Work In 1965 the George Murrays joined the team and are busy

APPENDIX I

learning Karen and helping to shepherd the scattered flock.

Literacy and translation work are of first importance if a strong church is to be established. The Thai orthography has been adopted, but this presents many problems, not least in teaching people who are convinced they have been doomed by fate to ignorance. "We cannot learn to read," the missionaries have been told many times. But the hope is that in the long run the use of the Thai script will help in the integration of the Karen to the nation and introduce them to Thai Christian literature.

The time demanded by this work greatly curtails the vital evangelistic ministry of the missionary team. It is essential to see the priorities clearly and to pursue a balanced programme of activity.

Improving Communications Things are changing in this 3,000 square mile section of Karenland. When the missionaries first arrived it took them nineteen days to walk round their parish. Since then they have motorcycled to the furthest limit on new roads in just six hours.

At least five other roads have opened up the hills to miners and missionaries. Although the roads have made more Karen accessible to missionaries they have also nullified the strategic importance of Wanglung as an Advance Base. The new mobility calls for new strategy.

Buddhism or Christianity ?

Buddhist missionaries are adapting Buddhism to the animist's way of life and one such "white priest" has already acquired a great following. Syncretistic ideas and rituals have met with amazing acceptance. This bodes ill for the future spread of the Gospel, because the animist who changes over to Buddhism becomes a fanatical follower and infinitely more difficult to reach for Christ.

Nevertheless, the Karen, with a legendary history closely parallel to the early Old Testament, a village solidarity and deteriorating economic conditions are wide open to a great

""beople's movement" when the Lord's time for them is ripe.

Meanwhile the way must be prepared by both extensive and intensive evangelism, literature preparation, personnel training and persistent believing prayer.

APPENDIX I 3. The YAO work The Summer Camp at Maesalong was by Eric Cox maintained for seven fruitful years (1953-60) by Mr. and Mrs. Cox and sometimes other colleagues, and the "ideal rustic dwelling", so admired by Mrs. Kuhn, welcomed an increasing number of missionary visitors who made the four and a half hour climb up into the mountain to meet

Brother Six (Lau Lu), and to observe the progress of God's work among the Yao.

Spectacular Progress Progress at first was quite spectacular. Almost every Sunday someone would stand up in the church, which could comfortably seat about 100, to say they wanted to "enter Jesus''.

Then, depending on whether or not they had the "say" about the demon altar, the missionaries and later the church leaders would go to the home, and the dirty, dingy thing smeared with blood and feathers, and its accumulation of bits of bone, broken wine cups and the like, and other "holy" or dedicated things, would be brought out and burned, as Brother Six's were. In its place a shiny Gospel poster would usually go up, setting forth in picture form the way of salvation through Christ.

Maesalong was originally one of a cluster of five Yao villages, totalling about a thousand people, none further apart than about two hours' walk. This was the immediate field of opportunity. After some hymns had been translated into Yao, the new Christians were required to learn to sing them and, more important, to read them.

It became a favourite Sunday afternoon occupation to go to one of these villages where a new believer would demonstrate his skill and bear testimony to his new faith. Singing occupied the rest of the time. What joyous times those were! The Yao children loved them, racing ahead up and down the steep mountain paths, hiding and scaring us as we passed, or gathering bunches of wild flowers for the missionary mother at home. The care-free happiness of it all seemed to epitomize the joy and liberty that had come with the Gospel.

Linguistic Beginnings At first there was no time to go much further afield than

APPENDIX I

those few villages, for the Yao work was completely new, and just everything was waiting to be done: the sounds and tones of Yao had to be identified, and an alphabet evolved; a Yao vocabulary had to be tediously collected and utilized in teaching, and a beginning made at translation. No books were available and the first material for class reading was written out on large sheets of hand-made paper, the paper used in demon worship, of which there was a plentiful supply in every home. It was quite a satisfaction to turn the tables on the Enemy, and use for the Lord's service what had been prepared for his!

How proud the Christians were of the first mimeographed books, especially those who could read! By the time the Coxes left for furlough in 1956 quite a few had learned to read, and they had three books, a hymnbook of twenty-five hymns, a quite extensive catechism of Christian doctrine and practice and, last but not least, the book they called 'Sing So", or Holy Book, a first translation of selected chapters of the New

Testament, composing an outline of the Life of Christ. The sun was indeed beginning to shine. The "dawn of translucency" had brightened very considerably for this little pocket of Yao over a few brief years, and was to brighten yet more. But much darkness remained, and still remains. Yet the Dayspring from on high is visiting them, and the Light which the darkness cannot extinguish is shining, and will shine more and more unto the perfect day.

In the realm of literature, Mark was the first Gospel to be completely translated. John followed and then a portion of Acts, and the letter of James and other selections. After a lapse of a few years, while the Coxes were at Square Well, serious translation recommenced with a team of three Yao translators working with the missionary. Thus Luke has been completed, and a new translation of Acts is more than half completed.

Migrations What of the later years at Summit Camp, Maesalong? The Yao are a migrant people. Every year they cut down new stretches of jungle-clad hillside for cultivation, only to abandon these fields again, to weeds and jungle, after harvest. In time the whole area is used up, and the village must move on.

APPENDIX I

But something other than the urge for better fields accounted for the complete scattering of the five Yao villages: the Gospel was at work and many hated the new message and the changes it was bringing to their age-old culture.

Old Two was one such (see page 68). He had only tolerated Lilian Hamer living on the outskirts of his village in a house that Brother Six had built for her in 1953. After a year or two he had had enough, and began a migration to mountains south and west across the Namkok river. It usually takes two or three years for such a move. One dry season an advance party goes to the new area and prepares fields to provide for the bigger party to follow during the next dry season.

Livestock, surplus grain and everything difficult to transport are sold off, the cash being available to buy supplies in the new area. By 1956 Old Two's big village had almost entirely disappeared, and was re-established high up on a mountain ridge above the Namkok, called Maeliem.

Old Two has been visited there many times since, but his heart and that of many others is hardened against the Gospel.

However, to Old Two's chagrin, some of those who moved, promising to renounce their allegiance to the new faith, found that they couldn't! Though largely untaught they still call themselves Christian, and in recent years others, who were just young people and children in the days of the original exodus from Maesalong, have joined them in their Christian faith. This scattering was more than usually widespread, and the net result was that the Gospel message was carried much further afield than the missionaries could then take it. "The strong young men to go into such a country", of whom Mrs.

Kuhn writes on page 64, were very slow in coming, and not until 1967 was there one addition, David Griffiths, to be joined by Ian Bevington in September 1967. Herbert Purnell was among the Yao for a year, but his time was spent in language investigation, for which his training and gifts specially fitted him.

Time after time, in some strange district or village, one has found someone from the Maesalong community, who has shown warm hospitality and friendliness. The demon shelf may be in full evidence, but the young people still sing snatches of choruses and hymns. Such folk are always eager for news of old friends and m'Chet, a daughter-in-law in a family very

APPENDIX I

opposed to the Gospel, when told of the death of m' Man, an elderly widow who was an early believer, said with tears in her eyes, '"'Oh, but that is much better for her! It is so much better to be out of this miserable world and to be with Jesus."

Such sentiments are expected from a Christian, but this was a heathen woman speaking. So the light and the truth have spread, in ways never planned.

Opposition None was more incensed with the Gospel and the changes it brought than Brother Eight, or Lau Ba, a younger brother of Brother Six's. He and his people moved far south into Lampang province, one hundred or more miles down the motor road. Two or three of the families he controlled had believed, but tribal solidarity led them to follow him, for it isn't easy to break away from the group. It was made clear to them that this was the end of their allegiance to the new-fangled foreign ways followed by Brother Six. Lau Ba was adamant about it, little realizing that in the overruling providence of God he was preparing the way for a second

Yao Summit Camp, which the Coxes would occupy in March 1963, and the Griffiths three years later. For two years Lau Ba succeeded in excluding Christians from his village. When a family from Maesalong tried to join him in 1959, and refused to give up their Christian faith, they were forbidden a place in the village and had to make a new settlement at Maleng, about two hours' walk away. Lau Ba did not even like Christians staying overnight. Even Brother Six, when paying his brother a visit during an evangelistic trip to another area, was given only the hospitality that family and tribal custom demand, nothing more.

A neighbouring Yao headman actually went in great indignation to the Thai magistrate, a day's journey away down on the plain, to demand that Christian Yao be forbidden to come to his village with their new-fangled teachings.

"They bring us bad luck!" he said. "My horse has died since that Brother Six stayed at my house, and was talking about the Jesus these foreigners have taught him. We Yao shouldn't believe such things. We have our own teachings from our fathers!"'.

June, 1967.

APPENDIX I Patiently the Thai magistrate heard him out, then, with a twinkle in his eye, he said, ''I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about it. Really the only way you can get satisfaction for your feelings is to go across to the foreigners' land yourself and teach them your Yao religion, for their land, like Thailand, is a free country, where anyone may travel and teach any religion he wants to!' This story was widely circulated, and the Yao headman "'lost a lot of face"'.

New Attitude Then in 1953 the change came in Lau Ba's village. The Yao, like others, find it is easy to renounce the Lord Jesus, but that Jesus does not so easily renounce them. Su Hin was a demon priest and seemed a very unlikely convert. Yet early in 1953 he believed and his whole face changed with the new light that was in it. But he quickly stumbled when his twenty-year-old daughter wanted to marry Lau Chang, an escaped Chinese soldier, against his wishes. In Yao society the father's word is law, but when the village elders asked for Eric Cox's opinion he said that since both were professing Christians and adults, she should be at liberty to marry if she wished. The elders agreed. But this was too much for Su Hin, who "'lost face" terribly and went back to his demon ministry; when there was a chance to move right away with Lau Ba, off they went, glad to see the last of the foreigner, as they thought. They established their new village high up on Square Well mountain, where visitors are rare.

They soon discovered that down at the foot of the mountain there was a lonely little village of Karen Christians, deprived of all help and teaching for many decades, but carefully preserving their Christian status. These folk often went up the hill with their elephants to haul timber, and to buy or borrow rice, for they are perennially short. Then Su Hin found himself going down to visit the Karens. He couldn't understand a word they said, but their singing was an inspiration to hear.

Soon another one-time Christian joined him on his visits, and when Christmas time came, quite a few people went down.

Early in 1960 word reached the Coxes through the American Baptist missionary in Chiengrai that the Yao in the Square

Well area had sent word through the Karen pastor that they

APPENDIX I

would like their missionary to come and visit them again!

Furlough delayed the visit, but on the return of Eric Cox visits were made, and Square Well had a little group of Christians, who occasionally met together to sing hymns and pray. The old light came back into Su Hin's face. But when he died suddenly, his family, who had never sincerely believed, had a heathen funeral for him.

Lau Ba was not at all happy at this turn of events, but he had his troubles too, and in his heart he began to wonder if it wouldn't be better to "surrender" to Jesus at last. His first teen-aged daughter had died at Maesalong, but soon after getting to Square Well a girl was born, to be sister to the precious only son born a year or two before. When only two or three years old this baby girl became seriously ill, and despite prodigious offerings to the demon spirits, she died. The demons were obviously angry with him, despite all his offerings and the terrible fear gripped him and his wife, m'Fay, that they would claim the life of their precious little son too. He was endearingly called Ah Doot. Their lives were wrapped up in the life of this little lad, and if turning to Jesus would spare his life they would turn, despite the loss of face. So in 1962 Lau Ba sent word to Eric Cox to say that if he would move to Square

Well to live he would help him to get a house built, and that he and all his family would turn to the Lord. And he was true to his word.

But it wasn't easy for Lau Ba. Some of the village remained adamantly opposed to the missionaries' coming. While the Coxes were on a visit to the village to talk things over, their chief opponent invited them to a meal. They went in fear and trembling, and were not reassured on finding demon incantations in progress. When supper was announced, they all squatted down around the low table, Eric Cox with his back almost touching the legs of the demon priest who was intoning towards the altar. No one starts to eat until the host gives the word.

Then to our utter astonishment, he said, "Teacher, I know you Christians like to pray before you eat, so go ahead and pray. We'll wait." With the priest chanting prayers at a great rate behind him, Eric Cox called upon the Sovereign Lord of all men and of all such demon powers.

APPENDIX I God had shown His power indeed, by giving the missionaries favour in the sight of this man, whose opposition had melted right away.

In March, the house for Eric and Helen Cox was ready and they moved in. The very next Sunday they held a service in Lau Ba's house, when all his demon paraphernalia was brought out and burned outside the house. It was a joyous moment. Like Su Hin, Lau Ba's face soon had a new light in it, and it became clear that he was fully the Lord's. He has shown no disposition to learn to read or to take an active lead in church affairs, though he is fairly faithful in attending church.

Recently, with David Griffiths' help, he has broken his opium addiction, though he still loves his glass of whisky. Other marks of the old life also remain, but when Lau Ba prays you know that he is one who really knows and loves the Lord, and that, however slowly, he is learning in Christ's school.

Ah Doot remains well and strong, a bright, happy boy. But prayer is needed for him, his parents and the rest of the family.

Yao Face the Modern World If offence at the Gospel occasioned the heathen exodus from the Maesalong area, what caused the Christians to move?

Again it was the influence of the Gospel, but operating in quite a different way. Having broken with the many strict traditions of the past, it was easier to consider abandoning the familiar life in the mountains, where the hard-won produce has to be carried on one's back for many hours to sell at the market town. With Jesus to protect them from the demon spirits of the plains, and the malaria they fear so much, why should they not move closer to the town, where life is less rigorous? Or perhaps right into the town, where they could match their native Yao business acumen and skill against the Chinese and Thai business people, and make a better living?

The decision was made and by 1960 Brother Six and his gifted son, San Ching, were well established in Maechan, with a prosperous pig business, and "'irons' in other businesses too.

God has greatly prospered them. Other families in Brother Six's clan followed them into business, market gardening and other occupations.

Fifteen to twenty other families have established a new village in the low foothills east of Maechan,

APPENDIX I

called Nongwaen, where they can use ox-carts to move their cash crops to market.

The new way of life has brought profound changes—some good, some detrimental. Children, once regarded merely as a supplementary labour force, now have to go to Thai school for several years, including the girls, who in traditional Yao society had little or no status. The younger women and nearly all the younger men have largely discarded their traditional

Yao dress. Permanently waved hair has taken the place of the tightly wound turban, pretty blouses are worn instead of the long blue jacket with its scarlet wool ruffle, and gaily coloured print skirts replace the beautifully embroidered Yao trousers.

A print skirt can be bought for the equivalent of a few hours' work, whereas a pair of embroidered trousers takes about a year to make, utilizing every spare minute. Little wonder the changes are welcomed!

Yao Materialism A very strongly marked element in the Yao character is their willingness to accept anything that benefits them in a worldly sense, and their hostility to anything threatening these benefits.

This marked characteristic has strongly influenced their attitude to the Gospel, right from the start. It was the loss of a big pig, on its way to market in December 1952, that brought the first crisis in Brother Six's Christian life (pages 148, 149): a crisis indeed! If Jesus couldn't protect his pigs (and thus his money) and the demons could harm them at will, it was obviously foolish to believe.

There have been so many crises since! For despite his concern about sin (a concern which does not seem to be shared by many

Yao) Brother Six, like all other Yao, is mainly concerned with the benefits of this life. Their demon service had two purposes— to ward off evil the demons might bring, and to purchase their favour. On the human level, this has been their approach to the Lord Jesus. They would assuredly accept and serve Him if He proved stronger than the demons, and if serving Him was cheaper and more beneficial than serving the demons.

This outlook accounts for most of the ebb and flow of battle through these fifteen years of service with the Yao Church.

How patiently and lovingly God has dealt with them! On the

APPENDIX I whole they have prospered materially, but there have been occasional losses, as God has sought to teach them that primarily

His blessings are spiritual and eternal. They have had to learn that earthly blessings will be given or withheld as it serves the Divine purpose of forming Christ in them. But it is very hard for a Yao to accept and believe this, much harder than for us from the West. As this is written (mid 1967) the Yao Church is passing through a great spiritual slump and a general despondency, because they are blaming God that they are not more prosperous, or more esteemed by the Thai Government; and because certain Yao headmen, who have helped anthropologists and linguists, seem to have become more famous and influential than the Christians.

This attitude of serving Christ largely for the material benefits He bestows has seriously affected the spread of the Gospel.

Few will spare time for the Lord's work, to go out witnessing, or to pray and read. Many women who laboriously learn to read have never got beyond that first stumbling stage because it is economically profitable to sit and embroider, while there is not one penny to be earned by sitting and reading.

Unreached Yao Meanwhile many Yao remain to be reached and many who have believed remain untaught. Yet no Christian is willing for the financial sacrifice and hardship involved in leaving the Christian group to go and settle with new believers, to teach them and help them. Across the Mekong river in Laos, where the bulk of the Yao are to be found, huge refugee villages contain thousands of Yao, who have been uprooted by the Communist invasion and seem ripe to believe. But we look in vain for the Pauls, the Barnabases and the Timothys who, counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord, will go forth to evangelize and teach them.

The first seven years of Yao evangelism brought great progress. The second seven years has witnessed much conflict, advance and retreat, victory and defeat. What of the next seven years? Has not God blessed this Yao Church in order to make it a strong evangelistic instrument in His Hand? Pray that it will become so.

June, 1967

APPENDIX I

4. The AKHA work Akha Distribution Early in

by Peter Nightingale two very new OMF missionaries (the Nightingales) were married and given their future assignment: the Akha, a tribe hitherto unreached in Thailand and very much on their hearts. The news that they were free to go out to this tribe was received with rejoicing and a sense of awesome responsibility. There are perhaps ten thousand or more Akha scattered over the high hills, along the borders of Burma and Laos: a sturdy, independent and attractive people, deeply steeped in their own animistic religion and apparently well satisfied with their own complicated culture, language and society.

What right has any raw young foreigner to go to them, and how can he possibly appreciate the tremendous grip of demon worship and the deep-seated fear of the spirits so strongly rooted in every Akha heart? Only the clear call of the Lord to bring His good news to these people and a sure sense of being in His will, have kept the missionaries witnessing to the Akha during the last twelve years. They know that God purposes a crop and their hearts rejoice in the first-fruits, knowing with assurance that these bring promise of a harvest.

Remote Approach God clearly led the Nightingales in 1955 to a small TaiYa village in the foothills north of Chiengrai, where most people reckoned themselves to be Christians, though they were in urgent need of teaching on basic doctrine. They welcomed the missionaries and built a tiny house for them. Day by day the Akha passed through the village on their way to market.

For six years the missionaries lived there, studying the Akha language, making trips to the hill villages, doing local medical work and giving some teaching in the TaiYa Church. The TaiYa proved to be loving friends and helpful as carriers and guides on the mountain trails. But all the while the missionaries longed and prayed for a home right among the Akha in the hills.

Every Akha village has a distinctive demon gateway at its entrance and exit. Thus, while they were free to visit the people, and indeed often got a warm welcome to stay overnight in the villages, the Nightingales were never given permission

APPENDIX I to build a house of their own within those gates. The years passed, waiting for the gates to open.

Akha Church in Burma Sends Missionaries Over the Burma border there is a growing Akha Church, largely the result of evangelism of Lahu Christians with the aid of missionaries of the American Baptist Mission. Their particular dialect of Akha had been reduced to writing and they had produced primers, simple readers, catechism and hymnbook. More recently, the whole New Testament was completed by the Rev. P. Lewis and his wife before they had to leave Burma, but it is still in process of printing. To the hardpressed missionaries in Thailand, this group in Burma has been ''a fruitful bough, whose branches run over the wall'.

Language help, Akha books, loving advice and prayer fellowship all came "'over the wall" to Thailand and in 1957 a young

Akha Christian couple came too. Ya Ju was literate in Akha and had been to a Lahu day school. Both he and his wife,

Mee Chu, accepted the challenge of living and witnessing in Thailand, without any guarantee of material help from their missionary friends. For a few weeks they stayed among the TaiYa and then, just as the missionaries left for furlough, the two Akha obtained grudging permission from their own people to live in Khayeh village, about two hours' steep climb up from the TaiYa village. Because they took no part in demon worship they were not really welcome, but during that year a young man called A Ju turned to the Lord and cut off his long demon pigtail as a sign of his sincerity. Sickness came to the family, he was blamed and severely beaten up by his older brother A Kui, a cruel, merciless man and a demon priest into the bargain. A Ju finally turned back and has never since returned to the Lord.

A Tsa and his wife A Peh also wanted to '"'walk the Jesus trail", but no sooner had they made their decision public than his old father died and they were engulfed in the traditional ceremonies of demon worship. In the southern Khayeh village, the demon-possessed A Zee asked to have the demon cast out, because he wanted to follow the Lord Jesus. Prayer was made in the "Name which is above every name" and he was delivered.

His wife also professed to trust to Christ and their demon

APPENDIX I

shelf was burned. They lived normally and happily for several years as good witnesses in their village, but recently, as the result of much tragedy and trial, especially the death of his eldest son, a young father of twenty years, poor A Zee has been buffeted by attacks of acute melancholia, in which prayer alone was of any avail. But A Zee has never gone back on his profession of faith in Christ as his Saviour.

Patience Rewarded'

At the end of 1961, Ya Ju cried afresh to the Lord for some Akha to be saved. If his prayer was not answered he would return to Burma. About the same time, the missionaries to the Akha spent their year-end day of prayer with two fellow workers to the Yao tribe. In a special way they sensed the Lord's presence and received a fresh assurance that the Holy Spirit was working among the Akha whether human eye could see it or not. Within a couple of weeks A Tsa, A Peh, A Shah and A Tseu took a firm stand for the Lord. A Ju, the younger brother of A Tsa (not the young man mentioned above) followed shortly after. The inevitable storm of opposition, anger, sickness and threats ensued. The converts were all told to get out of the village together with Ya Ju and Mee Chu. In this severe trial the Lord gave them the needed courage and they built their own new village not far away, where the missionaries could at last be invited to live.

A Church Grows The place was literally "outside the gate' for Jesus' sake, but God needed tested pillars for the foundation of His Church.

A Shah broke with opium after fifteen years of addiction.

"Tt stank," he said, after trusting in Christ. A Tsa is a church deacon to whom God has given the gift of humility, wisdom and clear-sightedness in the affairs of the little church.

A Peh is a promising women's worker with a gift for communicating the Gospel in a winsome manner. A Tseu has never wavered in her faith and rejoices in the Lord. A Ju's young wife is soon to be baptized and he shows growing ability to preach and to teach. A more fluent reader than his older brother, he is like a mouthpiece for A Tsa and they remind us of Aaron and Moses in this respect. Ya Ju learned to lean heavily on the

APPENDIX I Lord during the dry years and is now virtually the pastor of the Akha believers in Thailand. He has gifts for expounding the Word, skill on a guitar, ukulele or accordion and in singing harmony.

About a dozen others have taken a stand for the Lord, some from far away villages. Each time the same strong opposition is experienced and for some it has proved too strong. When someone has not trusted hard enough to keep free from opium, the Akha brethren have ceased to reckon them as followers of the Lord.

Reinforcements Needed The Word has now been preached in many villages and the old walls of suspicion and doubt are breaking down. In the village which evicted the early Christians, the Wyss family now live and witness, with the full agreement of the village elders. They are engaged in work on the Thailand dialect of Akha and are preparing materials for literacy teaching. The Nightingale family have a little shanty in the large heathen area of Senjai, where they are free to visit and teach at any time. Hundreds of Akha are migrating to an area south of Chiengrai where there is anurgent invitation to tribal or missionary Christians to live with them. "What is the point of turning from the demons if we have no one to come and teach us?" is the cry.

The small emerging church has a vision of outreach, but it will itself need missionary help for many years to come. Those called to the Akha will need a God-given love for them, if they are to live among them as BRETHREN in Christ, exercising their gifts and working side by side with their Akha brothers and sisters.

Taking up tribal work is rather like getting married—it is "for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health..." The missionary evangelist needs to be able to advise on new species of banana palms, suitable pig food and available rat poisons. The Bible teacher must also be able and willing to recommend weed-killers and fertilizers. The keen literacy teacher may also find herself involved in promoting the output of tribal embroidery and finding markets for it, because economically the Akha are hard-pressed. The registered

APPENDIX I

nurse should also be able to put occasional injections into a horse as well as a child, for a sick horse is a serious thing to a tribesman, and needs skilled attention as much as his child.

"There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon."

God has given the handful of corn among the Akha. Will you pray with them to the Lord of the Harvest for the "fruit (that) shall shake like Lebanon" ?

June, 1967.

5. The LAHU work Widespread Evangelism Widely scatby Lawrence Peet tered over the mountains in the five provinces in North Thailand are one hundred Lahu villages. Most have been visited by messengers of the Gospel at least once in the last decade, but that does not mean that the fifteen to twenty thousand Lahu in the area have been evangelized. Generally speaking, they still sit in darkness and the shadow of death, living in fear of evil spirits and ensnared by Satan.

Priest Village Priest Village near the Mekong River in Chiengrai province is the only heathen village where there are converts. Though ethnologically the people are related to Lahu across the Mekong

River in Northern Laos and are not located strategically for outreach to other Lahu in Thailand, yet God in His sovereignty worked among them. The demon priestess Ga and Ya Bow, the grown son of the main priest in the village, were among the first four baptized in 1963.

During Neville and Sylvia Long's furlough in 1966, trials through sickness and death led to pressures from heathen relatives to go back to spirit worship. Consequently the first converts are in a backslidden condition at present. Opium and malaria exact a heavy toll. Only three of the fifteen houses in Priest Village are free from opium addiction and all are plagued with malaria. However, two Wa Christians, who have movedwfrom Burma into the immediate area determined to maintain a Christian stand, have brought encouragement to the Christians. One has married a widow in Priest Village and established a Christian home there.

APPENDIX I Outreach to Laos From Priest Village so close to the Laos border, the natural outreach has been to Lahu in Northern Laos. Fifteen phonettes and two hundred Gospel records have been placed in several villages and trips made to Lahu villages in Laos, some by Missionary Aviation Fellowship helicopter. The door to witness among the Lahu there is at present open and, with many expressing an interest in Christianity, the opportunity presents a great challenge.

Lahu from Burma The migration of American Baptist Mission (ABM) Christian Lahu from the border region in Burma to the northern parts of Chiengrai and Chiengmai provinces of Thailand is a significant trend. Predominantly these are Red Lahu, but include

Black and Yellow Lahu too. Some trained pastors have accompanied their people, the majority of whom are second generation Christians and in many cases only nominal ones.

Among the zealous leaders is Ja La, who has the heart of an evangelist; it was he who helped to teach those at Priest

Village who turned to the Lord. For the last year he has been an evangelist employed by the Karen Baptist Convention.

The ABM Lahu from Burma, while desiring to have their own Lahu convention, have linked up with the Karen Baptist

Convention in Thailand.

The two main dialect groups of North Thailand Lahu, Red Lahu and Sheh Leh, have so far yielded no converts.

But God's "going forth is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth"

Hosea 6.3 (RSV).

June, 1967.

6. The MEO (Miao) work Distribution Six main areas in Thailand where Meo reside have been identified.

NamKhet, Palm Leaf, Bitter Bamboo, White Water, Cawca and Big Mountain villages are all in ONE area. Yellow Creek is in another area. Some of the six areas are practically unreached. A short visit was recently

APPENDIX I

made to one south of Chiengrai and one village in the Khunjem area has recently had a brief return visit. In the mountains close to Chiengmai is the small Meo village of Kapok Clouds, where Robin and Celia Talbot are nurturing a small group of Christians. They also allow their home to be a refuge for young Christians who are trying to break off opium and can do so only in an atmosphere of prayer and fellowship.

Beginnings Although the "Blue"? Meo are more numerous than the "White" Meo, they have received fewer workers and both the two pioneer couples (the Otto Scheuzgers and Don Rulisons) are now in the homelands because of health. Thus early in 1967 the Blue Meo had onlysone missionary couple living with them.

Otto and Don concentrated chiefly on the "Timothys"' in Yellow Creek where there is a nucleus of true disciples, though others have not since been added. Several books of the Bible have been translated and the Yellow Creek Christians feed on God's Word, love the Lord and continue to meet together.

But where are the evangelists for the dozens of villages either unreached or only briefly visited just for one or two nights?

Blue Meo and the Thai Church Just as Don Rulison saw the possibility of the Karen Church bringing Meo to the Lord, in other areas the Thai (among whom there has recently been a real break-through in the town of Tak, east of Yellow Creek) could be the bridge. Mark, a most promising young Blue Meo believer from Yellow Creek, who knows some Thai, has been attending Short Term Bible

Schools (STBS) conducted by Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (WEC) missionaries for the Thai. Thai in general despise the mountain people, but Mark was warmly received by these new believers as a brother. Such a unity bought at infinite cost to our Lord Jesus will mean much to the Meo as they are forced, by government pressure and the exhaustion of the mountain land, to integrate into Thai society.

Finnish workers in the Nam-Khet area continue their work among the Thai in Lomsak, and as the Meo have increased contact with Thai towns, these Thai churches will be able to

APPENDIX I

give them strategic help. Already they have been a real stimulus to the Meo Church.

White Meo and the Thai Church The remote town of Nakhorn Thai has numerous surrounding villages, and was for long unevangelized. But, eighteen months ago, a Finnish couple moved there and God has already given sixty or seventy believers. Thai work has usually been slow and hard, but these Thai Christians have the freshness and bloom of really new creatures. Thus God has wonderfully planted a Thai church at the foothills of a White Meo area at Palm Leaf where there are a few Meo Christians.

When the Rulisons moved to Palm Leaf, a large White Meo village twelve hours' walk north-west of Nam-Khet, in 1958, Doong Ye and his family had stood alone as Christians for some time. Then five other families burnt their demon things. Later Ernie and Mertis Heinbach went to Palm Leaf and with Ying's help Ernie translated the Gospel of John.

When the Heimbachs were transferred to Chiengmai and then to Singapore, Dorothy Jones moved in. The people of Palm

Leaf have become increasingly friendly, partly as the result of medical work. Although the church consists of only five families, many more want to break with demonism. A major hindrance to church progress lies in the fact that the heads of four of the families are opium smokers, and so cannot be appointed leaders.

Missionary Murdered During 1961, many people were moving away from NamKhet to find new fields, but the only one who appeared to be concerned about the Lord's will in the move was Ying.

Most of the Christians went to Cawca, but Roy and Gill Orpin planned to move to Bitter Bamboo with the Jahu family.

Roy had visited Bitter Bamboo where there was both terrific opposition to the Gospel, and some response.

At this juncture, on his last trip up before moving in, Roy was shot by Thai robbers and died three days later. When

Jahu and some other Meo Christians visited the hospital, Roy exhorted them to preach the Gospel. Jahu became a faithful witness at Bitter Bamboo, and in the next two or three

APPENDIX I

years, eight or so families burned their demon things. But a sickening succession of these families turned back to demon worship. Though Jahu and his mother, Mrs. Chieh Shaw, tried to gather them together for teaching and worship on Sundays, '"'they would not".

Meo Independence If there is one outstanding characteristic in the Meo culture, it is independence, and this is encouraged from early childhood.

It is not natural for a Meo to return home for Sunday worship if he happens to be sleeping out at his fields some distance away and does not WANT to come home. Though very responsible in some ways, the Meo does not find it easy to surrender his independence to conform to God's rules. Jahu lives in White

Water now, and his faith is just not strong enough to believe and hope for others really to follow the Lord. The disappointments are too many! A deep hunger for spiritual things is significantly lacking.

A Promising Leader The Big Mountain area south of Cawca contains a group of Meo villages, and because they had no witness, Ying went there. After three difficult and disappointing years, dear Ying shared with us the verse God had given him and his wife Leah before going: '"'And sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come" (Luke

10.1). Though he could not understand the apparent fruitlessness of those years, his trust was in his Guide. Since he has been in Cawca giving help to Doris Whitelock in Bible translation, eight families in Big Mountain have burned their demon things. Ying has visited them, but his translation work makes it impossible to remain there to teach. Will the awful repetition of backsliding because of illness, opposition from relatives or terrifying rumours occur there too? Spirit-filled missionaries and Meo teachers are the only solution to the great need.

June, 1967.

APPENDIX I 7. The LISU work Depletion of the Lisu Team Since 1956 by Heather Cook nine Lisu workers have left North Thailand for various reasons, and one, Lilian Hamer, was killed in 1959 by an opium sot. Meanwhile only four new members have been added to the team. Of the earlier workers only one, Edna

McLaren, remains. These facts have considerable bearing upon the development of the work, particularly in respect of the language and in the overall outreach to the unevangelized areas.

Language Through Ted Hope's research, and in consultation with expert Bible Society workers, it was ascertained that the dialect of Lisu in use in China and Burma is so different from that spoken in North Thailand that the use of the Bible and other literature printed in the former dialect is impracticable. The analysis of the Thailand dialect has been difficult and slow, and the major task of Bible translation has not yet been started.

This situation, too, is related to the fact that in surprising contrast to the China Lisu, there has been very little response among the Thailand Lisu. After sixteen years of witness no Thailand Lisu is yet standing as a Christian. Could it be that the time has not been ripe or our language has not been adequate... ? We do not have to know the reason, but we must continue faithful in sowing the seed. This involves gaining efficiency in the use of seed-sowing tools and techniques.

Christian Lisu from Burma While Mr. and Mrs. Allan Crane's work of translation and revision of the Lisu Bible has no direct bearing upon the work in Thailand, who can tell the far-reaching effect as the Holy

Spirit uses His Word in the hearts of the Lisu Christian refugees from China in Burma? We thank God for those in Burma who have been burdened for the Lisu in Thailand and have desired to cross the border to evangelize their own people. But apart from the evangelists, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Abraham and Joseph who visited Thailand in 1958 and with Ted Hope engaged in widespread evangelism, no others have been able to get permission to come. Prayer can open this door!

About eight years ago a group of Lisu Christians escaped

APPENDIX I

from the Chinese nationalist army into Thailand. Among them Khoser and David were overjoyed to meet missionaries and were hungry for fellowship. For a time they lived in the Lisu village of Maesala, and after marrying Lahu wives, moved to the Christian Lahu village of Hweidaht.

In 1966 four more Lisu Christians, originally from China and known to OMF missionaries there, escaped from the army and joined those living at Hweidaht. At about the same time two Christians of the Rawang tribe in Burma came into Thailand, hoping to make their way to America for Bible training. This has not proved possible so far and they are living in North Thailand at present. They speak English and the China dialect of Lisu fluently and are studying Thai. Surely the Lord has His purpose in bringing these young men here and we pray that they may discover and fulfil that purpose.

Some of them have already been to preach in Lisu villages.

Dialect differences do not present nearly as great difficulties to them as to missionaries, but they find witness in totally heathen villages very hard, for this is something quite new to them.

Village Centres Tsa Ba Lilian Hamer lived here in 1954.

Hwei Phai Charlie Peterson lived here in 1955 and visited Ta-Ngo.

Maesala Ted and Nell Hope lived here for three months in 1961. One man, Wudi, was very near to believing, but died without making a decision.

Jom Huat Two missionaries lived here for eight months 1964-5. Many of those in this village, including Headman

Honey, Akermema, and Mrs. Goitre Wood, previously lived in Ta-Ngo when the OMF first worked in Thailand. Headman

Honey was eager for missionaries to move in, though probably only for their medical help. He has remained resistant to the Gospel, though friendly and helpful. Most of the people were very friendly and there was interest in the Gospel but there was no turning. Headman Honey's influence is undoubtedly strong. Akermema did not do demon worship except when under pressure from her husband and always seemed hungry for teaching. Who but God knows her heart?

APPENDIX I

Elephant Mountain Village When two single lady workers moved into this village in 1966, they were warmly welcomed by their next door neighbour who turned out to be the daughter of Khun Ba (page 43). He died several years earlier but had told his daughter always to welcome God's people. She had evidently had some teaching and her heart is soft towards the Gospel and very loving towards the missionaries. Her husband is the third son of old Salapi (Grandfather Li), head of the Li clan. As a result of preaching and personal witness he, with other members of the clan, have discussed believing but thus far have not come to the "turning point". Later in 1966 the Hope family moved to Elephant Mountain and stayed for five months before furlough. Ted had visited and had contact with people in this village for some time before this. There are many friendly people here, and there are those besides the Li clan who have talked about turning and shown intelligent interest in the Gospel. Who will be the first to break the demon hold and "enter Jesus"? We pray for a deep work of God's

Spirit to bring conviction of sin and new birth to these people.

Other Villages Short visits have been made to many other villages, sometimes repeatedly, but shortage of workers has greatly restricted this outreach.

Gospel Recordings with gramophones have been left in some villages.

June, 1967.

8. The YUNNANESE work Refugees from China One day by Orville Carlson in

Dr.

Cinda of the Chiengrai Presbyterian Hospital reported that he had some wounded men in his hospital—troops who had come in from Burma but were originally from Yunnan province, China, and who could not speak Thai. These men were among the first

Yunnanese in Thailand to come to the attention of OMF missionaries.

Later, a refugee village called Bantham was established in northern Chiengrai Province a few miles from the Burma border. When OMF missionaries preached the Gospel there, some men showed interest and professed to believe.

As opportunity permitted, Yunnanese-speaking missionaries (notably Mr. A. B. Cooke and Dr. John Toop) held meetings

APPENDIX I

in the village and taught the Christians. On one occasion, the headman drew up a list of over forty "Christians", his own name among them. Many of these were later baptized by Mr. Fred Hatton.

As a result of political conditions in Burma and Laos, thousands more Yunnanese escaped into Thailand and established themselves in temporary villages in the border areas or joined tribal communities in the hills. In addition to these refugees, several thousand Kuomintang troops, remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's armies, stationed themselves in the hills, hoping to push back into Yunnan again before too long.

OMF missionaries have been able to proclaim Christ to them, too, and some have believed.

New Settlements One band of refugees from Burma hastily built homes of bamboo and grass at the foot of the hills that mark the Burma border, and called the village Banmai or "New Village'.

When the Gospel was preached there, some of the listeners asked the missionaries to return, and on subsequent visits men and women by ones and twos put their trust in Christ. Now the believers are in the midst of building their own rustic place of worship.

Converts in Training God strangely and wonderfully opened the way for two of the young ladies from Bantham to attend the Bethel Bible

School in Bangkok. Irene Liu, under the auspices of the Christian Nationals' Evangelization Commission (CNEC), is now witnessing for the Lord in the needy town of Chiengkham; while Lily Chang is teaching part-time in the Bethel Bible

School and doing other Christian work in Bangkok. Lily wants to return to North Thailand to witness among the Chinese there. Almost all the other Bantham believers have scattered to Laos, Burma, and elsewhere in pursuit of a livelihood.

A Christian refugee from Burma, Hwang Ting-kwei by name, moved into a Yao and Chinese community high up in the teaproducing Elephant Mountain area. As a result a group of Yao and Chinese have turned to the Lord and a chapel where regular meetings are held has been built.

APPENDIX I Although the present Christian community among the Yunnanese is small, the missionaries wait and pray and work on in the confidence that there will be a harvest in the near future.

July, 1967.

Appendix II After the Ascent—what?

It was the first of June 1966. by John and Muriel Davis The bus drew up at the Phayao Bible Camp. A few belongings tied up in an old cloth were thrown down from the roof rack and a young Yao tribesman,

Lau U, alighted. Making his way up the dusty track to the Camp, he was given a warm welcome by the missionaries.

The other three students came later and the first term was in progress.

Lau U arrived unable to write any Thai and not fully understanding the Thai language lectures—especially the theological terms! The half term exams had to be taken orally.

But Lau U had the needed perseverance and with extra coaching, he was able to write the end-of-term exams in Thai.

Moreover he was reading, praying and preaching in fluent Thai. The door to the whole Bible and all available Christian literature in Thai was now open to him. He had moved into another world, so different from that of his native mountain village.

In 1962, the need to give extended Bible teaching to the Yao was a great burden to Eric and Helen Cox. In their own villages, their minds were fully occupied with seedtime and harvest, care of the livestock and family or village affairs, while the influence of the morally degraded lives of the surrounding heathen was constantly pressing in on them. Then in 1964, as a result of evangelistic trips undertaken by the Yao leaders, hundreds of Yao began to break with demon worship. There was no doubt that God's Spirit was moving in a wonderful way. But the question soon arose as to who would or could teach these new converts. Without such teaching, some families returned to demonism. A similar situation exists among other tribes too.

So the Phayao Bible Camp was born and miracles of the Divine supply confirmed this project as manifestly of God.

That first term was far from easy for all four students. Lau U was the only tribesman, one of the only two men. Culturally and socially the four were poles apart and for a well educated

APPENDIX II

Chinese girl to get along with a simple, illiterate tribesman required much grace. Praise God that when the Blood of Christ has made a person whole, the cultural barriers can be broken by the love of Christ.

Days were busy for Lau U: Quiet Times for prayer and Bible reading, lectures, private study, the pigs and chickens to feed and the household chores. At half term he took the others to visit a Yao village. What a revelation that was to them!

Another world indeed! Houses were packed for meetings to hear the visitors preach and all returned to Phayao joyfully despite weariness, blisters and leech bites!

May 1967. The bus stops again. This time Lau U has a new Yao fellow student with him—Gaw Hin. There are seven other students. The Yao team is praying for ten Yao to attend the Bible School in 1968. And hopes are high for other tribes and many more Thai. What a strategic spot this is! If young men and women, prayerfully trained in discipleship, will go to the many untaught groups of believers, one vital aspect of missionary work will have been taken over by the local church.

We need a "four self" movement: "self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating AND self-edifying"'!

| Thailande

266 .09593 F

K96a

KUHN, Isobel Ascent to the tribes; Ce volume doit 6tre rendu a la derniére date indiquée ci-dessous.

/sobe! Kuhn is a missionary writer of distinction. Her books have enjoyed phenomenal sales and the demand for them continues, ten years after her death.

Ascenf fo fhe Tribes describes her impressions of tribesland soon after she had exchanged China for Thailand as her mission field. In China her beloved Lisu had turned to God in large numbers: would these triumphs be repeated in North Thailand ? What other tribes familiar in China would be found here? The main part of this volume describes the initial efforts to evangelize the hill tribes in 1952-53 and the challenge of a formidable pioneering task - especially to men.

The final two chapters are an up-to-date record of the situation in 1967-a progress report of planting Christ's Church in each of North

Thailand's tribes.

SBN 85363 062 3

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