Advance Camps
Advance Camps |B Sica Camp is now running. But the tribes are still too far away to reach! It is evident that intermediary stations, such as Allan and Evelyn Crane made at Bandak, are necessary— some place that is a market to which the tribes come down, but at the same time is within reach of a post office, stores, and stalls selling fresh meat and vegetables. Thai language students can finish their course at such places and still be able to get an introduction to tribal mountaineering. The Cranes could not rent a house at Bandak—there were none to be had. This is often a guiding factor as to where God wants us to establish an Advance Camp.
Chiengrai would obviously be the next place to open. Our O.M.F. North Thailand field can be pictured like an oldfashioned tuning fork, two mountain corridors corresponding to the prongs of the fork. Fang is at the end of the left prong, and Chiengrai is at the tip of the right one. At the joint of the V-prong lies the railway town of Lampang, and the end of the handle is that hard little place, Tak.
Base Camp is halfway up the left prong. But to get from the Chiengmai corridor to the Chiengrai corridor is impossible most of the year, unless you make a long detour by coming down the railway to Lampang (the prong joint) and going up to Chiengrai by bus. To Chiengrai market come different tribes—Karen, Lisu, Lahu, Yao and Akha, so there is some contact possible. The American Presbyterians have a good work at Chiengrai—Overbrook Hospital, a school, an agricultural farm, and a church, all of which gave the O.M.F. a hearty welcome.
The Advance Camp at Chiengrai was opened by Otto and Adri Scheuzger, who were in charge until they turned it over to Allyn and Esther Cooke. The A.P.M. had a lovely old house vacant and this they rented to us. As it was roomy and a good Thai language teacher was available, some of
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our new workers went there for language study: Mary Baldock, Sylvia Lombard, Lilian Hamer, Eileen O'Rourke, Larry and Verda Peet, and Georgette Molland.
Dr. and Mrs. McDaniel of the A.P.M. were kindred spirits (theologically and in every other way) and the O.M.F. will not soon forget their kindness and hospitality. Mr. and Mrs.
Travaillie, who lived out on the farm project were equally kind and hospitable, and Mr. Travaillie kindly acted as our oral examiner in Thai. Fellowship with these dear friends was delightful, and when the McDaniels, leaving for furlough, requested the O.M.F. to lend them a doctor to help fill the gap at Overbrook, our Mission was glad to respond. Dr. and Mrs. Anderson were sent for six months, and then Dr. and Mrs. John Toop.
The mountains around Chiengrai had been visited by the exploration teams (Orville Carlson, Don Rulison, and Otto and Adri Scheuzger) but a scattered first presentation of the Gospel is not evangelization. So to Allyn and Esther Cooke
(Allyn speaks Chinese, Lahu, and Lisu fluently) fell the arduous task of knocking until a door opened.
Was there no significance in the fact that some three weeks before the Cookes arrived, Overbrook Hospital had its first
Lisu patient? Dr. McDaniel, keen evangelist that he is, brought out some Lisu Gospel records and had the phonograph put beside this man's bed and played to him. The patient did not believe on the Lord at that time, but at least he was given an opportunity to understand the Gospel message.
And now our '"'Caleb"' was ready to climb Thailand mountains in search of Lisu as he had climbed the mountains of China. It is not our purpose or desire to praise any of our workers, but sometimes an example can be a lift to someone else. Allyn Cooke was nearer sixty than fifty, and this was rough pioneer travelling and living. Many could belong to the race of Caleb if they would only believe that when God calls, He will enable. You know that Caleb at eighty-five years of age asked Joshua to assign him the mountain where the giants lived, the Anakim who had frightened his own generation so that they had to turn back and wander for forty years in the wilderness. "Give me this mountain!' he cried. "There are Anakim living on it in strong walled cities,
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and I would fain see if I cannot drive them out, with the Lord at my side, and claim his promise." Caleb got it, and he conquered it, at an age when most of the human race are talking of fireside leisure!
Now, in the Lord's ordering, as Allyn climbed toward the Lisu he had to pass through a village we have since come to call Maesalong, though that is not its correct name. This was a village of Yao, not Lisu, but its white-haired genial headman (the Brother Six previously mentioned) spoke Chinese (Yunnanese). He had emigrated from Indo-China some years before, and in his former home had been visited often by French officials, who liked his jovial hospitality.
Hence a white skin not only did not bother Brother Six, but it even attracted him. So when the tall, spare white man passed by, he was warmly welcomed and urged to come back again.
It was April, 1951, before Allyn managed to get back to Maesalong. He was greeted with the question, ""Why didn't you come back sooner ?"
Though delayed, this visit was timely, for visitors from other villages were in the house. A child in the home of a second headman, named Old .Two, was ill, and the villagers were set for a three-day orgy of demon worship, hoping that by appeasing the spirits they could assure the healing of the child. Allyn was invited to spend the night in Old Two's house, where the crowds hung around until late listening to the Gospel message and begging to hear him sing Gospel choruses in Chinese.
One young man seemed particularly attentive, and thrilled Allyn by saying, "I understand from what you have told us that Jesus will take all my sins away if I believe in Him. Is that correct?"
"Yes, that is true," Allyn assured him.
"Then I believe it!' the young man said.
Using John 5:24, Allyn showed the young man that if he really trusted in Christ he was saved and had eternal life.
But the young fellow, apparently afraid of committing himself further, refused to say another word. 'How careful we must be," Allyn wrote, "not to force things, but to let the Holy Spirit do the persuading!"
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Full of apologies, Old Two told his visitor, "You may stay here in my house tonight, but in the morning my son will escort you to another house. We are holding three days of demon worship, and no one but members of our own family can cross the threshold during that time. You could stay with us, but no one would be allowed to come in and talk to you."
Encouraged to see some measure of conviction for sin in the headman, Allyn next morning moved to the house next door. Old Two came to see him from time to time, and people came and went all day long asking questions. There was a feeling of excitement, as though something were going to happen, and about four o'clock Old Two came in and announced that one family was ready to accept the Lord.
"Apparently they had talked it over," Allyn wrote at the time, "'and many wanted to believe, but all were more or less afraid of the demons. This was to be a test of the Lord's power over the evil spirits.
"The family who made a profession seemed to be very happy over the prospect of deliverance from the powers of darkness which had so long held sway over them. Had we been able to remain longer, I feel sure others would have joined Chao Wan-yin and his wife and little girl in profession of faith in Christ, but we had promised to hold a meeting for Chinese on the border on Sunday, so had to leave the next morning after Chao Wan-yin believed. To us their selecting one of their number to make a test savours of tempting the Lord, but it was their own choice."
It is interesting to follow those old circulars of that time and watch the struggle in the soul of Brother Six. As political headman he had gained much money by taking bribes (they all do) and many an unjust and perhaps wicked decision had been made by him because of the money that entered his pocket. Most of the headmen became so seared in conscience that one does not see any evidence of a conviction of their sin. C. S. Lewis, with his customary shrewd insight, put it well: "When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.
A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a
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thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right! .
. Good people know about good and evil: bad people don't know about either."
The Gospel reached Brother Six before his sins had seared him into that inability to recognize his sin; praise God that His messengers did not dally on their way!
July 22, 1952. "If I become a Christian and cast out all of my demons and my ancestors are you sure that Jesus will want me? When I die and go to Heaven's gate, will He let me in? My sins are so many, I'm afraid He will say, 'Go away,
I don't want such a sinner as you are.' Are you sure Jesus will receive me?" Brother Six asked.
Allyn replied: '"The moment you believe, your sins will be under the Blood, and when Jesus comes back you will be raised from the dead and will stand in Christ's presence with no fear of your sin ever being mentioned again. But if you refuse to believe, even if you die, you will be raised again and will have to stand before God, and He will ask you about everything you have ever done that is wrong. You cannot hide anything from Him. He knows just what you are thinking in your heart. When He has finished judging you, He will send you away to the lake of fire and you will have to suffer torment there forever.
~ ''When we are raised from the dead, will it be our bodies that are raised ?"' Brother Six asked.
On and on he went with most intelligent questions, until many had been discussed quite at length. In all of this Allyn turned up the relevant passages in God's Word, and let God speak to him from the Chinese Bible. Brother Six's wife, who had opposed at the start, became interested and entered into the discussion. 'I'm afraid that I could not be a Christian," she said. "I get angry with the children and beat them. I have too much sin to be a Christian."
The young men in their late teens and early twenties began to gather around, hanging on every word. Frequently Brother
Six would enthusiastically interpret the message into Yao and they would discuss it among themselves.
Previously the young men had kept somewhat aloof, as though they considered this Christianity good enough for the old folk, but now they were keen to search it out for themselves. A young
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man of about twenty seemed especially interested in what was being said. He and Brother Six seemed to be having some sort of discussion in Yao. Suddenly Brother Six turned to Allyn and said, "This boy says he will be a Christian right now. He does not care who believes or who does not. He is going to believe."
"Praise the Lord!" Allyn said. "Do you really mean it?"
"Yes, I do," the young man replied. "Pray for me that I may be successful in business. If I am, then I will surely believe."
"But that is not believing in Him,'' Allyn protested. "That is trying to see if He is trustworthy. You can't believe in Him unless you are willing to believe, whether you are successful or not. Would you be willing to believe even if you had to die because you believe ?"'
He thought a minute, then said, "I am going to believe now, no matter what happens or who else believes or who does not. Pray for me."
It was late that night before Allyn could crawl into his bed bag on the bamboo platform. Even then he was given no rest, for he had not fallen asleep before a Yao man came in with a flaming torch and said, ""Teacher, you'll have to get up. The Lisu are here. They want to hear the phonograph."
The Lisu had consistently declared that the Lisu records are not really Lisu, and they cannot understand them. So Allyn said, 'What shall I play, the Lahu record ?"
'No, we want to hear Lisu."
"Shall I put on talking or a hymn?"
'Put on talking."
Allyn found a sermon on John 3:36, put that on the machine, and played it through.
"Can you understand it?"' he asked.
"Of course. It is our own ancient Lisu language. Play some more."
It was about a month later before Brother Six made his decision for Christ.
The Cookes' circular letter of August 26, 1952, gave this good news:
Ie:
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Brother Six is a Christian! ... a On my previous trip he had offered to go with me to visit another Yao village to exhort them to believe. I told him I was planning to go to the Lisu the next day and asked him if he would go with me... and he said he would. (But when Allyn returned he found Brother Six with an urgency of spirit upon him.) He had decided to go to Chiengrai with me to break off opium. He would not even wait for me, but left the following day and waited for me at the market. (I had promised the Lahu I would spend a night with them.) He said he was afraid to wait because his friends would try to dissuade him if they heard he was going. This decision to break off opium was actually his decision to make a definite break away from the demons and to believe in the Lord. On the way here on the truck, without any word from me, he removed from his wrist the string which is supposed to tie his life in his body and protect him from the demons. Later he made arrangements to sell all of his opium, at a loss.
. How important it is that all of us keep him covered by prayer, lest the fact that we are writing about him expose him to the attacks of the Evil One.
Peak of Everest! How sweet is the perfume of thy rare air.
There is no thrill on earth can rival it. How far the view from thy lone heights, reaching even into eternity itself, where the toil of the way will be forgotten as seeker and sought sit down together to fellowship with the Beloved in The Unhurried Land!* The primitive children of the hills cannot be expected to understand what it costs to climb
Everest, and the missionary often feels his labours are unnoticed by them. But we ourselves can never know what it cost to climb Calvary! And yet the "beyond what ye . . . think'? is often given to us. Just as I have been writing this, a letter has come from one of our Lisu Christians whom we taught in China. Escaped from behind the bamboo curtain, the writer had found himself free but in a strange and civilized land.
Penniless, tongueless—he did not speak their language—he was delighted to find some were speaking English—business people, probably. In his simplicity he thought, of course, that anyone who spoke that language would love him as Ma-pa and Ma-ma had done! His letter is dated March 9,
1955, and this is how he closes:
*A name given to Heaven by a beloved prayer partner and donor.
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In this country educated people hold us Lisu in contempt.
But in ways these educated heathen do not comprehend, God is doing His work. In the days of the Lord Jesus, the children's crumbs which fell bencath the table, the dogs might eat— now that treatment has come upon us. How can we ever forget you, who opened our spiritual eyes? Our great thanks to the White Man's Church who sent missionaries to us. Please give them my greetings. If they had not given of their money, you could not have come to us. If you had not been willing to come, they would have had no one to send. We know now the offering of your lives for the Lisu church.
I never expected this side of Heaven that any of our Lisu children would ever be able to write a letter like that—that they would ever know the cost of the offering. Not that it matters. The offering was joyfully given unto Him, without thought of human appreciation. But gratitude is a very sweet perfume. In The Unhurried Land it will bind us together and help us to understand better how to worship Him, to whom alone real gratitude is due. It would never have entered our hearts to offer our lives if He had not pressed the thought upon us, patiently, persistently. It is a thrill to know that the Lisu will know enough, some day, to appreciate Him more.
A very faithful prayer partner of our Lisu was Miss Frances Brook, who wrote more beautifully than I can express it:
... There are fairer things Than human pleasure couched in ease would win, And there are lonely summits near to God
And narrow paths that lead us unto Him:
O Holy Guide, great Spirit of all Truth, Take Thou our hand and lead us by Thy Way.
That we may stand upon the mount with God, And catching all the glory of His ray, May win some timid shrinking, ease-bound soul
From paths that lie near earth, To heights near Heaven.
When the Cranes could not find a house to rent at Bandak, they decided to try to locate an Advance Camp at Fang— jumping-off place for many Lisu and Lahu, unreachable from Chiengrai. The bus Allan was riding broke down, and he
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had to change to a road truck. This was all in the Lord's planning, unknown to him. On that second truck he found himself near a friendly passenger named Bun, who spoke some English. Kru Bun discovered Allan was hoping to rent premises and tried to tell him that he had a fine house available, but Allan did not understand him clearly. Allan did ascertain, however, that houses in markets on that motor road would be available and tenable, and that the tribes came down to those markets as well as to Fang.
The amphur at Fang was polite, of course, but quite adamant in his insistence that there was no house to rent in that town. But he did suggest that Allan "look down the road somewhere." The Lord's guidance does not always come in a straight line, and this was one such occasion. Searching and inquiring, Allan met a schoolteacher who invited him to stay in his aunt's house, and it was while there that Allan heard of and rented an old empty house in Maeka market.
Then he went back to Base Camp to get Evelyn. Anyone who knows meticulous housekeeper Evelyn knows what a scrubbing that old house received! But even at that it was very dingy, and when the rains began they found it leaked like a sieve. To get it properly repaired was impossible; in despair they began again to inquire and it was only then that they discovered The House by The Side of The Road and The Trail—the house that Kru Bun had been trying to tell Allan about, but, Bun's English being rusty, Allan had not understood—a beautiful Thai house, practically new, on the motor road at Hweiphai (supplies and mail dropped at the door) and at its side the Lisu trail down which the tribes come to market! Day by day (in the few days they were home) a Lisu voice would interrupt their correspondence with ''A-wo-pa (Uncle), what are you doing?''? Contacts were perfect. More of The House by The Side of The Trail (Advance Camp Hweiphai) in the pages ahead.
Meanwhile Otto and Adri Scheuzger had moved south.
The two mountain corridors were now taken care of: Advance Camps had been established on the tips of the two prongs of the tuning fork. But how about all those tribes at the end of the handle of the fork? And those tribes around
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Bandak? They heard that there were many Miao among them. "Something lost behind the ranges'"—always that call pushed our young pioneers on to fields that no one else was working.
In the hard little town called Tak, the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade has been working, and Mr. and Mrs. Overgaard of that society were most helpful in every way to our missionaries. Otto and Adri Scheuzger were invited to live with them until they found the exact spot and house for a jumping-off place for the hills. Across the river from Tak, sprawling under great banyan trees, lies the pretty little village of Pakhui. Through this village pass Miao, Lisu, and Lahu tribesmen on their way to the tempting shops in Tak. Here in Pakhui, Otto and Adri found a house available, right on the riverside. The house was frightfully dirty in those Swiss and Dutch eyes, but the young couple set to work and scrubbed even its walls. There was no toilet, but Mr. Overgaard, a good carpenter, came over, and he and Otto built a neat little bathroom at one end of the veranda. When we visited Pakhui later we found the house, though retaining its native style, was so attractively fixed up that we nicknamed it "The Doll House." A long veranda overlooked the water, and the river scene was a continual drama of Thai life. Best of all, the ferry-landing was right at the foot of their garden fence—the place where the tribesmen must wait if they are going to Tak. Contact was unavoidable.
I always remember The Doll House by an early morning scene. I had gone out on the veranda and there, against the rosy-tinged half-light of dawn, were silhouetted gigantic black shapes that looked like massive creatures with tails on both ends! Elephants! Black against the ruby sunrise. Later at breakfast (the house was so small that the veranda was dining-room, study, and reception-room all in one) I told
Otto.
"Oh, yes," he said casually, as one to whom kings of the ZOO were as commonplace as horses, "they come constantly.
They drag teakwood logs down to the river to be made into rafts for sailing down to Bangkok.'' The missionary aim is not elephants, of course, but the glamour of the East accompanies the heat and sweat of pioneer living.
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From Advance Camp Pakhui, Otto and Adri continued their trips to the surrounding hills, visiting village after village, preaching in Thai and carrying their Gospel Recordings in Lahu, Lisu, and Chinese. Otto filled his diary with clever sketches of tribal life, and their stories were just as thrilling as anyone else's. They had to "'knock'' for about a year before at last a door opened. But it was the hospitality at The Doll
House, and the chance for more private personal talks, that played quite a part in opening hearts to invite them to establish a Summit Camp.
One other young pioneer was looking for a field "where Christ is not named."' Don Rulison saw the Cookes take over Chiengrai, the Cranes set up in Hweiphai (near Fang), and the Scheuzgers working in the Tak area—but where else was a man needed? To the northwest of Base Camp is the most remote tribal area. In the autumn of 1951, Don had made a trip with Orville Carlson to this area and had seen its need. Let us listen in, while he tells of this to his prayer partners:
. . Over the ridge we went, and down through the forest.
Suddenly, beside the trail we saw two children, one of them standing about ten feet above the ground on a pole which was leaned against a tree from which he was cutting off bark with his big knife. (Incidentally, I later learned that this is also the technique they use for felling large trees, leaving very high stumps. Standing barefooted on a pole leaned against a tree, they chop the tree from three sides, felling it exactly where they want it and leaving a very smooth stump.) Friendly and unafraid, the children told us of their village, not far away.
Down the trail we went, and through the trees we soon caught our first glimpse of the Miao village of Little Water
Falls, carved out of the tall hardwood timber on the opposite hillside.
Entering the village, we saw pigs and chickens. high stumps of trees, old logs, and thatched-roof windowless bu'ldings built on the ground with wood-stave walls. The people were mostly out of sight when we appeared. We inquired our way to the house of the headman, who came out and invited us into the dark interior of his home.
The first thing that caught my eye was the demon-shelf on the wall opposite the door. Under it was the latest offering—
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the bloody head of a pig which had just been killed. Near the centre of the room smouldered an open fire, the smoke finding its way out through the many cracks of the walls and roof. On the walls were hung implements of various kinds, such as axes, cross-bows, and Miao organs. On a bench along the wall nearest the fire sat several men in the shadows, one of them smoking a large bamboo water pipe. Wearing their hair in long queues, they looked like Chinese of the nineteenth century, when the Mongol dynasty held sway.
* Orville spoke to the headman in Yunnan Chinese, and was happy to find that he was understood. We soon found out that there were seventeen houses in the village and that the main family name was Wang. A few of the younger men also spoke a little Chinese, so they could understand Orville as he talked to them about the Lord. Mr. Wang, the headman, immediately stated why they could not worship God and believe on His Son: the barrier was that they worshipped demons.
Later he mentioned addiction to opium, and we began to realize how heavy are their chains of sin.
About this time we prepared and ate our dinner. ... Suddenly the elder son of Mr. Wang arose, picked up his big knife from the table and put it in the hip sheath hanging from his belt, took his axe down from the wall peg and hung it over his shoulder.
Then he unslung his Miao organ from its wall peg, gave it a trial blow, and strode out of the door playing this reed instrument with five pipes.
Curiosity impelled me to go outside, too, and see whatever was to happen. Playing the instrument as he went, the young man danced his way down the hill to a large log, a small boy following him. Giving the axe to the boy, he leaped on to the log, playing his instrument all the while. There followed a dance upon this slippery peeled log, including several whirls, the music still continuing, punctuated by axe blows as the boy struck the log. Never breaking the rhythm, the actor leaped to the ground and glided gracefully down the hill, across the stream and out of sight in the timber on the other side of the valley. By this time several young men had joined the procession, carrying their knives, axes, and other implements. When they disappeared into the forest, I went back into the house. After a short time we heard the crash of a big tree falling; evidently this had been the reason for the ceremony.
Before long, young Mr. Wang returned to the house and replaced the organ on its peg.
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How the Yao tribe also attempt to control the demons who molest them was told by Sylvia Lombard in The Millions:*
It is night in the headman's home at Kui-Kang-Pa, and the only light in the house is the flickering flame of a wood fire.
Were it daytime it would still seem like night in the house, for there are no windows to let in the light of day.
Mother and daughter are busy at the back of the house preparing a chicken for an offering to the demons. The wizened grandfather squats near the fire, fiddling with a smelly opium lamp, getting it ready for his evening smoke, but he keeps an anxious eye on the proceedings. Fear of demons is all he has known throughout his long life. The ceremony soon to be performed is a very real business with him, for at all costs the demons must be propitiated to prevent any ill befalling the family. The son is busy with his long knife, cutting coarse home-made paper to the proper size for use in the rites.
A neighbourhood medium has been called in to perform the incantations—a man who is completely demon-controlled and able to work himself into a trance at will. His face is a mask of sin and darkness and fear.
In front of the family demon-shelf a table is set up with the necessary paraphernalia: several little cups of wine, the chicken
(now ready for offering), a tiny lamp (a wick dipped in a pool of oil in a greasy tin can), a pile of the cut paper, and a roll of new cloth that is to play an important part in this ceremony.
The medium sits down, mumbling and wailing repeatedly in a ghoulish voice that has become falsetto and weird. His knees jerk involuntarily and he appears to be in a trance. Hatchet in hand, he hops on one foot up to the table, going through the motion of chopping at something, and making incantations at each step. He repeats this many times, and then reverses the process, facing the door that is always opposite the demon-shelf.
Each time he reaches the doorway he swings the hatchet as though striking at a foe, giving a wild and weird yell as he does this. During this performance he uses several other household implements as well as the hatchet, each in its turn—a tray for sifting rice, a ladle, a stick.
The cloth is spread out on the ground, the medium lies down on it and one layer is brought up to cover him. He extends one hand and beats the ground with the hatchet, still muttering all the time.
Others in the house now begin to search carefully with little *Now East Asia Millions, monthly magazine of Overseas Missionary Fellowship.
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lamps, at the direction of the medium, peeking and peering, up and down, seeking to find the troublesome spirits. They came over to the corner where I was sitting, but "found" nothing and continued their search in another corner. After the medium was satisfied he told them to stop looking. But had he succeeded in exorcising the demons? No! Satan and his hosts are still there.
Fear remains. Sin is ever present. The medium has failed, but what else can he do? He knows no other way.
While the search was in progress, a round-faced, happy-golucky boy, poking the fire with a stick, said, "Mai kam zir mein!" (Don't fear the demons!) This is now a familiar phrase to many of the Yao tribe, for the Gospel records in their own language exhort them not to fear demons. Has the message reached their hearts? We believe it is penetrating the minds and hearts of these people and that deliverance will come. Often the young boys take part in demon worship as a matter of course, or for something to do. After years of watching this ritual in their homes, however, they become bound by demon worship, just like the old grandfather.
The power of darkness is very real, and we can see that these things cannot be taken lightly. We know that if the Son shall make them free they shall be free indeed, and it is this freedom we long to see in the Yao tribe.
A ceremony to appease the demons was held in the home of headman Wang of the Miao tribe the day Don was there, too. Of the night watches, Don wrote:
We spent the evening in the house, talking with the people as opportunity was presented. They cooked their supper in a big pot over the open fire and ate it with large wooden ladles as they sat by shifts around the small table.
About nine o'clock we went to our room and lay down to sleep on a large pelt, which Orville said was a Sambar deerskin.
During the night there were several disturbances. The dogs barked occasionally at either real or imaginary creatures of the forest all about. Conscious of deep, heavy breathing very close to me through the night, I later found out that it was not one of my companions in the room but a snoozing pig, whose head was just the other side of the loosely placed boards that formed the outside wall of the house! When morning came I recognized his snout only a few inches from my face.
Thousands of Karen and Miao live in this section to the northwest of Chiengmai, but they could not be worked from
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that Base Camp. Don needed a springboard some four days into the jungle from there. If only he could get an Advance
Camp somewhere in those hills! The only way was to hire a native porter and go himself and pray and explore. So we find him writing of that sixteen days of suffocating heat of the valleys in this, the hot season, and the refreshing breezes on the ridges, the parching thirst one day when we climbed for hours after our water ran out, and the blessed reviving when we found a little spring of water in a ravine beside the trail; the thrill of climbing over the shoulder of Mt. Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain, and the sight of clever Karen fishermen deftly casting their fish nets into the cool waters of the Maechang.
But I will mention some of the results of this trip. I found the Christian Karen village of Khunjem (American Baptist
Mission) is well located to reach about a score of Flowery Miao villages and a smaller number of White Miao. Arrangements were made for the repairing of a small building where I can live, and for the hauling of my belongings from the motor road..s 3% Khunjem is Sgaw-Karen village, and all of the one or two hundred inhabitants are professing Christians who meet regularly for about five times a week for services. The work seems to be quite indigenous and a missionary from another mission visits them when possible. He hopes that the Karen
Christians may also get more of a missionary vision for their eis Miao and Karen neighbours. So let us pray to that end; ais From Khunjem one must walk three or four days to see an automobile, a bicycle, a store, or a doctor. But to be able to bring Christ to the many Miao in that area will more than balance any seeming difficulty.
Don was writing for his prayer partners, but I know he would never want to pass this point without public acknowledgment of how much we all owe to the generosity of '"'the missionary from another mission'? mentioned above. That was, of course, the Karen's own missionary, Mr. Alfred Vanbenschoten. To allow a missionary of another mission (O.M.F.) to settle right in the middle of one's own territory takes a largeness of heart and a consecration to the spread of the Gospel that is rare. It ought not to be, but it is, rare. The
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nationals among whom one lives in the hills get to love the white man who has come into their midst. That affection might have been weaned away from the missionary who was over them in the Lord, but who could only pay them occasional visits, even though he held them so fervently in his heart. Don was very careful that this should not happen, and that Khunjem's loyalty to the A.B.M. be preserved. But the graciousness of Mr. Vanbenschoten (and his devoted wife, Ruth) in trusting us will never be forgotten.
The "building" that was repaired for Don was just a Karen nipa-leaf hut! It had a raised bamboo floor on which Don slept and was as simple and primitive as one can imagine.
Here Don lived alone, learning a bit of Karen perforce, but taking trips into the surrounding Miao hills continually. The Karen church helped Don get carriers to bring food supplies in from Base Camp, along with mail and medicines.
Don's letters from Advance Camp Khunjem are mainly lists of people and villages for whom prayer is requested.
Now and again there is a little picture of the pioneer at work.
I will cull a few:
August 4, 1952. Last week I had an opportunity to take a four-day rainy weather trip and make my first visit to the Miao village of Hoy-Ge-Bong. I was accompanied by two Karen
Christian men, named Bu-ka and Pa-le-bu. Bu-ka was most helpful in interpreting the Thai Gospel records into the Shan language which the Miao men could understand. Some of them also understood Chinese, so that I was able to use the Chinese records and converse with them in Chinese.
After negotiating the "greasy" trail, we arrived at their hillside village about twilight. Making our way through the sea of mud (of the barnyard variety) we found the house of the headman, Mr. Han, where the crackling open fire soon began to dry out our wet clothes. But before they had hardly begun to steam well, the strains of a Chinese gospel duet from our record player had attracted about twenty-five men, women, and children. Then for more than an hour, the blessed Good News was proclaimed, using the Chinese, Thai, and Shan languages, after which there was a recess for supper. I do wish you could have been in my place then. Karen Bu-ka and I were sitting in the corner, on the little bamboo sleeping platform, with the record player and the Two Roads Chinese gospel poster.
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Crowded around us, as close as they could get, were some fifteen children, the little tots in their birthday suits, and the older ones more fully clothed in proportion to age. The adults were in the background. There was one little girl about ten years old with vari-coloured pleated skirt, narrow blue apron, black blouse, and long black hair arranged in a knot on top of her head. She had such shining bright eyes and sweet smile that one would hardly notice that her little ring-encircled neck had probably never been really washed. She was interested to hear everything and would occasionally reprimand her noisy little sister with a word of explanation. My heart was touched as I heard her repeat the name of Jesus. It may be your prayers that will be answered in bringing this little lost lamb into His fold.
The adults, too, were interested, but I cannot say that I saw any evidence of conviction of sin. I was much impressed by the many questions that headman Han put to Karen Bu-ka, who has been a Christian for eighteen years. Here was a Christian
Karen testifying to a heathen Miao of the saving and keeping grace of God! This experience . .
. opened my eyes to something which 1 had not so fully realized before. The Karen church here may most probably be either the stepping-stone or the stumbling block .
. . for the Miao to turn to Christ.
My professor of Dendrology, back in Forestry College, used to say, when teaching us tree-identification, ''One seeing is worth a hundred hearings."' What the heathen see in the daily lives of the Christian Karens may have more influence than what they hear from a foreign missionary. [Then Don pleads for prayer for the Karen church.] September 9, 1952. [Feeling that he should describe and name certain villages for prayer, Don continues:] First, pray for the chain of villages extending from south to north for about forty miles in the mountains west of here. In the valley I had much difficulty obtaining a guide for this trip. I was told no one knows the trails and no one goes to the Miao villages except opium smokers and opium traders. The result was that the guide who finally went with me (though I thought better of him at first) also turned out to be an opium addict.
. East Me-Suk... West Me-Suk... Meo-Lan... Khun-Me-Nai...
Me-Sa-Thaup. Here the headman's house turned out to be a veritable opium den, where the leading men of the area were smoking all night. They seemed astounded at my coming and very suspicious of my intentions. However, they wanted to hear
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the records. So, after a bamboo mat was spread on the dirt floor, they were soon listening to Gospel messages on Romans
1:16 and 3:23, and John 3:36. Some of the men understood well. After about an hour, the headman, after understanding plainly, I believe, said, '"That's all. You can close it up now!"
Let us pray that he may not keep the many people of this large village from hearing and believing.
Later in the evening I was invited to play the records for another hour, before making my bed on that same mat. When
I awoke during the night, I saw men still smoking opium and heard their animated conversation, though I could not understand what they were saying. The whole experience frightened my already nervous and imaginative guide so much that, on the next afternoon, rather than go to another Miao village, he ran away from me out into the wilderness and went back to his home. There, to save his own face, he reported that I had been killed by the Miao and he had escaped only with his life. Many people heard this rumour and it was weeks before they knew it was not true.
After my guide abandoned me, I went on alone with a double load, his and mine, meeting two traders and finally reaching the little Miao village where the hospitable headman took us in for the night. I could speak with him in Chinese and he listened to Gospel records. Formerly a policemen but now a slave of opium, a Thai man lived in that same Miao hovel. The following day this man guided me to the village of Meo-khong.
And so Don plodded on for three days carrying a double ack.
? In January, 1953, he travelled two hundred miles on foot, taking John around his district.
In March, he repeated that evangelistic trip, walking for twenty-five days, averaging ten miles of mountain road a day, this time with his Karen cook, Dee-gay-tu, a boy who will appear in our story again.
One out of every three nights during April and May he spent in Miao villages.
Though June and July were the rainy season, in those months he walked 350 miles, preaching as he went. With all this devoted and rough living, with all this knocking on Miao hearts, there was no door opened to this missionary. By that we mean no Miao village asked him to come and live among
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them, promising to build him a house. Individuals were brought under conviction and believed, but the "door" Don was praying for did not open. Another door in another district did open, and when that happened Advance Base Khunjem was closed.
Before we leave the work among these thousands of Miao on the northwest hills, let us listen to John's report of their trip together. As Superintendent of our work in North Thailand, my husband of course had to visit each Advance Camp shortly after it was pitched.
A leaf hut in the midst of a great pine forest is Brother Don's house in Khunjem.
. While we were "'at home" in the hut our major occupation was cataloguing our current findings in the Miao tribal tongue. The material in hand now comprises over eight hundred words, a working basis for learning this language.
Hiking together over the hills of the area, Don and I would first seek for the elder of each village we entered, for here is a Miao feudal system—feudal with a vengeance. The governing hand of the village elder permeates all his living, even to the disciplining of the villagers' own children. If an anathema is to be pronounced on anyone, the elder must do it. Hence they say they may only turn to God if the village elder says they may.
*'When once we turn, we will all turn, not merely our own village, but all the villages!' they say. Their reasoning being only in the realm of the natural, it is not surprising that they should think in bulk fashion. We desire to see the power of the Spirit to convict individually, to narrow down the challenge to personal salvation, to the '"'whosoever"' of the Gospel invitation.
One thrilling, never-to-be-forgotten experience for me was our meeting an Indian. In one town, as we were presenting the Gospel at a rest house connected with a Buddhist temple, I noticed a strange face outside, that of a man listening intently.
After the dispersion of the crowd, he lingered behind and introduced himself, speaking to Don in Thai. He said he was a Sikh, and an adherent of three religions: Sikhism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Suddenly I discovered that he also spoke some
Chinese, and Yunnanese at that! He seemed just as awe-struck as I, and in demonstrating his pleasure he fairly hugged me and shook my hand ever so often. An Indian in Thailand, who had learned Chinese in Burma, a follower of three eastern religions, meets an American ambassador for Christ who tells him the
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grand old story that God so loved the world—in the Chinese tongue!
Another memory is of saffron-robed monks of the Buddhist temple asking us for the loan of our Gospel records in order to play them on their own superior player in the temple proper!
You can imagine our inner jubilation when we heard the glorious message of saving grace resounding through those courts—the seat of idolatry and a den of Satan.
It is interesting to note that when Don and Dee-gay-tu went back again to this Thai town in March, Don gave the head monk a copy of the Gospel of Mark. (Don sold some two thousand Bible portions in just a few months.) When he returned on his itineration of this district, he found that the head monk had died, and that he had asked for Don on his deathbed! We do not know whom we shall meet in Heaven, and we have no right to label any effort to make Christ known as "fruitless."
Why did the Miao around Khunjem not respond more?
Was there not enough prayer made for them? Does God want the Seed sown to lie fallow for a while? Or is it His plan for the Karen church first to be revived and quickened to witness to their Miao neighbours? After Don had left, he heard of some Miao to whom he had preached, coming down on Sundays to a Karen church and apparently worshipping there. But I would have you hear the heartbeats of a faithful missionary who, though he has toiled devotedly, has not yet been granted the results his heart longs for. Oswald Chambers has said: '"The test of the life of the saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is.'' In Chinese Turkestan, for example, George Hunter laboured unremittingly, never taking a furlough, and died at over eighty years old without seeing much result. Yet today there are thousands of believers where he scattered the Seed in loneliness.
In Lomsak, again we were helped by missionaries of another society. Far to the southeast of Base Camp, some Finnish missionaries had been working. They had seen Miao coming down to their market and had taken them on their hearts for evangelization. They had made one trip up intc the mountains, visiting the homes of those Miao they had met, and found them very responsive. In fact, several families had burned
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their demon altars on that very first hearing, but Mr. Raassina and Mr. Heinigienen were middle-aged men. They saw that physically they could not endure the hard mountain travel and living, especially in addition to carrying the burden of the little
Thai church God had given them in Lomsak. So when they heard that the O.M.F. was working the tribes they sent a message to Otto Scheuzger, asking our Mission to take over the Miao in Lomsak area and promising every help they could possibly give.
At first we had no one to send. Don was more than busy at Khunjem, and the Scheuzgers themselves were just about to open a Summit Camp—they most certainly could not go.
But Otto wrote that request in the prayer book at Base Camp, which now lies before me. ''Pray for the six large Miao villages in Petsaboon province where we have contacts.
... We have not been there."
Toward the close of 1953, Don had that severe fever in Khunjem which we have mentioned before, and it was advisable for him to come out to Base Camp for rest and medical attention. Then the Scheuzgers urged him to come and visit them in their new Summit Camp, and while there the needs of Lomsak district were laid before him. By this time,
Don could speak quite a bit of White Miao, and the Scheuzgers had hoped that he would be enabled to reap a harvest among some White Miao of their mountains who had asked for a visit from missionaries. Don writes:
When we visited the White Miao village (in the Scheuzgers' district) we found that this door, which had seemed wide open only two months before, had closed. A Satan-inspired demon doctor had moved in from another area, telling most hideous lies about the missionaries and their intentions, so that many people who had formerly been receptive were now afraid.
When this door closed, time permitted Dee-gay-tu and myself to accompany Ernie Heimbach on a further survey evangelistic trip to the Petsaboon White Miao area farther east in Thailand. Here we found many open hearts prepared to receive the Good News—prepared by God by means of the heavy satanic oppression under which they have been existing.
We stayed six nights in the large village of Nam-Khet (Crocodile Creek) and seven nights in five other villages of the area.
The days at Nam-Khet are never to be forgotten, as we were
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privileged to minister to dear White Miao people with sick souls and bodies. From the beginning many professed to believe our message of Jesus, and before we left, three families had taken that step of cleaning up their homes for Jesus by burning their demon shrines and other objects of demonolatry. . .
. Oh, if I could only picture to you the pathos of these dear people who for generations have been the helpless prey of the Evil
One, without a glimmer of hope! Once a man interrupted my preaching to ask wistfully, ""You don't mean that God loves us
Miao, do you?" They could not conceive of anyone loving them, much less the God of all creation. And I recall overhearing the first waking words of one of the sons in the headman's house where we slept the last night. An hour before daylight when he arose to begin his morning duties of chopping food for the horses, he burst out with, "Oh, I truly believe in Jesus!"
The Miao there urged us to return soon to teach them more about Jesus and to bring medicines to help them in their many sicknesses. So we are vigorously applying ourselves toward meeting this most urgent call. Tomorrow I expect to leave for Khunjem to say good-bye and to bring out my belongings. It will not be easy to leave my little leaf-house there and the dear
Karen people who have helped to make it such a happy and blessed home for me for almost two years.
In April, we three (Ernie Heimbach, Dee-gay-tu, and I) hope to return to Nam-Khet. "For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries" (I Cor.
16:9).
The Ernest Heimbach family and Peter Nightingale were now Thai language students at Base Camp. The Heimbachs had been called of God to the Black Miao in China, but had only one month among them before the communist movement put an end to their labours there. Now they were in Thailand laboriously working on the required Thai language, so Don's knowledge of Miao was a great help in the opening of Nam-Khet. We will tell more of that in the section on Summit Camps.
Our first worker to live at Advance Camp Lomsak was Nurse Frances Bailey. She had helped at various places while studying the Thai language, including some time at the Leprosy
Colony, but when those language exams were behind her she was keen to get as near to the Miao as possible. So was her
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partner, Nurse Dorothy Jones, but just as Dorothy was about duc to procced to Lomsak, I fell ill and had to be flown home to Amcrica. Dorothy was asked to take my place at Base Camp until other arrangements could be made, and her selfless service there will never be forgotten by us. She and Frances joined forces again when Orville and Hazel Carlson moved up into Base Camp—but that is far ahead in our story.
The Finnish missionaries fulfilled their promise to help us in every way. No one could have done more. But after living some months with them, Frances was able to secure a little house of her own, where she lived and further helped our missionaries in their journeys up and down, forwarded their mail and supplies. There, at Lomsak, she also made contacts with Miao at the market.
To reach Lomsak from Base Camp one must travel down the railway for some distance and then take a bus or jeep across country. On one of these train trips Frances, travelling alone of course as Dorothy was not free yet, met with a harassing but not unusual adventure. I quote:
On the train from Lampang I got mixed up (unwittingly, of course) with an opium gang, and before long I found the stuff pushed under my skirt without any explanation, or so much as an "'if you please'! I acted quickly and gave it back, only just in time as, after the first search, the policeman got suspicious and went to call his men. They came in from both ends of the coach and searched well, but didn't find it, due to expert passing. When I got off at Tapanhin, the woman begged to come with me, though her ticket read Bangkok. I tried to avoid her; but she left her young six-year-old child on the train to go on to Bangkok alone, and eventually traced me. My light was out, however, and I wouldn't open the door. I think she wanted to bribe me to keep the opium overnight, because the customs inspectors do not search foreigners. Had she stayed on the train she would have been caught.
And if Frances had reported that woman, the lives of all of our workers in the mountains might have been endangered. All the tribes, excepting some of the Lahu, plant opium and, in the course of our work, we cannot help seeing and hearing things which, for the sake of keeping the mountain door open to our preaching, we may not report. We take no
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part in it, but neither may we act as government spies. We are as much opposed to it as the government is, and any tribesman that turns Christian is dealt with on this matter of smoking, as well as planting and trading in opium.
From hot little Lomsak, Frances wrote:
The Lord gave me the wonderful joy of seeing a Miao soul born again in my house. The man had a gunshot wound in his arm so severe that the doctors in Petsaboon hospital wanted to amputate. He refused this and came pleading with me to do something. "If they take my arm off I'll only go back home and smoke opium till I die," he said. He is only about twenty years old and such a nice boy—married, but no children yet. His wife is a dear. Here was another one who did not know as yet the Fountain of Living Water. But as we talked (I asked a Thai
Christian student to speak in the native dialect to him for me) he began to thirst—and then he drank of that life-giving steam. I went into some detail to explain that Jesus had already died for his sins, and that we did not accept Him as Saviour to escape sickness. He grasped the truth and wanted
Christ. Thinking he would not know how to pray, I asked the Thai boy to lead him. They had not gone far when the Miao lad said, ''I want to pray in my own language!" and he started off alone. His prayer seemed to be all "'Fesu—Fesu—Fesu,"' but isn't that just how it should be? ''Jesus, oh, how sweet the Name!"
I prayed much about how to treat him and felt led to put his arm in plaster of Paris, leaving a place for drainage, but after three days there was no drainage and he was responding to sulfa and penicillin and liver shots. In less than a week he was able to go home. His face, so sad when he came, now is aglow. But he returns to the home of his father, who has two wives and smokes opium. Things will not be easy for him.
Before he went he asked me to cut his spirit-strings off. Praise the Lord!
; "And now I've got a new worry!" playfully wrote a young sweetheart to her lover, her first letter after their engagement.
"Every time you go out into the rain without your rubbers, I'll be seeing you sick with pneumonia!"' This is a real truth in life. Every new ecstasy has a new pain tied to its tail. And the young tribal convert, trudging up the mountainside on his way home, has no idea of the ecstasy and the pain he has left behind him in the missionary's breast. Will he have the
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character to stand? Will he be willing for obedience? Will Satan lay him low with sickness? (This happens so often to new converts that the tribal missionary foresees it anxiously.)
Will he be a "joy and crown of rejoicing," or a Demas who turned back, having loved this present world ? When he is your first convert, ecstasy probably prevails. After some years the thrill will be tempered with spiritual alertness on his behalf.
But no matter how long your experience, the joy of having pointed a soul to his Saviour no man can take from you. And the joy of seeing a "break" come into the century-long night cannot be dimmed.
When Orville and Hazel Carlson came into Thailand to be trail-blazers for the O.M.F. they had already spent a strenuous term of service and were needing furlough. They kindly ran Base Camp for us for about six months, as I have said, and then we felt they must really get a rest. So in April,
1953, they left for the American continent. Prayer partners were so ignorant of the needs of the new fields that the Mission extended their furlough for further deputation work, so that they did not return to us until July, 1954. And to them was assigned the thrilling privilege of opening one of our biggest tribes—the Pwo branch of the Karen.
Mr. Vanbenschoten was the one who had the most knowledge of all Karen work, so we conferred with him as to where he thought most of the Pwo were situated. Following his advice we made several trips in different directions hunting for a springboard, and also making inquiries about the locale and numbers of the Pwo Karen population. After this had been accomplished, John felt that the Advance Camp should be established at a small market town called Wanglung, the end of a motor road to the west of Base Camp.
Like Bandak, it was one long street of shops sprawling out from the river bank, and situated in what was obviously a hot, sandy place. No fresh vegetables or meat were to be had locally, and taken in all, there would not be much '"'fun" for missionaries stationed there.
In this regard I weuld like to quote a young soldier, who, on being asked if he liked being in the army, replied, "I am not in the service to enjoy myself, and the military officials
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gi are not interested primarily in my comfort or pleasure. There is a war to be won. That is why I have been called up along with others, and until victory is proclaimed I shall have to forget about ease and delight!" We knew that the missionaries sent to open Wanglung must have this spirit; they must
"forget about ease and delight," and the Carlsons were ready to accept the appointment without flinching. For Wanglung was obviously the strategic springboard for Pwo Karen work. In fact, a fair-sized village of Pwo Karen was only five minutes' walk away! And the first hour that John and I were in Wanglung we counted four different tribes on the market! There would be daily contact.
But by this time the Carlsons had two children—Mary Sue and Rachel—and as I looked at that busy, hot little place,
I felt that their mother should have some help. It was obvious that Hazel, besides having to learn the Pwo Karen language, would be besieged with visitors at all hours. Water, to speak of only one difficulty, must be hauled from a distance, and living would be primitive at the best. So I began to pray for a helper
—it would probably have to be a Thai to begin with, but no Thai servant wanted to go to the end of nowhere and work among strangers! But God was listening to our prayers and chose His own way to send the answer.
Shortly after their arrival, one morning I had shopping to do for the house and Orville had shopping to do for their moving to Wanglung, so he offered to drive me down-town.
He grimly shook his head as the old jeep started and sputtered and refused to respond to treatment. We just had to stop now and again in order to make our purchases, because no one place had everything we needed, and each time we stopped the jeep behaved more obstinately about coming to life when asked to! We pushed it to a start once, but that was on a back alley.
Then on a main street, where all the town could watch us, the jeep went dead. We got out and pushed—with the nationals grinning from ear to ear at us—pushed and ran with it, and it ran quite gaily as long as we did! But it stopped dead as a stubborn mule whenever we stopped. Red in the face from more than one reason, Orville and I discussed what to do. I told him of a garage I knew where help might be found, but as the already purchased things had to have a guard, I sat in the jeep
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in the noon hour, while he chased for help. Little did I dream that what seemed like an everything-gone-wrong situation was really the Lord's manipulation to answer our prayers! The jeep had stopped where parking was illegal, which made me all the more conspicuous, and the very publicity of my position brought a young girl running up to me. She had once worked for Evelyn Crane, and wanted to ask about the missionaries at The House by The Side of The Road. Quite casually I asked if she were still working at the factory where she had been when last I saw her.
"Oh, no," she replied, "I am out of work at the moment; the factory has just closed down." Didn't I jump! Here was a girl accustomed to small town living and already trained by that super housekeeper, Evelyn. She had left the Cranes' employ to run away and get married, but her worthless husband had deserted her, and that is one reason she was in Chiengmai.
"The Carlson family are back from furlough and going to live at Wanglung,"' I said to her. ""How would you like to go and help them?"
Her eyes sparkled. "T'll come over tomorrow morning and discuss it, shall I?'' And so it was settled.
The matter of a house had seemed even more impossible.
Twice I went down in the jeep with John and others, and each time we canvassed the town. A rickety little hut next door to ''a crazy man, but he was not violent" was one possibility. A small one-room bamboo house at a busy crossroads was another.
It would have been suitable for a childless couple, but there was absolutely nowhere for the children to play except in the street. No other place could we find. Yet when Orville, Hazel, and John went down, the Lord had prepared a small house for them. It was just one in the row of shops, but it did have a fenced-off garden at the back where the children could play in safety, so they rented it on the spot. The Lord had chosen it for them, not for their comfort, but for the privilege of bringing fruit for His kingdom, as we shall see.
We knew that Buddhism was very strong in Wanglung, a large temple being the first thing to meet your eye as you come down the motor road. More than that, on our first
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trip we had noticed that they were building a colossal figure of Buddha right near the road—it must have been fifty feet high. It was finished by the time the' Carlsons moved in.
As we had foreseen, the Carlsons were besieged with visitors.
For the different tribes they had Gospel Recordings in several tongues, and this novelty added to the crowds. Of course, the two white children were a great attraction and one tribesman offered to buy Rachel from Orville! He was a bit dubious of Orville's sincerity when told that no price would buy Rachel.
Was Orville playing him for more money?
In the meantime Hazel was making friends with her neighbours. Next door was an old Thai grandmother named Bua, who was sick. Hazel gave her what medicines she thought might help and preached Christ to her. Bua listened with great interest, but as her attention increased, persecution made its appearance. Buddhist priests began to visit Bua also, and on the street one day someone spat in little Mary
Sue's face. Christian tracts were torn up and left conspicuously around, but the missionaries quietly continued their testimony.
Orville went from house to house preaching and explaining the reason for their presence. Many received him cordially but he too began to feel the effect, on the populace as a whole, of Bua's interest in the Gospel. Daily Hazel found time to go next door and read from the Thai New Testament to old Bua.
The granddaughter, Phim,* was obviously interested also, but as the priests and relatives began to threaten them, Phim was not always cordial. One day Hazel returned home despondent.
Bua had argued with her that Buddhism was as good as Christianity and quoted a nun who had been visiting her daily to persuade her that a Buddhist should not be afraid of death.
Bua asked why she could not go to the temple and worship, for God is there.
For answer Hazel quietly opened her New Testament and read Acts 17:24; then she turned away and went home, discouraged. How could one lead a soul out of darkness when immediately so many hands were stretched forth to pull it back again? She did not know that even as she yielded to these depressing thoughts, the miracle had taken place.
"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing *Pronounced Pim; the A is merely an aspirate.
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that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands .
. ." The words ran in the sick woman's ears, and the Light shone into her soul. Why, of course, the temple and this huge figure of Buddha were of no use to the Creator of mountains and rivers and the emerald green plains!
Bua believed it, and with it accepted all that the Word of God could say to her about eternal life. The next time Hazel visited her it was to find her a new babe in Christ, thirsty for the milk of the Word!
The rest was all joy, to teach dear Bua each day, even though there was the sadness of seeing disease conquer her poor old body, for Bua got worse, but before she died she had declared to Phim and her relatives that she was trusting in the Lord Jesus for salvation and that she knew Jesus was going to take her to the many mansions of His Father's palace.
When the end came Bua was in a coma. She had not eaten and did not respond when Phim called to her. But Hazel, longing to know how her soul was progressing through the Valley of the Shadow, had an idea. Bua had loved to hear little Mary Sue sing her sweet songs of the Saviour, so Hazel bent down and whispered to the child to sing ''Jesus Loves Me." As the pretty childish voice trilled through the silence of the death chamber, a wonderful thing happened. The unconscious form on the bed stirred, and then as the sweet little voice soared to His Name, the dying woman sat straight up, smiled, lifted up her hands and placed them together in the position of the Thai salaam.
For two days she had not recognized anyone, but the Name on which she was leaning through the dark valley called forth a desire to worship Him, and her Thai body reacted to its accustomed salute to royalty. Two days later, His rod and His staff her comfort, she passed into His presence.
She had wanted a Christian burial, but her Buddhist relatives would not grant it. Let us hear Hazel's description of what happened, and how the Buddhists treat the entrance into eternity.
Bua was given a heathen funeral. As soon as she died friends were notified and a hundred people must have gathered in the house and stayed there for two nights and a day. Accustomed to weeping and wailing at the time of death in China, we expected the same here, but raucous laughter fell upon our
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ears instead of weeping. The guests gambled and joked. We got very little sleep. The second day after Bua died they took her remains out into the jungle and there, on a stack of sticks closed in on two sides by cement walls, they placed the body and cremated it, as is the custom in this country.
All her days Bua had worshipped strange gods. Only at the end of life had she heard of Jesus Christ and His power to save.
She was saved like a brand from the burning. ... As we watched the pyre, how glad I was that the Lord had given us the place
- ate choice in Wanglung, the wee shack beside the house of ua!
All this time, Orville and Hazel had not forgotten the main purpose of their Advance Camp. The Pwo Karen of the nearby village were not at all responsive—possibly they had been privately threatened by the overshadowing temple and its priests. But Orville had managed to engage a Pwo Karen from the hills to teach him the language, and later, with the help of Dee-gay-tu for a few months, he made survey and evangelistic trips into the surrounding hills, while Hazel and the children continued at Wanglung.
Orville was getting to speak Pwo Karen fairly readily by the time we were faced with leaving. When I came home for medical treatment, John was asked to go to Singapore, and Orville Carlson asked to act as superintendent of North Thailand.
That necessitated the Carlsons leaving Wanglung and moving back to Base Camp. Mr. and Mrs.
Joseph Cooke, however, were just finishing their Thai language examinations and accepted appointment to the Pwo Karen, with Wanglung as a springboard. (Joseph is the son of Allyn and Leila Cooke, much beloved missionaries to the Lisu tribe in China.) (See Progress Report on the Pwo Karen, p. 249.)
One more tribe remains unopened (of those assigned to the O.M.F.)—the Akha. Most degraded of all the tribes, these strong virile people have been allocated to Peter and Jean
Nightingale. Peter and Jean were married in March, 1955, and immediately set out to find a place from which to work the Akha. Each has had a short trip to an Akha village, and been impressed with their great need and also their lovableness.
Once when I was visiting in a Lisu home, my host—Father Wood, we called him—was asking about God's love for every
ASCENT TO THE TRIBES
man. He marvelled greatly at it and then said with a halfembarrassed chuckle, "But He does not love the Akha, of course."
"Yes, indeed He loves the Akha,'' I made answer. "Why do you think He wouldn't?"
"They aren't human, are they?" came the astounding answer. "The Thai say that when God created the Akha man,
He scraped the dirt off the soles of His feet and made him, But the Akha man had no wife and was lonely.
"Go find yourself a wife,' said God [Father Wood continued with the Thai legend]. So the Akha man went out into the woods calling for a wife.
A demon heard him, broke off his tusks and hid them in his matted hair, shaved off a bit of his chest, and came out of the woods grinning. 'I am your wife,' he called back, and that is the origin of the Akha woman. So whenever an Akha woman dies, she turns back into a demon and goes around biting people."
That is the Thai opinion of this tribe, and it is the opinion of the Lisu tribe! But do you think the Akha are humbly longing to be delivered from their despised degradation? It is just as C. S. Lewis said, they are so degraded they think they are quite all right.
Hear now the Cookes' report of a visit to the Akha.
Allyn was overjoyed to find that the Akha could understand and also speak Lahu. Even the children were able to converse in that tongue. He found them friendly and interested in the message, but they evidenced no conviction of sin. On the contrary, they seem to be the most self-righteous of the four tribes. They say that they worship the God of Heaven and do sacrifice to Him.
"Who is your middleman by whom you approach the God of Heaven?" Allyn asked.
"We do not need a middleman," was their answer.
"You cannot do sacrifice to the God of Heaven without a mediator, for God is holy and you are sinful."
"We are not sinful," was the reply. '"'We neither steal nor kill."
The flagrant immorality among the Akha makes it plain that their claim to be without sin is utterly false. It shows
ADVANCE CAMPS
their absolute ignorance of what sin is. And the Thai deem them so filthy that I have been told Thai shopkeepers will not allow them into their shops, although men of other tribes are allowed in.
"The Scrapings from His Feet' is what the Thai legend calls the Akha. Will some of you pray for an entrance into this needy people? Can you hear a drum beating, calling for intercessors, calling for those who will go forth strong in faith to challenge the darkness ?
Doubt sees the obstacle, Faith sees the way; Doubt sees a long dark night, Faith sees the day.
Doubt dreads to take a step.
Faith soars on high, Doubt thunders, ''Who believes?"
Faith answers, "I."
AT io)