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lar Friends in Christ:
Pua
DP.TP IQK / Nan Province, Thailand
UOI d Nwy 3Q^
reetings in the Master's Name I Sunday, August 21, was one of the
appiest and most triumohant days since we have come to Thailand, It
as day which saw nine adults in the Khamoo villaf^e of Nam Mong buried
ith their Lord in baptism. Our prayers for these people were answered
1 such a way as to greatly strengthen our faith in the power of the
oly Spirit, Because of the trip to Bangkok which most of you know
Dout, I had been unable to visit this village for the two months pre-
lous. When we returned from Bangkok we received the encouraging news
bat a number in this village were ready to follow the Lord,
ia the short-cut over the hills Nam Mong is only a day's journey by
oot from Pua so I had planned to leave Saturday, August 20, The trip
ad already been postponed twice, I was determined that, if at all
ossible, it would not be. postponed again. Two men from the village
rrived at our house Friday evening and offered to guide me back by a
Irect route v/hich would avoid crossing the flooded and dangerous Yao
Iver. Due to the slowness of my two carriers we got off to a late
tart, and the deep, rainy-season mud made our progress slow. The
Lve of us hired a dugout to-.-.takQ' usacro^s.;*the .PUa-Biver for a total
5st of a nickel. However, when we got to the Nan River we could
Lnd no boatmen und the Nan is impossible to weim across at this time
!* year. However, we did find a tiny abandoned dugout. One of the
3n cut an oar from a giant bamboo stem, and we managed to make it across
1 three trips. Because of these delays, it was dusk, Saturday, when
3 finally reached the village. In spite of this, we immediately start-
i preaching to the assembled crowd. Our "sermons" in these tribal
lllages are, of necessity, informal and the listeners feel free at
ly time to interrupt v/ith question and comment. Most of those pre-
3nt had heard the gospel many times and so I was explaining in some
3tail the plan of salvation. While I was discussing the importance
r confessing Christ before men. Tan, a dark, full-blooded young
r*ibesman, interruped to say, "l want to confess my faith in Jesus
Lght now," Such a confession of faith thrills me far more than the
Bluctant responses to a formal invitation one sees in so many churches
Bwadays, Here is the true spirit of primitive Christianity, ^The
Bspel is preached, the Holy Spirit moves, and the convicted sinner
:"ies out in realization of his need. Such was it on the day of
Bntecost when the multitudes cried out, "Brethren,- what should we do?"
t Tan's request we visited his home early the next morning explaining
^ain to him and his wife, Lek, the plan of salvation, the elements of
Christian life and, above all, the heavy responsibility one must
Bcept In becoming a Christian. Tan's response was "Teacher, we under
hand all these things and we want to be baptized right now." So we
roceeded through the rain, dovm the slippery bank to a spot where these
"jxing people could be immersed in the flooded yellovr torrent of the
io River, Among those present, for the baptism was a youth named
rnig, the son of Thai parents. Since his father was a professing con-
^rt of the Pr-^sbyterian missionaries at Nan, Lang had been sprinkled
ille very young with no iinderstanding of the true nature and signlfl^,.^
nee of scriptural baptism. As I climbed up the river bank the rest
^ the crowd had gone but Lang lingered, "After seeing this," he said,
t have no fullness of heart. I want to be baptised the way Jesus
IS," So we went back down the rj,-ver tank and Lang completed his
^ young Khamoo girl who gives
no encouragement in his Christian life,
Morning services were a time of great rejoicing and the sicall group
enthusiastically tried to learn the nelddy as well as the words of
some familiar hymns. After services, I went up to the headman's home.
He is also a former professing Pr shyterian, having received three
years of education in the mission schools. He renounced his faith
in order to maintain his position, and his. grown son, who was one of my
travelling companions, is one of the most ardent antagonists of the
gospel in the village. I spoke to the headman a few minutes about
taking a stand for Christ again.emphasizing that eternal values far
^tweigi any rank or position available in this life. As I taught in
ihai, the headman's son argued and belittled my teaching in Khamoo.
Neverthe less, in the course of this message, Gaao, another fine young
man, took a public stand for Christ in the face of ridicule from his
friends. I then accompanied Gaao to his home where he assembled his
sisters and we'" again went through an instruction period.
At the close, Gaao and his wife and his older brother, Ngern, requested
to be baptised, so we started for the river bank. Three others who had
previously professed faith in Christ were baptised at the same time.
One of the highlights of the afternoon was the demolishing of the spirit
shelves. Every Khamoo home has a shelf where offerings to the demons are
placed in the hope of appe^ing them and preventing misfortune. In
teaching these tribespeople^ we have tried to emphasize that a clean
break must be made and all elements of demon-worship must be abandoned
before an individual can come into Christ. Thus, the destruction of
the demon-shelves becomes an important means of testifying before the
village that the darkness of Satan has been abandoned for the light of
Jesus Christ. V/e gathered the dried flowers, leaves, bits of paper and"
cloth which had constituted the offerings to the demons and one of the
young men threw them into the river. Then we had a season of prayer
in the homes of the new believers whe>-e they all committed their lives
to the almighty hand of Christ. In the afternoon we had another service
for believers in which they partook for the first time of the Lord's
supper. It is hard for those of us who have had Christian teaching
all our lives to fathom the complete ignorance of these tribespeople
concerning all things Christian, Such things as reverence and quiet
ness during services must be taught patiently, step by step. To the
new missionary, especially, it is a tribulation to conduct a baptismal
seryice when the crowd on the bank hoots and laughS with each baptism.
It is a strain on the spirit to conduct a communion service amid gig
gling and whispering of onlookers. It is difficult to teach a Bible
lesson to a group of hill tribes-folk who have never before had to sit
quie:t3y and still for as long as twenty minutes. Yet we do praise God
for the sustaining grace that He gives at such times. Persecution in
Nam Mong is very severe and the young people who were baptised that
day spent a sleepless night as their relatives descended upon them,
berating them and attempting to force them to renounce the Christ
whom they had Just accepted. Gaao came to me the next morning, "They
did not let me sleep at all last night," he said, "But I am going to
stand firm for Christ," Otfeers in the village seem on the verge of
accepting. Ban is a criminal who has taken refuge in this village. A
convicted murderer, thief, and opium addict, he says, "If God can still
forgive me and deliver me from the opium habit I am ready to give my
life to Him, All my life I have trusted myself and now I have no
peace." A teenage girl asked to be baptised but showed insufficient
knowledge when questioned. She is a younger sister of Ngem and Gaao
so I instructed them to teach her more fully of the way of salvation
so that she might be baptised as ?oon she has adequate understanding.
Dawn, mother young man, said, "Teacher, I think that maybe I would