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Note: The New Church and Parsonage buildings have now been completed.
300 Coffee plants have been planted as well as various other newly introduced
vegtables. 2 fish ponds have also been dug.
HISTORY
The Karen Po are one of the unreached minority groups
in the North of Thailand. Unlike the other Karen tribe (Sakaw) there
are very few Christians among them. Traditionally they worship their
ancestors and few of them are Buddhists.
Through our outreach times with our church we had the opportunity to
minister to these people during the last four years.
In the past there has been persecution such as an attempt to poison
a missionary who had been there before us, attempt of beating up our
evangelists and churchplanters, throwing stones at outreach teams and
other forms of threatenings…The whole district of Hoat is very
tuff spiritualwise. However the Lord used us to reach a village named
Hui Thattop. It’s location is an hours drive away from the district
town of Hoat and another 3-4 hours walk West towards the Burmese border.
To reach the village you need to walk through rice paddies on small
paths, cross rivers with no bridge and walk through jungle. The villages
are so remote, that they cannot get medical attention nor has any one
of them an education. They are in need of primary health care and from
a western view they do not use common hygienic practices. They have
never learned these things. The houses are build by material that they
find in the nature such as wood, bamboo, leaves etc. All of them grow
rice and some vegetable, raise pigs and chicken and what the jungle
supplies they will eat.
When we went to share the Good News with these people, most of them
responded to the Gospel and received deliverance from the bondage of
evil spirits. One boy for example had been tormented by evils spirits
since his birth. The parents had done a dedication and since that ceremony
he suffered seizures. When our staff prayed for him and burned the bottle
containing things included in that kind of ceremony, he got healed immediately.
Under the tremendous fear of evil spirits the witch doctor had been
leading the whole village up to the top of the mountain. That was the
place where the spirits would be pleased for them to live. In truth
they were led into a curse of poverty. There was no water and they had
to walk down every day to the river to get water and to bath. The open
air toilets caused diseases the pigs just waiting for you to finish
up! ).
Since the people found freedom in Jesus Christ, they were open to move
to a better location. There are restrictions from the government on
where to move and also they needed to be able to have land to provide
for their families. Most of the families became Christians, but the
witch doctor still hesitates out of fear for the spirits and what they
might do to him. We are praying that soon he will open his heart and
find deliverance.
Our ministry:
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Teaching the new believers the basic principles of
the bible
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Raise local evangelists and disciple for leadership
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Relief and development: provision with sanitary buildings
and watersystem, medical treatment and health education, donations
of blankets and clothing particular during the cold season, project
of building a dormitory for the children to attend school in the closest
village ( which is still a three to four hour hike from their place
), building a fishpond for better nutrition, starting cottage industry.
Project:
The village currently has 65 people and 17 houses. We relocated the
whole village, tearing down the houses and carrying them 1km down the
hill to the new location to rebuild the homes and to build toilets.
We build a waterway that leads from the waterfall to the village mostly
below the ground.
Pray
Please Pray for the chief Aah Jae and his father the witch doctor
that they will choose to accept what they already to believe to be true.
That Jesus is the answer.
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