Orality in Isaan

7/8/2014

Marten & Esther Visser

Communication is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to missions and church planting in particular. Every missionary will, at least to some extent, have to face questions like: what method am I going to use? where do I start? how much time do I have? how do I translate certain words? And does it even make sense to the people or will they forget what I was talking about immediately after I’ve left?

Hesselgrave, in his book Communicating Christ Cross-culturally says that we as missionaries have the responsibility to make sure our message is understood in the cultural context of the people. The missionary needs to learn to communicate the gospel to the people in terms of their way of viewing the world, their way of thinking, their way of expressing themselves in language, their way of acting, their response to media, etc.

One important aspect when it comes to communication, is that in our world today, still a vast majority cannot or does not prefer to learn from reading. This is certainly true for the Isaan people.

However, most of the Christian discipleship materials and evangelism strategies use literate methods of communication.

As an effort to explore and adopt more oral strategies, an orality workshop called Simply The Story (www.simplythestory.org) was organized in our area recently. In the workshop people learn several stories from the Bible by heart and also practice telling these stories to other people. After that there is a time of guided discussion about the meaning of the story after which the story teller leads the listeners to some applications from the story.

The response was very positive, people are enthusiastic and willing to take this on. For us as missionaries this is so encouraging to see. The whole of Isaan  is not going to be reached with the gospel by a few pastors or missionaries only. We want to see lay church members empowered and taking on the task of bringing the gospel to their friends, their neighbours and people in their village.

Model, Assist, Watch, Leave

7/2/2014

Sijmen and Annelies den Hartog 

A few months ago a new lady joined our Tuesday night fellowship group, Mae Lop. I had no idea who she was. She was introduced by one of the church members as her neighbour. Mae Lop was quite interested in the gospel, but still saw it as the new faith of her neighbour: ‘her God is helping her, her God has changed her’.

I was wondering if I had to visit Mae Lop with this church member for a more personal conversation about Christ. But soon I realised that I wasn’t needed. This church member, who herself became a Christian half a year ago, looked after Mae Lop: praying together, pointing to God’s blessings in their daily lives and encouraging to read her Bible daily. Weeks passed,

but one Tuesday evening Mae Lop changed her wording to ‘Our God is helping us and answers our prayers’. Mae Lop takes steps to trust God more and more. She watches her Christian neighbour in her daily life and is encouraged by her. Mae Lop also develops a hunger to see other people getting to know the Lord. One of those people is her son. She started to pray for his salvation and turning to the Lord. In his thirties he has some health issues and lives with his mother. Mae Lop prayed for her son and after that he felt much better – they both saw God’s hand in this.

There are many people to reach in Thailand, and we try to reach as many people as possible. But actually with our physical limitations we can only reach some. We try to work through the model ‘Model, Assist, Watch, Leave’. We try to model to the Christians how they can reach others, after that we assist them doing it. With praying hearts we encourage them and watch them reach out without our actual presence. With more Christians involved in the evangelism and discipleship part we can reach many more who never heard the gospel before.  Hopefully one day the church is able to reach out to others without our help. Then it will be time to leave.

This model sounds wonderful, but after 4 years we hadn’t been able to go beyond the ‘Assist’ stage. We are still involved in a lot of assisting and coming alongside Christians to reach out to others. But by God’s grace we are now reaching the stage that we can ‘Watch’ new believers bringing non-believers to the Lord, like the example of Mae Lop showed. This is a blessing for us all!

Christians without a Church

9/14/2011

Martin & Esther Visser

We rode our bikes through three different Isaan districts, with a total of over 100,000 people. In none of these districts is a church. We were looking for openings to share the gospel. At the same time we tried to find out if there maybe already were Christians.

In Samchay we only heard about one police officer who is a Christian. In Kham Muang we met a woman who is a Christian together with her husband. At her biological farm we talked for a long time with her, while enjoying wonderful mushroom soup and papaya salad, all made from ingredients growing not more than 15 meters from the low Isaan table we sat on. 

She told how difficult it is is to be the only Christian family in the district, and how they are trying to raise their child as Christian in a totally Buddhist environment. We promised to send a children’s Bible to her. But more than that I hope we will be able to place a missionary church planter couple (or an Isaan church planter couple) in Khammuang. The first important new contact was there. 

In the third district we went, Sahatsakhan, a lot more was happening. We heard about three different groups of Christians, each about five people, and about a few solitary Christians. If they could be brought together (which is not a given), a church could be started immediately. 

Two encounters were special to me. At a school a teacher told us that she had a Christian student. She called him out of the class room. It was evident: he had a necklace with a huge cross. We visited his mother. She was speaking Thai with a heavy accent, and we found out she was tribal from North-Thailand who had married an Isaan man. Almost half of all Christian in Thailand are tribal, though the tribes have less than 2% of the population. Meeting her made me realize once again there is a potential for a mission movement within Thailand itself: from the tribes to the Thai. 

A bit later we met a young teacher who also is a Christian. Sometimes he goes to a church over a hundred kilometres away. The closest church is ‘only’ 30 kilometres, but he didn’t know anybody there. He reassured us: “I attend the Facebook church every day.” Internet church can never take the place of real churches where you know each other, see each other, and eat together. Yet they can play an important role in supporting isolated Christians. 

Yet, Christians without a church: it’s far from ideal. Therefore I hope in time to come we will be able to plant churches (no, not buildings, but groups of people called together by God around his Word and the breaking of the bread) in Samchai, Kham Muang, and Sahatsakhan.