The Isaan

Tonight my thoughts are wandering to Thailand.  They go there frequently, and I guess that's normal.  It's like I'm living with one foot firmly planted here---supervising homework, tidying up the living room for the umpteenth time, planning for Christmas---- and the other tentatively feeling around for a firm resting place halfway around the world.  Here is the known, the comfortable.  There is.....well, I don't know what is there!

But I know WHO is there.  A people group, several million strong, with very little Christian presence in their midst.  According to Operation World, Thailand as a whole is only 1.1% Christian after several hundred years of mission work.  Among the Isaan people, the statistics are even more bleak....0.16% .  Ninety percent of them do not know a Christian; half have never even heard the name "Jesus." 

The Isaan are centered in the northeast of Thailand. The region is economically depressed; deforestation has taken its toll.  The people are considered "backwards" and do not enjoy as high a living standard as the rest of the country.  They speak Central Thai (the language we will study in Bangkok), but their heart language is Isaan.  It is an oral language with no written alphabet, and no work in progress towards that end (to our knowledge).

Like the vast majority of Thais, the Isaan are Buddhist...but it is mixed with spiritism and ancestor worship, among other practices.  The younger generation are far less devout than their elders, and the long-standing Buddhist structure is showing signs of cracking.  In the south of Thailand, there is already a strong Muslim presence, and it is steadily creeping northward.  There is an open door right now...if we don't take advantage of it, others surely will.

We spent most of our short trip to Thailand in Ubon Ratchathani, the capital of one of the Isaan provinces.  It is a  university town, with thousands of students from the outlying villages attending high school, techincal schools, or colleges.  We were told that there are very few intact families, and an "orphan spirit" prevails.  Many, many people go to Bangkok to find work (men as taxi drivers, women as domestic help, or, too often, as prostitutes).  The grandparents, back in the villages, raise the children until age 15 or 16.  Then the children move to Ubon for further schooling.  Alone.  The people are incredibly friendly and polite, but we saw a "lostness" in their eyes that we will never forget.

It is to these people that our hearts are drawn.  Lots of people ask us exactly what we plan to do in Ubon.  That's a great question!  Some of our team will find jobs teaching English at the universities, gaining both a visa and an entry point to students' lives.  There are very tentative plans to start a small business of some kind (again, visas and natural connections).  We will likely open a youth center, and possibly a hostel alongside.  But I think the best answer to the question of what we will do is this:  We'll do whatever it takes to win the Isaan to Jesus, working to raise up Thai leaders who can push forward a church-planting movement among their own people.

Supporting national pastors with money and motorbikes is a splendid idea...if there are national pastors.  Micro-finance organizations are wonderfully successful at alleviating poverty at its core, and child sponsorship programs are critical in meeting the needs of children at risk...but both require a church infrastructure already in place.  The Isaan have neither in any measurable quantity.

And so we will go.  "How can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?"  (Romans 10:14 NLT)