My whole life I have dreamed about bringing the Gospel to people who have never heard of Jesus.
And this month, that’s exactly what I am doing. But it’s not as glamorous as I had always imagined. This has been the hardest month of the Race for me so far. I’ve been hotter, more exhausted, weaker, more discouraged, and more homesick than ever before. I can’t help thinking that this is an attack from the enemy as a result of doing ministry in a country that is so opposed to Christianity.
The long-term missionaries that we are working with here are my heroes. They have left their friends and families, and given up their lives in the States to move to this country where they are unwelcome and unwanted, yet they continue to love. And they do it all for the sake of the Gospel. There are soooo many people here who have never heard the name Jesus, and they can’t even imagine the existence of a powerful, loving God who sacrificed Himself to save them from their sins. One of our hosts said that if you ask someone on the streets if they know Jesus, they’ll say, “No one by that name lives here. Try the next town over.” They have no idea. And our hosts are not ok with that. That’s why they so willingly gave up everything they knew and moved to Laos.
“It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written, ‘Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.'”
– Romans 15:20
It’s not illegal to be a Christian in Laos, but it is illegal to evangelize. That’s why no one EVER uses “the m word” (missionary) here, in case someone is listening. The government is strictly against Western influence invading their country, and they see Christianity as a Western religion. So most of the missionaries here work under the cover of opening a non-Christian business, and they share the Gospel in their personal relations that they build with the locals. Our hosts have a preschool, where we have been volunteering for the past two weeks. I absolutely love the children in my class, the 5-year-olds. Our first day, we did a skit telling the kids the story of creation. Then each day from there, we led our individual classes in coloring pages and crafts about the days of creation.
Laos is less than 1% Christian. I don’t know much about the country’s history, but I know it has a communist government, who is strongly opposed to any outside influence. The country was only opened to foreigners ten years ago. Arriving into the country, I felt like I was stepping into the past. It’s said that Laos is 70 years behind its neighbor Thailand. The dominant religions here in Laos are Buddhism and animism (spirit worship), and most people believe a mixture of the two. One of our first nights here our host took us up to the top of a mountain to see the Big Buddha. It’s a GIANT golden statue of Buddha. The people here don’t believe in a god, but they follow the ways of Buddha, a man who supposedly reached enlightenment and found the meaning of life. They believe in luck, merit, enlightenment, and reincarnation. They believe that sin is the bad things they do, and merit is the good things they do. They do good things in hopes that at the end of their life, their merit will outweigh their sin so they will be closer to reaching enlightenment when they are reincarnated. They also pray to the spirits, their idols, and Buddha and offer them sacrifices, asking them to bring them luck, so that they will have a good life. They believe the bigger the Buddha, the more powerful it is, and also the more Buddhas, the more power. So next to the giant Buddha stand over 200 smaller statues of Buddha.
While we were there we saw many people offer sacrifices of valuables and incense and bow down and pray to the Big Buddha. It wrenched my heart to see people praying to a man-made statue and expecting it to hear them and answer their requests. It reminded me of Old Testament times, when people offered sacrifices to false gods, before Jesus came and made the ultimate sacrifice once and for all.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
– Psalm 115:4-8
Our host also told us stories about the spirits. Most people in Laos are terrified of the spirits. They live in constant fear of spirits all the time. (This is understandable because the spirits are really demons.) The reason they make sacrifices is to appease them, so they don’t harm them or their families. Two of our hosts, a married couple, when they first moved into their house, they asked the landlord to remove the spirit house from the property, and the landlord flatly refused. Out of the question. He didn’t want to risk upsetting the spirits of his ancestors. You see, the Lao people keep miniature houses, called spirit houses, in their front yards and make sacrifices there. They believe the spirits of their ancestors are attached to the spirit houses. The idea is that if they make sacrifices there, the bad spirits will go to the spirit house, instead of their house. So they asked the landlord if he would at least move the spirit house to the back yard, and he left without answering. He came back the next day with an agreement. He would move the spirit house to the back yard, but he and his relatives had to do a special ceremony and make sacrifices first, in order to not upset the spirits. So the spirit house in now in their back yard, and they have since moved it further out of the way, behind their shed.
“Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.”
– 1 Corinthians 10:19-20
Another story they told us is about a local pastor, and this shows the need to train and equip the native Christians, because even they have some of the native Lao beliefs mixed into their theology. This pastor had a toothache and needed to have his tooth pulled. So he went to the witch doctor to seek the help of a spirit so that he wouldn’t have pain when he had his tooth pulled. And it worked. He had his tooth pulled with no pain. But then the problems started coming. His crops died and he started experiencing all kinds of personal problems. So he sought the counsel of another pastor. The wiser pastor asked him if he had been to the witch doctor lately and he told him about the visit concerning his tooth pain. The wiser pastor told him that because he had sought the help of the spirit, which granted his request, he was now indebted to this spirit, and the spirit was taking what was owed to him. That shows the reality of the spirit world, and the destructive nature of these demons.
Our hosts also do some side work in the villages. This is where the really unreached people are. The villages are so remote that you have to travel days by motorcycle over dangerous mountain roads to reach them, and during the rainy season (which is 6 months long) they are completely inaccessible. There are tons of people groups who live secluded in the mountains and they travel from place to place, so they are nearly impossible to find. Our hosts like to make trips to the villages to build relationships, gain trust, and find out more about the uncontacted tribes. The spirit worship is even more prevalent in the villages. Our host told us that while they were in one of the villages last week, they heard little girls dancing in the streets at sunset singing “Angels, angels, come out and play!” They were calling upon the spirits.
This upcoming week, we are going out to a village to do prayer walks. We still don’t know much about it, but we’re going to meet with our host to go over the details later today, and then we’ll head out on Tuesday. They have sent teams in the past to the villages to do prayer walks, and now they have churches built in two of the areas that they have sent teams. This is a spiritual battle, and we’ll be doing our part to sow seeds that will sprout into eternal life. So I appreciate your prayers as we go into what I expect will be a spiritually challenging week.
“For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.”
– Isaiah 52:15
