How does a missionary team determine where to minister when there are more than 130 villages to choose from?
Missionaries Mike Lynch and Dan Cullet began their search by looking at 88 villages in one province. When that ended up going nowhere they moved on to another province of about 50 villages.
It soon became apparent to Mike and Dan that they had to narrow their focus to discover the best place to begin a ministry among the Phu Thai people of Thailand. They chose 12 villages to visit on their first concentrated trip to the tribe.
They looked to God to guide them and to give them understanding and wisdom as they and missionary Sorin Joensen, who accompanied the missionary team on their initial surveys, started their trip.
The men traveled for ten days and made it to nine villages. They found the people to be friendly and helpful, and not at all shy about laughing at some of the missionaries' language mistakes.
A central village
As missionaries search for the right place to establish their home in the tribe, they want to determine the long-term language viability of a people group and find a village that is central to their main dialect. "This is important so that when we translate the Bible into their language we will be using the mainstream dialect of the Phu Thai," Sandy Lynch wrote.
The men were excited to learn that one of their fears -- that the language was in the process of slowly dying out -- was unfounded. "We do not want to spend years learning a language and translating the Bible into a language that is on the verge of extinction," wrote Mike.
The team was told that the children learn the Phu Thai language as their first language, and the people believe that it will be this way for a long time.
"I believe that if we live in a Phu Thai village we could not help but learn Phu Thai," Dan wrote.
"One of the negative things that we learned," wrote Mike, "was that a large number of the young people, ages 20-35, leave the village to go to work in the main cities of Thailand. They do this because the Phu Thai people are relatively poor and there just isn't enough work for them in the village. They can work in a city such as Bangkok and make a lot more money than they could if they stayed in the village. We're not sure how this may affect our ministry in the future."
Take me to your leader
At each village the men visited they first asked where the village leader's house was located. At one village the woman they asked pointed in a direction and said that it was far away.
"At that point, she must have noticed the helpless look on our faces and decided that she would take us there," Mike wrote. "She climbed into the truck with her grandchild and led us to the village leader's house.
"The village leader wasn't home when we arrived, so the woman offered to take us to visit with the Kamnam, an official that oversees all the village leaders in that area. He was attending a meeting that the Phu Waa, the governor of the province, was speaking at. Once we arrived there, the lady disappeared into a crowd of over 400 people sitting under a large tent and soon emerged with the Kamnam."
After introductions and a little talking, the missionaries were invited to eat lunch with the governor.
"Needless to say this was a little more exposure than we were ready for, and we soon found ourselves praying silently for wisdom while talking and eating with the governor's assistants."
At another village the missionaries again asked for directions.
"Hi, we're looking for the headman," asked Sorin in Thai. "Can you tell us where his house is?"
The villager gave them a curious smile and said "Down the road and …" The rest of his directions were beyond the reach of their language comprehension. So they thanked him and drove on, dodging dogs and chickens as they searched for another person to ask, and another, until at last they reached the home of the village leader.
They greeted the ladies who stood chatting outside and explained that they were researching the Phu Thai language and wished to speak with their leader.
One of the ladies disappeared into the house and soon, in a flurry of activity, the missionaries were welcomed to the center of the house. Chairs were situated and glasses filled with water, which the headman's son-in-law thoughtfully reassured them was clean rain water.
The headman and his household listened as Mike told of their language research. Then, as is customary in Thailand when visiting someone, the missionaries gave a small gift: pig skins and candy exclusive to Chiang Mai. Their hosts were delighted and in no time every mouth was full of candy.
The missionaries and the people exchanged a mutual curiosity about each other as Sorin and Mike sought specific information about their language.
With the villagers' help and a picture book, Mike recorded 100 samples of the Phu Thai language to aid in distinguishing variations in dialects. The process included much laughter, especially when Mike attempted to pronounce the Phu Thai words.
After warm thanks and goodbyes, Mike and Sorin left the village, tired but praising the Lord for the productive visit, anticipating the day when the Phu Thai will have the opportunity to praise the Lord too.
Preparing for more trips
Before their next round of visits the missionaries would begin acquainting themselves with the words they had extracted. They would revisit the villages a second time and narrow their list to five. During further visits they hoped to get an invitation to move into one of the villages.
When their list got to five villages Mike and Dan took their wives, Sandy and Beth, to help in the last phase of their search.
In one village they learned how to harvest rice.
"[The workers in the field] loaned us a hand-held sickle that was in the shape of a hook. Then they demonstrated that we were to grasp a group of rice stalks with the left hand, and then with the right hand wrap the sickle around the group and pull the cutting tool towards our body," wrote Mike.
"'Be careful,' [the workers] urged us. So we 'helped' harvest the rice for a while and were relieved that we came away with the same number of fingers we had when we started."
At the end of the day the missionaries were invited to return to help thresh the rice.
During their visits to these villages they continued collecting language data to verify that a Bible translation in one village's dialect would be clear to other villages.
Missionaries welcomed
Finally, the invitation came.
A headman in one of the villages told the missionaries that they and their families were welcome to rent buildings among his people. He took them to see some available housing.
"The houses are adequate and even appear to be very nice from the outside view. They even have a Cullett-sized house," wrote Dan, who has six children.
The search was over. Now the team began the process of moving in and the next step of church planting -- building relationships and learning the culture and language of the people.
Learning takes off
Taking a break from fixing up their rented homes, missionaries Dan Cullett and Mike Lynch launched their culture and language learning by attending their first Phu Thai rocket festival.
The morning began with a parade and in the afternoon Dan and Mike watched various styles of rockets in competition. The rockets were judged by how they look, how high they went and how long they stayed in the air.
For 11 hours the men circulated among the people, taking video and photos, making relationships and asking questions. The men had to be alert as rockets were going off all around them.
"We are excited as we move forward, thinking about how friendly and welcoming the Phu Thai people are and how they love to use their language," wrote Dan. "This should help us a lot as we learn to speak their language and understand their culture."
"Imagine that you are a child who is trying to play a new game with friends and you don't know the rules," Mike wrote. "This is exactly how we feel. We don't know the language, the culture, the different relationships among the people and how they affect one another.
"We are attempting to fit into a culture that is very different than our own and most of the time we are not sure how our actions or decisions are received or perceived by the people that we are attempting to befriend."
"Needless to say, this gives us even more reason to be looking to the Lord for His wisdom and grace," Mike wrote.
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