by Linda Fox
This is the story of a young man in China who “made it big”—by the standards of his village, that is. He lives in China, but is Dong—an ethnic minority related to the Thai people in Thailand. How does his story compare to other success stories you’ve heard?
“P” recently returned to his home town to become a school teacher. This is a huge achievement—he comes from a tiny village in an extremely poor province, where subsistence farming is a way of life and many kids have to drop out of school to help the family make ends meet. For the average young person, pursuing a better life means leaving the village for a factory job in the big city. Because he belonged to an ethnic minority, many Chinese assumed that P didn’t have what it took to get very far with his education—let alone make it through university and become a teacher.
You might think that the village would be celebrating P’s return—except for one thing. While he was away in university, P learned about more than how to be a teacher. He discovered Jesus Christ, and accepted him as Savior and Lord. P is the only person in his village to have ever heard of Jesus. There is no one to encourage and support him in holding on to his faith. His family members are offended by his Christian identity because it is unfamiliar. Some people are reluctant to send their children to learn from him, because they are afraid of his new beliefs. P’s father wants him to return to the old ways, and is threatening to burn his Bible.
P really wishes that his father would read the Bible instead of wanting to burn it. He would then find out just how much God loved him, and he might find the freedom that comes from believing in Jesus. P’s father, like everyone else in the village, believes in capricious spirits that inhabit everything in nature. Everywhere you look there are altars for making offerings to these spirits. When something bad happens, such as a family member falling ill, they assume that a spirit is offended. They then have to work hard to find out who they offended and appease that spirit—which can cost them money that they don’t have. When P learned that Jesus was more powerful than any spirit, he was freed from a great burden of fear. More than anything he would like to see his father, family and everyone else know that same freedom. But even if P’s father wanted to read the Bible, he can’t—the Bible isn’t available in the Dong language, the only language he knows.
Most teachers in villages are there only because they can’t land a job in the city. But P has been offered a city job, which would greatly improve his chances for furthering his career. Being in the city might also give him opportunities to have fellowship with other Christians. There are probably no more than 20 other Dong believers in the city, but that’s a huge number compared to one. And he might be able to join a fellowship of believers who worship in Mandarin (Chinese). If he leaves the village, though, he takes away the villagers’ only chance to encounter Jesus. P doesn’t want to see his fellow people have no choice but to live their lives in fear and die in despair. What should he do?”
P’s story gives us a snapshot of what life is like for the Dong—an ethnic minority of 3 million people, with less than 1000 known believers among them. Imagine if the only Christians in Orange, Brevard, Volusia and Seminole counties combined were the members of the Cathedral—only instead of being concentrated in one place they were scattered throughout the counties. In spite of the Dong’s great need, most people in the Church don’t even realize they exist so hardly anyone is involved in trying to bring them the gospel. After all, how and why would you get involved with unreached people groups when you’re here at home and they’re over on the other side of the world?
Church of Our Savior (Palm Bay) started learning the answer to this question in 2009, when two members discovered they both felt called to get involved with an unreached people group, but knew that going overseas wasn’t an option for them. They started meeting regularly to learn and pray together, and asked Anglican Frontier Missions for some advice. Out of those humble beginnings came Our Savior’s Dong Team, a group of people committed to pray and advocate for the Dong. They discovered that by getting involved with an unreached people group they were reaping many spiritual blessings right at home in the parish.
Other parishes have now begun to catch the vision of God’s heart for the Dong. This summer a friendship team composed of members from Church of Our Savior and St. Mark’s (Haines City) visited the area. Several other parishes in our diocese committed to pray for the friendship team and for the Dong, and in August, Holy Apostles (Satellite Beach) hosted a prayer rally for the Dong. In October, parishioners from St. Helena, in South Carolina, came to Church of Our Savior’s Harvest weekend, to participate in a workshop on building bridges from the parish to an unreached people group.
The Dong may be out of sight of the average Christian, but they are very much on God’s mind and in His heart. As our parishes join efforts to reach these neglected people, we see the rewards in prayers answered, new excitement, and the sense that everything we do makes a tremendous difference that lasts into eternity. To quote Fr. Chris Brathwaite of St. Mark’s: “The Apostle Paul reminds us that we are to plant seed, we are to water those seeds with our prayers, and our God will give the growth. Let us then continue with our prayers that in God’s time he will germinate the seeds sown to grow into a big tree with branches for the building up of his kingdom. Amen.”