Seven Lampstands: Vol. 21: Lanna Thai Project Report

Thailand is a beautiful place and we especially remember the people there fondly. It was not much of a hardship to be there last year and, Lord willing, we are eager to return as a family next year. In the meantime, it's important to remember the great spiritual need among the Thai people. With God's strategic placement of Create International's ministry in Northern Thailand, as a ministry we have proximity to millions of unreached peoples in Asia, and responsibility to bring the gospel to these people "right in our backyard."

A Thai Christian friend who grew up in Chiang Rai tells us, "Many foreign missionaries have gone to the hill tribes for many, many years. But not many go to the Northern Thai people. Only less than 1% of the Northern Thai people know the gospel...I wish for more workers to go to them, and now also I want to go to share with my Northern Thai people."

In October, Create teams are going to produce gospel resources for the least reached peoples of Northern Thailand: the 7 million Tai Yuan, otherwise known as Lanna Thai or Northern Thai. Create staff persons in Thailand have already been in meetings with project partners and are diligently working on treatments, scripts, and identifying the right story lines that would be specific and relevant to the people in their language and culture. They have asked me (Steve) to come to Thailand and join the team from Sept.27 to Oct.15, where we will be on the field filming in this region! In October through December we will be editing the films as well as producing animated resources for the Northern Thai.

"We were lacking good evangelism tools to reach our people group, the Northern Thai. When Create approached us to make these films to reach the Northern Thai, we were very excited because it was something we see a huge need for. The Northern Thai don't generally like to read tracts and books, but they do watch a lot of television shows and movies—so we think it would be a tool that would be very effective with our people group." - Greg, Field Worker, OMF

We will not simply translate a Western gospel story. Instead, with the help of our project partners, Create Thailand staff and students will produce "contextual films" using Northern Thai analogies, indigenous elements, and cultural bridges. "Contextual" describes a way of introducing Jesus in a personal way, as a God who is their Maker intimately acquainted with who they are as a people, who speaks their language, and loves their music and art.

A word from our Project Partner(s):

We have several organizations and denominations coming together to put this video together. We need people across the world really praying for this project; that we'll have unity and we'll be able to move forward in consensus. We need prayer for wisdom on how to really present the gospel in a way that will communicate to the Northern Thai people—right to their hearts, right into their families, so that they really understand what the true love is that Jesus Christ came to present. They need to be able to not only just understand it, but accept it as their own and see their lives changed because of it.

Please pray for:

1. God to anoint and guide us in unity as we work together as a partnership of missions agencies in the Body of Christ.

2. all the script preparations, cultural advisors, actors, and participants for the films, viral videos, and animation projects that Create International is producing for the Northern Thai peoples.

3. safety, wisdom and creativity for the Create International staff and students participating in this field production.

4. full provision of finances and resources to complete the work.

My current need towards participating on this outreach is still $1800 at this time, basically a round-trip flight to Thailand. The funds I need for the outreach itself (food, accommodation, and transport over the duration of our field production) have gratefully already been provided.