24 August 2014
Dear Phyllis,
In the absence of any major developments this past week, let me reach into the archives and pull out another chapter from the past.
For people in the states, it is difficult for them to appreciate the nature of ethnic minorities. As close as you can come is to imagine driving from Spain to Norway in Europe. To get there you would have to pass through France Belgium, Holland, Germany Denmark, Sweden, and finally arriving in Norway. To go through each of those countries you would be confronted with a totally different languages, customs, and people. That is a little bit like dealing with ethnic minorities, except there are no international boundaries with these people. And unlike the political boundaries in Europe, we find them mixing, to varying degrees, in the countries where they live. One example of this is, that we regularly see people from at least six or seven different minorities here in Chiang Mai. In a country like Thailand the language is homogenized by all children going to Thai schools. But even here in Chiang Mai we do meet elderly people who cannot speak Thai. Within their own group these people always speak their own language.
The Jarais are a strongly Christian group basically located in Vietnam, but they do spill over into Cambodia. Around 2004 there was serious persecution of the Jarais in Vietnam. Hundreds were arrested and some killed. In the face of this serious persecution hundreds of Jarai fled across the fenceless border into Cambodia. New Life League had done an unusual printing of 18,000 Jarai Bibles and sent them here to Mark. With the arrival of these new Bibles, Mark and I, and another brother, loaded up to take as many as we could carry to Cambodia.
We had no problem getting them into Cambodia crossing through Poi Pet. From there we took a taxi the remaining 300 km to Phnom Penh. But when we got to Phnom Penh we ran into the first obstacle. The Christian and Missionary Alliance is easily the dominant denomination in Cambodia, so we naturally went straight to their field chairman to tell him that we had Bibles for the Jarai. He was not happy to see us. The Jarai issue had become an extremely touchy hot potato in Cambodia. Everyone was walking on eggs. David told us that the police had been to his door in Phnom Penh the week before asking if he had any refugees hiding in his house. The police were everywhere looking for Jarai refugees. In the northeast province of Ratanakiri, which was the area where the Jarais had fled, the Vietnam government was posting a bounty reward for any returned dead or alive, and the police were hunting them like animals. With no other recourse, we gave all the Bibles we had to the CMA and asked them to distribute them later as they had opportunity.
After had made that transfer, DJ Cowley, the leading missionary in Ratanakiri, heard we were in Phnom Penh, and called us saying the situations was desperate, and please get there as soon as possible. With this request, we reclaimed as many as we could take on an airplane and flew from Phnom Penh to Ratanakiri.
Landing was my first surprise. That was the only time in my life that I had been on a commercial airliner and landed on a grass strip. We would have gone in overland except it was rainy season and the road in there was totally impassable. The only way in was by air. JD met us at the airport and was overjoyed to see us arrive with Bibles. It was Sunday morning, and we were in time for church. It was a real privilege to meet with JD and a room full of Cambodian believers worshiping Jesus. They told us we looked like angels who had just drifted down from a cloud bringing desperately needed Bibles. JD told us that a group of Jarais had been at his door five days previously asking if he had any Bibles. He told them that they were too early. But that afternoon he sent a runner out to a more remote village to tell the Jarais there that Bibles had arrived.
In the Bible logistic ministry, it is extremely dangerous for the native believers to have direct contact with the donkeys (Bible couriers). In 95% of the cases, what is done is simply to carry the Bibles to half way houses, who later handle the distribution. It is an unusual experience to be able to hand a Bible directly to the people for whom they are intended. But that evening some Jarai believers showed up at JD's door again to carry some back to the jungles. This was only the second time since Sapa that I had been able to speak with the receiving believers.
That is the Jarai, Ratanakiri story
But the story of JD Crowley is the best part. JD was a very young boy when I knew his dad, Dale Crowley, in Japan. JD was born and raised in Japan. He knew my dear friend, Ron Blough, and was a classmate of some of his children at Bob Jones University. I was utterly amazed to able to sit in a missionary home in one of the most remote areas of Cambodia and talk about Ron Blough stories. What a small world!
The Jarai refugees were living like animals unprotected in the jungles of Ratanakiri. Occasionally some of them would venture to nearby villages asking for food and shelter. Many of the Cambodian natives, and all the missionaries in Phnom Penh, were fearful of helping them. JD got summed by the deputy prime minister (the #2 man in Cambodia) to appear in his office in Phnom Penh. He handed JD a statement and wanted him to sign that he would never give assistance to any of these refugees. JD read the document and then looked the #2 man in Cambodia straight in the eyes saying; “Sir, the God I serve, and the Bible I read, tells me that I am never to refuse assistance to any person who shows up at my door asking for help.“ And then he went on, “And I believe, sir, that is also the teaching of Buddhism.” The mans eyes went down and he reluctantly admitted that that was what his religion taught. Then JD went for his throat. He asked, “Are you going to pursue a policy that is in opposition to the public statement of your king?” The Hanoi sympathetic Cambodian government was cooperating with the Vietnamese in persecuting the Jarai, but King Sihanouk had publicly stated that the humanitarian thing would be to help them. When JD told me that story I was stomping my feet on the floor shouting, “Go for him! Pin him!” JD replied, “I would have liked to, but I had pushed the limit. I nearly got deported for what I said, and had I gone further, I don't know what would have happened to me.” But JD won the day. He walked out of the mans office clearly the victor. He refused to compromise, and backed off the #2 man in the Cambodian government.
JD Crowley was very high profile in Ratanakiri. He told me that the governor of Ratanakiri asked to see him one day. The governor was baring his heart to JD and asking for advice. JD suggested that perhaps the reason they were having so much trouble in Ratanakiri was because there weren't enough missionaries. Then in an utterly astonishing gesture, the governor earnestly pleaded, “Then please get more missionaries.” Can you believe that?
Ratanakiri is an area that very few people will ever visit. It is a small province tucked in the corner just south of Laos and east of Vietnam. The only road in is a torturous dirt road that is impassable in the rainy season. I later took another team in there overland with more Bibles, and can testify that that road is no Kansas interstate. The city (?) of Ratanakiri is the capital of the province but looks more like a small Colorado town. This had been the exile hiding place for Pol Pot, and had been the headquarters for the Khmer Rouge from 1966 to 1975. It had also been a major stop on the Ho Chi Ming Trail. I asked JD, “Where was the Ho Chi Ming Trail around here?” He replied, “The main street in town.” It was one of the very few places along the Ho Chi Ming Trail where a stop was at an established town. Guns were no longer traveling through there. It was not the center of the most brutal communist movement in history. But God had one of His great generals there, a very ordinary MK boy from Japan, JD Crowley, establishing the Kingdom of God in one of the most remote areas in SEA.
As for current personal news, three months ago I aged 40 years in two weeks. To date I have regained about 70% of my strength, but I seem to be hovering in that area. Some days are better and some days worse. I am back riding a motor bike with no problem, but I have lost 20 ks of my speed. They say you know you are getting older when keeping the speed limit is no problem. Previously it was hard to keep it under 80 kph, but now I am very comfortable at 60. One major problem is lack of work. Four months ago I gave away my shop. I have always had a shop and a large number of projects. But now with an empty space where my shop was, it is like someone took the strings off my violin. There is just nothing to do every day. This life is killing me, and it is not good for my physical health.
This morning at 10:00 o'clock Pammy shocked me with the question, “Do you know that you are speaking this morning?” No, I didn't. I haven't been asked to speak for several months and hadn't the faintest inkling that I was up for this morning. My first reaction was, “Let someone else do it”. But then the Scripture came to my heart,”Sanctify the Lord God in your heart and be ready always to give answer to every man who asks you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15). I guess that did it. But what to say? I was anything but in a preaching mood. Ten minutes later Gen. 22 – Abraham offering up Isaac – came to my mind. That is the clearest Gospel message in the OT. That scene depicted more of what happened on the Cross than any other passage in the Bible.
But the message was so real in my heart that I pleaded with the Lord to let someone else preach. I went to church 15 minutes late, and while everyone else was standing singing, I was seated with my head down towards my knees weeping. When the singing was over, Kichikun asked me if I could speak. Reluctantly, I stood up with his wife, Ying, who is the interpreter. For some time I stood there behind the pulpit unable to utter a word. I apologized for being so emotional but the message was so real to me that I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to be able to talk.
But at last I pulled myself together enough to get started. At first I had everyone read John 3:16 four times. Then I told them to close their eyes and recite it. I said if they didn't get anything else out of the service this morning I wanted them to walk out with that verse in their hearts. Then I had Ying read Gen. 22:1-14. I said, to the natural man this story has got to be disgusting; God asking a man to offer his son as a burnt offering. But if the Holy Spirit explains this to you, it is the most beautiful passage in the Bible. When we got to the verse where Isaac asked, “Where is the lamb?”' I said that was a question in the heart of every Jew for 2000 years until John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God” (Jn. 1:29, 36). And I said that scene was reenacted 2000 years later when the real Lamb of God went up that same hill with the wood on his back; except the first time, God spared Abraham's son, but He did not save His own Son. When I finished, I was weeping so hard I simply apologized, and went straight home. I hurt all over that that message could be preached, and people be indifferent. I gave it my best shot, but to talk about such a subject, my most eloquent expressions seem only like putting mud in tea.
Father, You have got to honor Your Son and give Him the reward for His sufferings in Thailand and Japan.” Amen
bill
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