The Miao People

I receive a daily email highlighting a people group in the world. Over the last couple of weeks the emails have come about the different Miao people in China. There is the Central, Western, and Eastern Miao as well as the Horned and Lupanshui. All are animistic. Most live their lives in fear of and worship to the gods of nature. Few believers exist among these people groups; in some, there is no church, no believers anywhere close, no Jesus film or Scripture in their language. Jesus said that when every nation or people group had heard, then the end will come. I want the end to come. I await desperately His return. That cannot happen till the Miao know about Jesus, along with so many other groups who are perishing in the darkness. Pray with me that God will send workers into the harvest, for it is reaping time. Pray with me that you might also be one of the workers. "Here am I, Lord, send me!"

What God is doing in the world

First a few facts:

1. Jesus said, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come," in Matthew 24:24. When he said all nations, he didn't mean countries. He used the word ethos which means ethnic or people groups. 
2. The current world population is almost 7 billion.
3. 67% of the world is covered in water. 
4. Over 40% of the world's people live near coastlands. 
5. The global church has changed. A couple of centuries ago, the church was concentrated in the West (N. America and Europe). Now it has changed to the global South: South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia are now largely evangelical. 
6. Europe is currently the darkest continent with the smallest percentage of evangelical believers and churches. 
7. Latin America: though only has had the Gospel for 150 years, they have sent out over 8,000 missionaries. The church in Brazil and other parts of South America is growing exponentially. 
8. Africa: the Anglican church in Nigeria is growing by leaps and bounds, sending missionaries to the rest of the continent and Europe amid heavy persecution. 
9. Asia:
1. Mongolia: In 1989, there were 4 Mongolian believers recorded. Today, there are over 40,000 believers. 
2. South Korea is the 2nd biggest missionary sending country in the world. Of the 10 biggest churches in the world, 6 are in Seoul one having over 200,000 members. 
3. China: there are somewhere between 75-120 million believers in China amid heavy persecution. Chinese believers have begun a missionary expedition to get back to Jerusalem evangelizing everyone they encounter on their way. One house church leader was quoted saying, "We are not ready to die for the Gospel, we are expecting it."
4. India is close to overtaking China in population. In fact it increases by a million people every 3 weeks. The Dalit, the lowest class in India, over 250 million people are open to the Gospel and have seen large numbers come to faith in Jesus.
5. Nepal: in 1950, there was only a handful of believers. Today there are over 1 million Nepali believers.
6. Turkey: 3% of Turkey is in Europe, while the other 97% is in Asia. At the moment Turkey is experiencing an identity crises deciding whether to join the European Union or the Islamic world. If it joins European Union, there would be laws enacted for religious freedom and therefore end persecution of believers. Currently there are around 3,500 believers in Turkey, which is an immense blessing from God in this dark and heavily persecuted country. However, it is still one of the least reached countries in the world.
7. God is also on the move in the Islamic world. In Algeria, there was recently a futbol match, where a baptist team wanted to make a stand for Jesus. At half time instead of drinking water and eating oranges, they all read their New Testaments in front of the onlooking crowd. This sparked an interest that has led to 130,000 believers in this Muslim country. 

God is on the move in the world. His kingdom is close at hand. He extends this kingdom through the church. So the question is not where is God in the world, but more where on earth does God need you to be? 

My trip overview

This is the first installment of several blogs. This is an overview, I will send more especially about the information about the conference. 


About six months ago, I stood in the back of a chapel service listening to a young man who is giving his life to serve God in missions. He was challenging the high schoolers I work with (I am a Christian school teacher) to think about God's love propelling them to tell others. At least I think that is what he was talking about. It was hard to focus on him when God was having His own conversation with me. I heard Him clearly that morning speak to my heart: "It's time to go." I had been waiting for those words for several years. As a missionary kid, my heart has long been to be a full time missionary. Every year since graduating from college I have asked if it's time to go. For six years the answer has been, "Not now, not for a while." 

I was shocked when I heard His summons to go that morning. He was gracious enough to follow up the call with some specifics. I was to go on a short trip this summer, to the Roma gypsies. When I asked Him what I was to do, He answered that it wasn't about doing anything; "Just be," He told me. I was so excited about this news. My senior year of college I had written a paper about the Roma people and had been praying for them ever since. So now it was time to go. I went to the best source of quick information, Google. First on the list was OM's website advertising their short term trips for 2011. They had a trip going to Romania to work with the Roma people. When I read the tag line for it, I almost fell out of my seat: "Our goal is to just BE for the Roma people." It was the exact words God had given me about the trip. 

This particular trip was attached to a missions conference in Rome. Transform 2011 was not just an opportunity to see a city I've always wanted to visit, but it was some of the best teaching I have ever been under. The teachers at this conference were missionaries with a zeal for God's word, a passion for His kingdom, and delight in sharing both with us and with people all over the world who are dying without a Savior. They spoke about Jesus, the King, who is extending His kingdom through the church, a kingdom of peace and joy amid suffering. One of these teachers sat with me at breakfast. Someone at the table commented about how he had given up everything to share the Gospel in a different country. He simply responded, "I have not lost anything that God has not given back 100 times over." 

As it was a missions conference, I was expecting God to "call" me once again to full time missions. I was expecting emotional pleading for more workers and an equally emotional response from myself and those around me. It wasn't quite like that. Instead it was a beautiful presentation of God's Word, allowing it to do the emotional pulling not the zealous speakers. To me personally, God did call, not to full time missions or an emotional commitment, instead it was a quiet reminder to "Be a woman of prayer."

God fulfilled that calling during my proceeding week in Romania. I went flexible, for the gypsies have no schedule. When I arrived, several teams were already there. One group of teenagers was doing kids games for the children in this gypsy village. Another team was doing a free dental clinic. Yet another team was doing English classes. I joined a rag tag group of guys: Joel from the Uk, Steve from Chicago, Michael from Kenya, and Michael from Germany. Our role was two-fold, to pray and to tell people about Jesus. In the mornings we prayer walked through the village, in the afternoons (after recovering from the intense heat) we went door to door with members from the church sharing the Gospel. In the evenings we went to neighboring villages and showed the Jesus film. 

During one of our prayer walks, every time we opened our eyes, someone from the village had joined our circle. The first was a group of three: Constantino, Damnea, and Florinica. The week before all three had made a profession of faith. When they saw us praying outside their gate, they came with stools in hand and joined us. They didn't understand us as we were praying in Swahili, English, and German. When we opened our eyes they were all smiles as the joy of the Lord was exuding out of them. We walked a little further where we met Michaela. She had just returned from the hospital with a diagnosis of Schizophrenic Paranoia, and was worried because she couldn't afford medicine. We laid hands on her and prayed for her healing and powerfully sensed the Lord's presence.  

Our next job was door-to-door evangelism. Pastor Marian, the Roma pastor of a large congregation of 40 or so (this is large for a Roma church), made sure that he or someone from his congregation was with us so that there was a contact for follow up once the foreigners left. I was amazed at how well respected he is and what access he has into people's homes and lives. Many times he just walked through the gate in search of a listening ear. We talked to many people, each time presenting the Gospel. They all showed such great hospitality going to great lengths to provide us with comfortable seating. Many listened but with faces of stone. Just as many, though, listened intently with a receptivity I have rarely seen. I was struck by one old man whose son had tried to commit suicide a few weeks earlier. His rapt attention, tears, and prayers were a clear sign of his openness to the Gospel.

Our final role was to show the Jesus film in two neighboring villages. The people in these villages were much poorer than the ones we had been talking to. I was told later on that the reason for this, is because the people we had been interacting with were musicians who could earn some money through that trade. The people in other villages had no such luxury. The first night we showed the film around 50 people came out, most children. We waited till the sun went down and projected the film on the side of a house. Many prayed that night to receive Jesus. They were told of a small congregation that meets weekly at that same spot. The following showing brought also around 50 people. My new Romanian friend, Emma, noticed a woman who prayed at the invitation and was quietly weeping. Emma prayed with her and found out that her 12 year old son had Down Syndrome and was completely non-verbal and her 3 month old was really sick and needed to go to the hospital, which she could not afford. My heart broke as I heard this woman's story. Emma assured her that God knows her suffering and cares deeply for her. This suffering seemed to be typical of these people. Sickness and death are constant, and their poverty allows them no refuge from it. 

I walked away from this trip changed. There were no grand revelations, but an overwhelming sense of peace and joy. I walked away with a renewed calling to be a woman of prayer. In all the roles my team took part in, my main job was to stand in the background and pray. I believe prayer is powerful for it calls on the God who is All-powerful. I walked away also with a love for this people. The Roma are warm and hospitable, incredibly musically talented, poor and outcasts, sick and broken, and in desperate need of Jesus. They are also a people among whom God is working, among whom He has a remnant that He wants in His kingdom. I walked away with a new prayer that God would reap a great harvest among these people He so greatly loves. 

Lessons learned

"At last she put her hand in his and said softly, 'My Lord, I will tell you what I learned."

'Tell me,' he answered gently. 

'First, I learned that I must accept with joy all that you allowed to happen to me on the way and everything to which the path led me! THat I was never to try to evade it but to accept it and lay down my own will on the altar and say, 'Behold me, I am they little handmaiden Acceptance-with-Joy.'

He nodded without speaking, and she went on, "Then I learned that I must bear all that others were allowed to do against me and to forgive with no trace of bitterness and to say to thee, 'Behold me - I am they little handmaiden Bearing-with-Love,' that I may receive power to bring good out of this evil."

Again he nodded, and she smiled still more sweetly and happily.

"The third thing that I learned was that you, my Lord, never regarded me as I actually was, lame and weak and crooked and cowardly. You saw me as I would be when you had done what you promised and had brought me to the High Places, when it could truly be said, ' THere is none that walks with such a queenly ease, nor with such grace, as she.' You always treated me with the same love and graciousness as though I were a queen already and not wretched little Much-Afraid." Then she looked up into his face and for a little time could say no more, but at last she added, "My Lord, I cannot tell you how greatly I want to regard others in the same way."

A very lovely smile broke out on his face at that, but he still said nothing, only nodded for the third time and waited for her to continue.

"The fourth thing," said she with a radiant face, "was really the first I learned up here. Every circumstance in life, no matter how crooked and distorted and ugly it appears to be, if it is reacted to in love and forgiveness and obedience to your will can be transformed. 

"Therefore I begin to think, my Lord, you purposely allow us to be brought into contact with the bad and evil things that you want changed. Perhaps that is the very reason whey we are here in this world, where sin and sorrow and suffering and evil abound, so that we may let you teach us so to react to them, that out of them we can create lovely qualities to live forever. That is the only really satisfactory way of dealing with evil, not simply binding it so that it cannot work harm, but whenever possible, overcoming it with good. 

At last he spoke, "You have learned well, Grace and Glory. Now I will add one thing more. It was these lessons which you have learned which enabled me to change you from limping, crippled Much-Afraid into Grace and Glory with hind's feet. Now you are able to run, leaping on the mountains and able to follow me wherever I go so that we need never be parted again."

Lessons from the High Places

Hannah Hurnard 

Hinds Feet on High Places