The price of treasure

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." Matthew 13:44

This month I have seen more baptisms in Isaan than the preceding 11 put together. God is calling people to Himself, and they are responding like they should - they have found a treasure better than they ever could have imagined existed!

The pictures here were taken at a nearby waterfall where we joined a local church that we partner with, to celebrate a total of 21 Isaan people taking the plunge to declare their belief in Jesus, leave their old life of making merit behind, and start a new life as a child of a gracious God. The man in the white shirt used to be a witchdoctor. His whole family have now decided to follow Jesus.

This lady, previously heavily into idol worship and animism, decided as she saw others taking the step, that after years of not responding to the gospel, it was her time to receive Jesus. Then she was baptised immediately. We rejoiced with the angels :)

For an Isaan person, receiving baptism is a bold step and not an easy thing to do. Public confession of Christ may not cost them their lives as in other parts of the world, but it does have a high price. Mae Luan and Lung Yaa are 2 people I wrote about before who I have seen accept the Lord with joy at first, recognising Him for who He is, only to become disinterested weeks later. Another couple I met received healing from Jesus, and were very close to believing, but people in their village stopped buying from their shop, they were cut off, treated as outcasts. They are now no longer interested in following Jesus. For so many, the cost is too high.

The incantations contained in amulets are
believed to protect one from all kinds of
dangers, and Thais pay thousands to buy one.

Telling your neigbours that you no longer need to appease the territorial spirits, or make merit for your ancestors is usually the best way to lose friends and alienate people in Isaan. Why? Because the village community serves the local spirits with fear. If you don't appease them, you incur their wrath, and bad things happen. Demonic attacks are not storybook material here, they are commonplace, marketplace gossip. (They are so prevalent in fact, that Thai movies will often involve ghosts and spirits in every genre!)

One gruesome spirit, widely feared in Isaan villages, is called Phii Popp. This spirit causes death by eating the victim's internal organs. After biopsy, the internal organs really are found to be missing. No medical explanations are available. If this happened in your village, a witch-hunt would begin. Who is hosting this evil spirit in the village? The Christian is an easy scape-goat.


Christians don't appease the spirits or wear amulets to ward off evil spirits, worship their ancestors, make any merit, or give offerings to any idols. It was for this reason that Mae Ying and Po Som were kicked out of their village and forced to live in a shack in the middle of their rice fields. They are 2 of the most loving, kind hearted disciples of Jesus I have met, I would never have guessed that they could be accused of hosting a murderous spirit.
We have much to learn from their example. The cost of the field was nothing to them, they had found the treasure; they counted Him worthy. Not only did they patiently endure false accusations, ostracism and slander, but they have continued to pray for and lovingly witness to that village.

Yesterday, I visited the little house church that they now lead, in the village where some still believe they have the evil spirit. We took communion together, and remembered the One who went through it all for us first, and remembered that we are not alone. That Christ will build his church, and is is even now calling all people to Himself. We heard Mae Ying tell the Bible story (Isaan is an oral culture, so telling is more effective than reading), retold it as a group, discussed it and prayed for one another.

This simple house church model is what has resulted in all the baptisms recently. Servants of God from different backgrounds, both Thai and foreign missionaries, are re-discovering the meaning of Church - the Church is not a building but a group of people, whose existence is for the purpose of loving and blessing those not yet in it. The house church is indigenous, low on expensive resources, high on participation, and self replicating. Are we seeing the beginnings of a church planting movement? It is what Isaan has been waiting for, for so many generations.

Flooded rice fields - you can only see the leaves of trees, which look like bushes, because the trunks are under water.