Nyo Tsa Akha

Lego play at the Akha Center

We have been joined on this trip by Doreen (John's wife) and their friends from Minnesota, Maurice and Caroline Spangler. On Friday and Saturday John E. led the six of us on a jaunt to the Northeastern corner of Thailand. Our first stop was at the Akha Outreach Foundation center just south of Chiang Rai.

Doreen, Maurice, Carolyn, Nancy and \Kathleen
at the Rimkok

The Akha are one of the hill tribes in Thailand and are somewhat parallel to the Karen villagers we visited earlier. The Akha people are currently spread among five countries - China, Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand.  Thailand is the only "open" country with Akha - about 100,000 live in Thailand.  Of  those about 30% are now Christian, while overall in Thailand Christians represent less than 1% of the population. The Akha in Thailand came for the most part in the 1960s and 70s, when they were fleeing severe persecution in Southern China.  Many Thais look down on the Akha because they are poor, tend to get trapped by opium and prostitution, and do not speak Thai.

Worship at the Akha Center

The Akha foundation, a Christian outreach to the Akha people, is involved in Bible translation into the Akha language, education of Akha Christian leaders, and care of homeless and orphaned Akha children.  About 120 children (ages five to teen) live at the center. The leaders of this organization are Nancy and her husband Aje. Nancy came to Thailand with YWAM twenty years ago and she eventually met Aje. Aje is an Akha born in China; his family miraculously escaped to Thailand.  He was one of only three children in the group who survived - most of them died.

The Church in Nyo Tsa

Nancy took us for  a wonderful lunch at the Rimkok Resort Hotel (we were even given knives to eat with, which is very unusual in Thailand). After checking into a guesthouse  in Chiang Rai, we went back to the Foundation for dinner and a Friday night worship service. It was amazing to see the intensity of the worship.  Tunes we knew like Matt Redman's Blessed Be the Lord were sung in Thai (or Akha - I couldn't tell which) with overheads in Thai script. The student choir sang What a Friend We Have in Jesus, once again in Thai or maybe Akha. The four-part harmony was amazing!

Thanksgiving service

We were up early on Saturday for the drive to an Akha village, Nyo Tsa Akha, for their rice festival.  The majority of the population are animist and their celebration is designed to appease the spirits by offering sacrifices. The festival of the Christians is the equivalent of our Thanksgiving and is a celebration of gratitude to God for the rice harvest. The village is about 1 1/2 hours north of Chiang Rai in the mountains and is only about 20 km from China. The mountain drive was as spectacular as any we have had on this trip, and at the end Kathleen was concentrating on holding onto her breakfast.

Thanksgiving feast in Nyo Tsa

The church there consists of seven families from the village and I think it is a fair proportion of the local population. The building was decorated with all the fruits of the harvest - squash, rice, bananas, etc. Once again the worship was wonderful, this time in Akha with no overheads but mostly familiar tunes of choruses and hymns like Bringing in the Sheaves.  We listened to a one-hour sermon given by Aje.  Since he delivered it in Akha, it was a challenge not to nod off (we succeeded - I only had to nudge Kathleen a couple of times). One interesting thing I noticed was that Aje often used the word alors and I thought he was going to switch to French. I asked him about it afterwards and he was unaware it was a French word, but it does have the same meaning in Akha as in French. Laos and Vietnam were colonized by the French, so I expect that is the source of the word in Akha. It was the only word we understood.

Drying rice in Nyo Tsa

After the service we shared in their thanksgiving feast.  An American girl, Juliana, was sitting beside me so she was able to fill me in on what I was eating.  We enjoyed the meal and the fellowship.

After that was the long ride back to Chiang Mai but the van was very comfortable so it was no hardship.  We stopped briefly at the Akha Foundation to drop off the people from there who had come with us.  Just as we were leaving, Nancy said to Kathleen and me that she expected to see us back there.  Interesting - we don't know what the Lord may have in mind for us next.