Pwo Evangelism – It’s Complicated

Some of the evangelist team and agricultural workers
heading off up the Mae Ngow River

 The first complication in working with Pwo Evangelism was language, which has already been touched on in previous posts. While the full Bible had long been translated into the Pwo language in Burma virtually no one within the Pwo population in Thailand could read it as the dialect was different. So, it was decided a new translation was needed in the Mae Sariang area. The local Sgaw population was familiar with their own written language which used Burmese script. That likely would have been fine with the local Pwo as well, but Thai government authorities did not want those “foreign” letters used in Thailand. Thai script had to be used. Since virtually none of the Pwo read Thai, that meant the Liljestroms who were carrying out the Literacy work for the Baptist Union of Sweden, had to develop a whole new system of reading and writing using Thai letters. So, while translating the Bible into the local Pwo dialect and putting it into writing was a goal, a whole system of reading and writing needed to be created as well as the materials to teach it. At the time we started working with the Pwo Karen only a book or two of the Bible had been translated and outside of the kids in the student hostel, very few could read it.

Another complication was that there were very few evangelists that could speak or read the local Pwo dialect. Whether reading, writing, teaching, preaching or whatever, they used the Sgaw language. In that regard, it was fortunate that most of the evangelistic work was being done in the “blended” Pwo areas where most people were pretty comfortable using the Sgaw language. But it also meant the evangelists had little incentive to learn Pwo.

The women's side of the church in Oh Loh Tha
in 1985

It seems to be a law of human nature that any dominant ethnic or language group feels that everyone
else should be like them culturally and speak just like they do. After all, the dominant culture feels theirs is the “best” or at least the most logical and their language is the clearest, easiest to say, easiest to understand and easiest to learn. In the Mae Sariang area, the Thai were dominant compared to the Sgaw Karen so the Thai felt the Sgaw Karen should speak Thai. And sure enough, virtually no Thai ever learned to speak Karen though most Karen learned to speak Thai at least to some extent. Similarly, the Sgaw Karen were dominant compared to the Pwo. So very few Sgaw learned to speak Pwo, though quite a few Pwo, (especially in the blended areas), were well versed in the Sgaw language.

So, the Sgaw church leadership figured they already had a great language and a great translation of the Bible. Why shouldn’t the Pwo be just like them and just use what was available? But the Swedish leadership felt strongly that a Pwo translation was necessary. So some of the Sgaw leadership felt pushed to go in a direction they didn’t really want to go, making a tricky diplomatic situation for the Liljestroms. Representing the Baptist Union of Sweden, we felt some of that pressure as well. But from the viewpoint of the evangelists, they could only use the languages that they knew. So for the most part, the evangelism work was conducted in the Sgaw language with the Sgaw Karen translation of the Bible and the Sgaw language hymn book.

Finally, there was an organizational complication. The Pwo Evangelism work was centered in Mae Sariang and there was a local committee appointed by the Mae Sariang Association to administer the work. I (Duane) would work closely with this local committee. The Swedish Baptists and American Baptists both had the mission philosophy that the local people should be participating and feeling ownership of any work going on. One of the early lessons we learned was that when it came to meetings, if we truly wanted to know what the Karen committee members felt or thought, we as missionaries should remain as quiet as possible for as long as possible. If we spoke out, it was taken as a command and the committee would follow along whether they agreed or not.

Thra Thu Nu conducting a Baptism service in the 
Mae Sariang River - 1988

So I spent a lot of time and effort working with the local committee trying to give them as much authority over the work as possible. After all, they wanted the work to succeed as much as I did and as much as the BUS did. So working with the committee, a plan would be made and we’d start to carry it out. But then, out of the blue, the last remaining Swedish missionary that was up in Chiang Mai would have gotten in touch directly with the Baptist Union of Sweden leadership in Stockholm and we’d get word that no, we can’t do what we had laboriously planned there in Mae Sariang, we had to do it some other way. It was extremely frustrating as either plan was taking us to the same place. But alas, it was a challenge we had to work through. Sadly though, the situation persisted even through our second term in Thailand.

So there were complications. But on the plus side, the evangelists were winning converts, and starting
churches. The scholarship program that Marcia worked with was producing graduates with various levels of Biblical and Theological training. New evangelists that spoke the local dialect became available as they finished their schooling and literacy materials multiplied. The Irrigation project and future projects led to economic and social development. The mobile clinic helped people stay healthy and the Mae Sariang Christian Hospital helped treat those with more serious issues. People were educated (Pwo Scholarship Program), they could read Thai and learned what their rights were. Government projects began to move in, roads were built. Agricultural production increased (Irrigation Project), schools were built in the villages and people were further educated.

Thra Shway Lah Yay the evangelist for the village
teaching Sunday school in Oh Loh Tha in 1985

It took years, but visit the villages along the Mae Ngow River and in the mountains along the Mae Ra Mo Creek today and it is nothing like it was in 1984. There are now numerous Pwo Karen Churches worshipping in their own language and they have formed their own association within the Thailand Karen Baptist Churches. Much of the Pwo leadership are products of the education and training from the Pwo Scholarship Program. The Baptist Union of Sweden has much they can be proud of and Marcia and I are grateful to God that we had a small role to play.