What's your history worth?

The first Karen Christians in Thailand heard about Jesus in the winter of 1881.  A group of travelling Burmese Karen evangelists came to a village in Lampang Province, just south of Chiang Mai, and spent four months sharing the gospel and encouraging new Christians.  During that time, three entire villages came to faith in Christ. The picture above shows the memorial stone set up on the site where those first conversations (and conversions) took place.

As is sadly true of many memorials, this one is not in good shape.  The surrounding area is overgrown, the fences are broken down, the signs are falling to pieces, and the memorial stone itself could use a good clean.

This weekend, however, fifty young Karen Christians, inspired by the vision of an emerging local leader, are about to change all that.

Poster inviting young people to join in the restoration weekend

Coming from all corners of the Thailand Karen Baptist Convention, which now has over 25,000 members in 160 churches, the young people are converging on the memorial stone for a weekend of restoration and rebuilding.  Over these two days, the focus will be on cleaning, clearing, cutting and repairing.

But there is a bigger vision behind it all.  The vision of returning to the dynamic, bold, unashamedly missionary faith of those first Karen evangelists from Burma through whom God planted the Karen churches in Thailand.  The vision of restoring not just memories of a golden past, but faith in God to provide possibilities for a golden future.  Please pray for the young people involved this weekend - that as they honour their forefathers in the faith, they might be inspired by their example.