The Early Years

Protestant missions in the Mekong Region began with the arrival of Adoniram and Nancy Judson in Yangon, Myanmar in 1813. Fifteen years later Protestant work began in Bangkok, Thailand. It was not until the 1860′s and 1870′s that missionaries were able to begin work in Upper Burma and Northern Thailand. In 1876, the first member of the China Inland Mission crossed from Yunnan into Upper Burma and showed that the region was truly open to the Gospel. Presbyterian successes with the Tai Yuan whom they called “Lao” in what is now North Thailand and Baptist successes with the Karen, and later the Kachin in Burma, showed that there was reason to hope for greater harvests in the future. In the first decade of the 20th Century work among the various peoples of the Mekong Region began in earnest. Wa, Lahu, Hmong, and Lisu all responded to the Gospel in great numbers and new believers became active evangelists and missionaries not only to their own tribes but to other people groups as well. Work in Laos and Vietnam was made difficult primarily due to the presence of French imperialists who prevented or hindered most Protestant ministry in Indochina during their tenure there.

His name shall endure forever; His name shall continue as long as the sun. And men shall be blessed in Him; All nations shall call Him blessed.

-Psalm 72:17

World War 2 greatly disrupted Christian work in the Mekong Region. After the War, surveyors in Yunnan and Upper Burma found 100 tribes that needed to be reached with the Gospel. At the same time they found many Christians eager to reach out to others with the Gospel and concluded that: “The native church, aroused to the new sense of responsibility toward sister tribes, together with the hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart fellowship of the foreign missionary group, is the answer to the present startling need.”

However, The Communist takeover of China in 1949 followed by the military coup in Burma in 1962 and then years of wars in Indochina meant that many mission ventures were stifled or stopped outright for several decades. It was not until the 1990′s that much of the Mekong Region became accessible to Christians from other lands once again. They found that the local Believers had not been idle but had maintained their faith and in many cases spread their faith to others during the years of testing.

From that time until the present, believers from many ethnic backgrounds have been working together to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the region to every people group and every place so that the words of the Psalmist regarding the Messiah might be fulfilled in the Mekong Region: