Providing access to water in Big Flowery villages can open doors to sharing about Jesus, the Living Water. Water needs are met in many ways. Sometimes cisterns are constructed to catch rainwater. Other times water is piped in from springs using either gravity or pumps. Simple ideas also help with crop irrigation. (See photo below)
The Big Flowery saw massive movement to Christ in the early 1900s. Now, decades later, it is estimated that 50-80% of them are Christian worshipping in some 200 churches.
But the church has both great needs and huge potential. Most of the churches have no trained leadership. Illustrative is one congregation of 300 without a single trained leader. How much syncretism has crept into the church as a result of this lack of training over the years is not known.
There is no teaching for children. What draws the young to church is music; the people love to sing and have organized choirs. A typical church service has an hour of singing and 15 minutes of teaching.
Given the Big Flowery church’s strategic location among totally unreached minority groups, it has the potential to take the Living Water to others, including groups of totally unreached Hmong.
Training and evangelistic vision are huge needs.
Pray:
- Father, thank You for Your work among the Big Flowery over many years. We rejoice in spiritual seed which found fertile soil among them.
- Provide appropriate short-term teams to teach worship music and model teaching to children in the Big Flowery churches.
- Prosper the leadership training program which has begun among the Big Flowery. As new leaders are trained, help “each one teach one” until solid teaching undergirds the Big Flowery church.
- Create Great Commission vision in the Big Flowery churches; let rivers of Living Water flow from them to thirsty minority groups which have never heard the gospel.
