he district governor did not allow the believers to celebrate Christmas in my village because he heard I would be attending. He knew about it because my brother has been spreading the news about my coming.

I told my friends to pray for me. If they arrested me, people should go and visit me, but for myself I was willing to face whatever would happen. Why should I be afraid when my people are being arrested and put in prison?  Instead of having a problem, it was the most successful trip that I have had since I visited Laos.

The purpose of my visit to Laos was to attend the Christmas celebration in my village, to see the church building, the public school building in my village, the house church building in two cities and attend the dedication of the house church. But as a visitor I could not preach or teach.

My brothers took me to my village directly to attend a Christmas Eve meeting. They killed one cow for the meal that day, and more than 300 people were there waiting for me. That night they held their worship service. It started at 8 PM and went until the next morning. They had electric guitars and amplifiers and Khmu musical instruments as well. They enjoyed worshipping God, singing, praising God, and performing all kinds of dramas. There were many young people who really love God, and they did most of the activities.

For the official Christmas celebration, four policemen were sent by the district governor to watch the celebration, since he had not agreed for them to hold a Christmas celebration, and if they did he planned to arrest them. But the head of the village and my brother went to meet the patriotic front leader who particularly oversees and is in charge of all the religious affairs in that area. They agreed to allow them to hold their Christmas celebration, and even said that if there is any problem they will be responsible. They also invited two of their officials. One man is the first vice president of the patriotic front of the area. He is also a Khmu man. When he arrived at the village the people immediately called me to meet him, so I met him and greeted him in the Khmu language. Then all of us went to the place where they held the worship service. It was not at the church building because that was too small to accommodate more than 400 people. Instead they had built a bamboo house outside of the church, a building without walls.

Well, there were many features of the program that they had such as an introduction, singing songs, performing dramas by the adults and kids, and competition of memorizing the Scriptures. At the end they gave a report on what they had done through the year of 2004, and how much rice they had and how many things that they had achieved. The man who read the report was the head of the village. Unfortunately, the contents of the report pointed to my name such as: S gave this amount of money for our public school building, church building, water pipes, and animal project. The patriotic front man who sat beside me remarked. "That is very good that you help your people and your village, as that helps the country of Laos, too." He asked me to continue to come to visit Laos and help the people because they are so poor.

The Patriotic Front man stood and spoke for 2 hours, mostly boasting about himself for what he had done, his experiences, what the country of Laos has achieved, and particularly that they had overthrown the Laos right wing backed by the United States. He remarked on the preacher’s message in a negative way about faith, love, God, and heaven. He said, "How can you go to heaven? When Buddhist people die they are cremated, and then they all become ash. For those who are not Buddhists, you all bury the bodies and then you said that they are going heaven?" He said that heaven is when you reach your goal and become a success in whatever you want to do. He did not respect what we believed at all, but he is a leader who leads religious affair in the province. Think about that! He said, "Why we allowed you to continue to believe what you believe was just because you still want it. But, if some day you were not following what you believe or not having any improvement in your life and in material things, we will stop you right away." He said that you can’t evangelize to other people either.

After he finished speaking and sat down, they asked me to speak about 20 minutes. I told them that there are 4 factors which often kill man: 1). Men kill one another, 2). Nature kills people, 3). Diseases, and 4). Accidents. I also warned them about dangerous things such as social problems in Thailand. There are up to 12 million evil CD’s and DVD’s which have been spreading to Thai families, and they have poisoned millions of lives of Thai young people. Thailand is number 3 in the world and number 2 in Asia for teenage problems in society.I told them that these problems may come to their country, district, and villages, and many young people who are not educated will be easily abducted to become prostitutes.  Of course, I expressed thanks to the Lao government for the many ways that they have improved my village’s condition. After I finished speaking, the patriotic front man remarked that what I said was very good, and that I could go anywhere and talk like that, because what I said was not wrong at all, because I did not criticize the government.

However, before I left the village the leaders of the village told me the reason that the district governor did not let them celebrate Christmas. It was because it embarrassed him that he did not help with anything, especially for the school building. He also knew that they will give a report on the Christmas day.

What is tremendously challenging for Lao Christians and what is part of the reason that there is a lot of persecution going on in Laos today in many villages and churches? The reason is that the Lao government, especially the Patriotic Front department which is overseeing and in charge of religious affairs, does not understood what we believe and why we believe, or the value of Christianity at all. The only thing that they can see is the outward appearance, not the inward reality. From the Christian’s point of view, they do not understand the government’s point of view at all or how they think about our beliefs and perceive what our daily life and religion is like. The Christians are not doing what Jesus teaches: "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as a serpent and innocent as doves." (Matt.10:16) The Christians are innocent as doves but they lack being shrewd as serpents.

Therefore we must help the believers know how to be shrewd as serpents in their daily life and in teaching, preaching, evangelism, church planting, running their ministries, in their house church activities, holding worship services, and leadership roles. It was so hard for me to sit watching the Patriotic Front man criticizing Christians for not demonstrating any fruit in their lives in terms of material things, having intelligence, or being smarter. But instead they proclaim the God of the universe who has power to do everything. 

However, after he finished criticizing the Christians and boasting about himself, he sat with me at our lunch and he even asked me to give him a camera, because he saw my camera, and 4 cows to help his friends who are very poor. Think about that being proud for himself but asked helped from Christians!