Love Messages
One Miao group celebrates spring and love during a colorful festival, the Feast of the Sisters. Often it is a time of betrothal. In an old tradition, girls seeking marriage prepare love messages for boys. They color rice with natural red, yellow, or black dyes before wrapping the grains in a bit of cloth along with an object which communicates their marriage intentions.
A pair of chopsticks signals acceptance of marriage. One chopstick means she refuses. If the unlucky boy gets an onion with a pepper in his packet, he should look elsewhere. Leaves or pine needles leave the door open: “all hopes will be entertained, on condition the young man clothes his intended with silk and satin.” (Undiscovered China by Catherine Bourzat, p.l 142)
God has sent a love message to the Miao, too. Rice sustains physical life, but Jesus, the Bread of Life, promises spiritual life. Wrapped up with Him is the cross---the ultimate emblem of love. But there’s a huge problem. There are too few messengers to tell the millions of Miao/Hmong about God’s “love packet.”
Pray:
- Father, help us to never take for granted the gift we were given when someone introduced us to Christ. Create in us fresh passion for getting Your love message to the millions of Miao/Hmong who have never heard of You.
- Burden those gifted to serve You in frontier missions with the needs of the Hmong; draw them to service. Enable those you have already called to return quickly to Asia because they have sufficient financial support.
- Strengthen Hmong believers to boldly shareYour love with those around them.
- Raise up Hmong and Miao Christian leaders, evangelists who will go outside their comfort zones to reach Hmong dialect groups with no Christian presence.
- Direct the translators for one Hmong dialect who dream of a website of the Scripture chapter by chapter on mp3files which could be downloaded. Give them a sense of the right timing for this project and provide the people with the skills to make this possible.
