akha

Northern Thailand – A Reason to Return

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20180305-_DSC3168Among the six children living at Migiwa House, E was a little different than the others. Using a pet analogy, if the other children were like dogs, E was the cat. The other kids reveled in physical play and hugs while E would hang back, occasionally come to grab your hand for a moment or sit on your lap, only to be off again quickly on her own. Though all the children came from lives of varying degrees of difficulty, E’s life was probably one of the most difficult. Her mother was in prison. Her father, when he wanted her around at all, was physically and verbally abusive. One would think E would find refuge in spending 10 months of the year living at Migiwa House, away from her home in the village to attend elementary school, but on the contrary, she often expressed her discontent. She even refused to pay next year’s school fees given to her by her guardians at Migiwa House because she said she wasn’t going to come back.

I have a soft spot in my heart for this little girl, tough on the outside, but broken and hurting inside. The five days we spent with the children at Migiwa House, I tried to make sure E felt like she was a part of the family, to remind her that she was surrounded by people who loved her. Once while we were out walking, E came beside me and grabbed my hand, walking beside me for a few minutes before running off to play. Teru, her Migiwa House “dad” told me later that she never wanted to hold anyone’s hand. Maybe the Lord provided a special connection between us.

Each member of our team lavished a little extra love on E. Kathy talked sweetly with her and gave her extra hugs. Kun-san drew a portrait of her sitting on the chair outside and presented it to her. And on the day before we left, I looked E in the eyes and told her to promise she would be there at Migiwa house when I came back next year. She coyly replied, “I don’t know” with her mischievous smile.

As we said goodbye, there were many tears shed by both the children and our team. We knew only a couple days after we left, the kids would return to their villages for a two month school break. Five of them would happily return to Migiwa House in June. The other…we could only pray for.

A few days later, we received an email from Teru thanking us for ministering to the children, visiting the villages to teach music, and teaching English and photography at New Life Center. I quickly scanned the message for news about E, and was overjoyed when Teru said that he was now confident E would return to Migiwa House in two months. She intended to keep her promise to me.

I always wonder if people think it is strange that as a ministry worker to the Japanese, I take this annual trip to support the hilltribe people of Northern Thailand. But I believe God calls us beyond national borders, beyond people groups and simply to those who need Him the most. People like E, who might slip through the cracks and disappear if not reminded of God’s love for her through our visits. For children with unstable lives, there has to be some consistency from adults in their lives, and in some small way, our little team from Tokyo provides some consistency and comfort to her.

The trip also provided an opportunity for us to have a change of scenery and provide still provide much needed ministry. Later, I will report on the incredible progress we have seen over three years and four visits to New Life Center. And this year, my friend Y who is like a brother-in-law to me, was able to be with us the whole week. Though he is not a Christian yet, he spent the week serving alongside us, using the gifts God gave him the same as us, and gaining a fuller understanding of how God works in our lives and the lives of others. I pray that his understanding of the gospel is much more complete as a result of his experience. Experience can move people’s hearts in a way reasoning and logic cannot.

One day, E will graduate from high school and then from university, and I am looking forward to the day that instead of us going to see her in Chiang Rai, she will come to see us in Tokyo. Until that day, we will continue to nurture and encourage her in the language she best understands from us, just being there for her.

Northern Thailand Update – Abonzo Coffee

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A group of people from our church and sister church, including our pastor and I, returned from a whirlwind mission trip to Northern Thailand arriving in Japan a little after 6am. As was the case for our previous two trips, we split our ministry time between our Akha friend running a coffee production business in his hilltribe village and participating in the ministry activities of a missionary family our church conference supports, mainly working with the children of the various hilltribes in the area. Since there is much to process and write about, I am splitting my reflections into two entries. This one will be about Pat, our coffee producing friend and Akha hilltribe member.

In 2015, we stood on a hill overlooking the valley where the Akha village of Doi Chang was nestled among acres of fertile soil and abundant coffee trees. The coffee trees were a gift from the King of Thailand in the 1970s as a way to give the Akha an alternative to opium production. Today, the wisdom of the King is evident in the fact that the Doi Chaang (different spelling for the coffee growing region) region produces an abundance of some of the best coffee in the world and kept many Akha people out of the drug trade.

As we stood on that hill, our friend Pat described his vision for the land, which at this point, he did not own nor did he know how he would be able to purchase it. He pointed out where his Abonzo Coffee cafe would be built, and next to it a roasting facility. Above that, a processing plant for washing and drying beans. And all of his Abonzo Coffee employees would be young people from his tribe who would learn and use skills from his company and earn a fair wage to help support their families. And together we prayed for his vision.

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Nearly a year later to the day in 2016, we again stood on the land which was now owned by Pat and had a large parcel cleared and flattened, ready to be built on. Again, we prayed together for the Lord’s blessing on Pat and his vision.

And this past week, once again we stood on Pat’s land, where his cafe and roasting building was more than half completed and land was cleared and ready for building a small processing plant. About a kilometer away down the mountain, a larger processing plant was already completed and producing hundreds of kilos of coffee beans every day.

It is here we should note that four years ago, Pat started with not much more than his family’s coffee farm, some basic knowledge of how to process coffee, and a clear vision from the Lord on how to help his people rise out of poverty. Today, he is on the verge of becoming one of the few major producers of coffee in the Doi Chaang region behind only the cash rich competitor bought last year by a major Thai corporation. The Lord’s favor is on Pat and he is moving, often on faith alone, toward the vision the Lord gave him years ago. He started buying land and building structures not knowing if he would have the capital to finish, but God has always provided and Pat has faith that He will continue to provide, so he presses on.

Pat’s parents work full days on the farm alongside other workers, climbing up and down the steep slopes picking coffee cherries by the tens of kilos per day. The day we visited the farm 10 laborers including Pat’s parents, picked 660 kg of coffee cherries in an 8 hour day. The work is hard enough to make young men break down and cry, but there are no tears from the Akha people during the work day, just chatter and laughter and singing traditional songs together.

The taste of Doi Chang coffee is earthy and complex. One could imagine the spirit of the Akha people has somehow been transfused into the crop that at one time saved their tribe and they now count on for survival. But where there is money to be made, there are always those who will come, willing to exploit people and land for profit. So it takes men and women like Pat to defend the rights of the Akha people for an honest wage and fair dealing in land use (technically, the Akha are considered aliens in Thailand and have no legal ownership of land).

We continue to pray for Pat and others like him who have a vision for the Akha people of Thailand, as well as neighboring countries, that aligns with the way God Himself would care for His people. A vision that sets them free from the bondage of drug and human trafficking, substance abuse, and hopelessness in poverty. A vision where the Akha people outside of Thailand can hear and respond to the gospel as strongly as those inside Thailand. A vision where a young man headed down the wrong path can have his life turned around by Christ to be a spiritual and business leader in his community.

When Coffee Really Is Life

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“Baby diapers.” That’s how my traveling companion Yuji described the smell, as we approached the site. Once you get that image in your mind it’s hard to shake it. But indeed, the smell of coffee cherries going through the process of having their husks removed and the beans washed does have strong olfactory similarities to what goes on in a toddler’s diaper 35 minutes after eating lunch.

The smell of “baby diapers” or coffee processing is noticeable in many parts of the village of Doi Chang, high in the mountains above Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. Doi Chang is an Akha village, a hilltribe living largely in Thailand, but also in neighboring Myanmar, Laos, and even southwest China. They are not Thai; they have their own language, their own culture, and for the most part, the Thai government won’t even grant most of them citizenship. They are stateless in the country they live in, and as such, are one of the poorest people groups in Asia, the average Akha living on less than $2.00 US per day.

But let’s say you come from one of the dozens of neighboring Akha villages to Doi Chang. To you, this modest little village of a few thousand people could look like New York City. Most of the roads are paved and well maintained. There is a school for children up to Jr. high school and a preschool for children younger than that. Nearly every family drives around in an expensive Toyota 4-wheel-drive truck. So what’s the difference here?

The difference, to put it simply, is coffee. Decades ago, this area of the world was known as the Golden Triangle, the meeting point of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. The fertile lands of this region were productive for growing crops and the crop of choice in those days was the opium poppy. The drug trade took a terrible toll on both the countries involved and the hilltribes who were willing and unwilling participants. So the government of Thailand decided to give the hilltribes an alternative and funded a plan to give them a new crop to grow: coffee trees. Today, Thailand ranks 18th in the world in coffee production and coffee grown in the “Doi Chaang” region (note the extra ‘a’), is designated with a geographically protected trademark for its high level of quality.

The farmers of Doi Chang village are the primary producers of Doi Chaang regional coffee. Around the village, there are several smaller processing plants and one large one belonging to the major distributor known as “Doi Chaang Coffee” Company. When you’re the biggest, you get to own the name. Nearly every family in the village is growing, harvesting or processing coffee, most involved in multiple aspects. But only a few are running companies that are able to distribute the finished products: either raw beans ready to be roasted or roasted beans ready to be sold to retailers or consumers.

Our friend Pat is one of the few. His company, Abonzo Coffee, named after his grandfather who helped convince then reluctant Akha villagers to adopt coffee trees over opium poppies, is small by global standards. Even next to local competitor Doi Chaang Coffee, his production is a small fraction of theirs. He grows coffee on family owned land and purchases the rest from 25 local farmers who chose to sell to him. But while other coffee companies primarily exist to make money, Abonzo exists to help raise the Akha people out of their cycle of poverty.

Pat dreams of expanding his business into overseas markets, adding more farmers to his production and building a brand that is as respected for its devotion to social justice as it is to the quality of the coffee it produces. The cycle of poverty among the Akha, as it is among many impoverished people groups, is bonded with the lack of access to higher education. Doi Chang has a public school providing education up to Junior high school level, but getting an education beyond that means  a long daily commute down to the city and paying a tuition that most poor farmers cannot afford. Akha who are particularly well off send their children to live in dormitories in the city so they can go to school daily, but most can’t afford such “luxury”. But Pat doesn’t want the education of his people to be a luxury, but a necessity. He even aims to teach young Akha people business skills by providing them work and training in the coffee business beyond cherry picking and processing. He intends to build a cafe that will employ many young Akha and next to that, a barista training school that will give them means to learn a skill that is transferable to other jobs (Chiang Rai is the de facto coffee capital of Thailand and cafes are springing up all over the city).

The purpose of our trip to Doi Chang was to photograph the coffee production process of Abonzo Coffee along with a friend we brought from Tokyo who is working with several high-end cafes to potentially use Abonzo Coffee as their house brand here in Japan. As the Doi Chaang regional brand becomes more widely known, unscrupulous growers have been claiming to sell “Doi Chaang” regional beans when their beans are of inferior quality grown elsewhere. Our intent was to show Abonzo Coffee is a true Doi Chang village coffee company and that the beans Pat uses are authentically grown in the region. We also hand carried samples back to Japan to share with potential new customers.

So how does all of this tie back to missions? Interestingly enough, when I joined World Christian Fellowship as their Executive Director many years ago, I attended a prayer meeting where one of the participants mentioned the Akha people. They told the story of the Akha people’s plight of poverty, exploitation, and abuse by the countries they have settled in. In that moment, God laid a burden for the Akha on my heart. Though the Lord brought us to Japan to serve the Japanese, at the same time, He created a path for me to serve the Akha people through Pat and Abonzo Coffee, as well as our missionary friends serving in Northern Thailand. It’s amazing how the Lord opens doors for us to serve, and much of what He does goes on beyond what we can see or comprehend.

Join me in lifting up the plight of the Akha people and for young Akha leaders like Pat who desire both spiritual and socio-economic revival for their tribe. Heavenly Father, you know the names and struggles of each of your Akha children, and you desire to give them a life of abundance and not mere survival. Hear every cry and answer them, Lord God, and use others outside the tribe to have compassion and generosity toward them in the love of Christ Jesus. For you work righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed; You show compassion and mercy to all those who love you. Let your will be done among your people, the Akha. Amen.

Stories from Thailand:Blessed By the Poor

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The Akha village of Hoiyao is a dusty one-hour drive from central Chiang Rai in northern region of Thailand into the mountains. Like many villages of hilltribe people of the area, getting there requires driving on some poorly maintained dirt roads which turn to mud during rainy periods, perhaps dodging chickens, sleeping dogs, and even the occasional water buffalo. Villagers who venture to and from the city or to their work sites miles away usually have to endure the journey in the back of an open truck, with swirling dust in their eyes, mouths and nostrils and clinging to their skin and clothes. During the rains, these simple little trucks can often become stuck in the mud and have to be pushed or dug out by the passengers.We, however, rode in the comfort of a closed cab truck with 4-wheel-drive.

Arriving at the village, we were greeted by the village leader. It turned out that he and his wife opened their home to us that evening to sleep on comfortable mattresses and extra blankets to keep us warm over the cold nights in the mountains. A group of women in anticipation of our visit had already begun to prepare dinner, a delicious feast of traditional  Akha foods, many of which were made from crops or livestock of the village. As much as we could eat that evening, our gracious hosts kept refilling our plates.

After an impromptu church gathering where we worshiped together, shared a brief message and prayer and played games with the village children, we retired to the village leaders house to sleep. His wife even came in to make sure we were properly covered with enough blankets and tuck us in!

In the morning, the ladies of the village were at it again, preparing us breakfast before we headed out to Myanmar to bring some medicine to the pastor of another Akha village there. It was humbling to receive such generosity and hospitality from people who for the most part subsist on less than a few US dollars per day. In a way, it was almost uncomfortable. But I was reminded of the early church in Phillipi, who having very little still saw it fit to share of their blessings with the apostle Paul.

This is just one example of the blessings we received from our hosts in Northern Thailand. Throughout our travels in Thailand for the week-long trip, we experienced the blessings of hilltribe people. Though they suffer discrimination from the very country that hosts them, those who are believers in Christ are still filled with the joy of the Lord. The way they worship God is so pure and powerful, the movement of the Holy Spirit is easily sensed among them. It is no wonder that the Christian church is growing among the hilltribe people in that region of the world.

And yet, the realities of living in this fallen world are still painfully obvious. The effects of poverty: lack of education, children who are at risk of being trafficked, shortened life expectancy, are all hazards of life for the hilltribe people. The gospel has improved things in each of these areas, but there is still much work to be done to even the odds of hilltribe people sustaining themselves and their families. While our children dream of being rich or famous, their children dream of eating three times a day and not fearing if their father or mother will abandon them or even sell them to a stranger.

The more time I spend among the poor, the more I despair about the disparity between the rich and poor in the world today. And I’m not talking about the filthy rich, those who have more money than they could ever spend in this lifetime. But people like us, who have plenty and spend frivolously, when there are so many people with greater needs which could actually be met. It’s enough to make me ponder how to convert some of our material wealth into something that can be helpful long term to the hilltribe people of Thailand.

When Paul talks about the love of money being the root of all evil, it is often hard for those of us wrapped in our first world lifestyles to comprehend. We don’t feel evil for having warm clothes to wear or buying a new car every five years. It’s only when we begin to weigh the effects of our financial choices that we can see the evil. The monthly car payment can send 5 children to school when they would otherwise have no access to education. The cost of a new winter coat could feed a family of 4 for a month. I’m not trying to guilt trip you here; I just want to open your eyes to reality. If you feel guilty about what I’m saying, that’s the Spirit working on your heart, not me.

If you don’t feel compassion for the world’s poor, it’s probably only because you haven’t spent enough time among them. When you spend time with them and realize how beautiful they are, how they are God’s children, like you and me, and how generous their hearts can be, often more so than our own, you will naturally come to have compassion for them. Though we are ministry workers to the Japanese, we feel it is important for us to connect with the third world and to help our Japanese friends do the same, since years of prosperity in Japan has deeply affected people’s ability to feel compassion here as well.

After being back from spending time with the Akha for almost a week, I’m waiting to feel normal again. But perhaps the way I am feeling now IS normal. It’s normal to have compassion for people who are facing the difficulties in life the Akha people are now facing. It’s normal to feel uneasy about my personal wealth, because wealth was never meant to be accumulated for a “rainy day” when for so many in this world, everyday is a rainy day. It’s normal to feel heartbroken for the dozens of children we encountered  with broken families and little hope for the kind of future we from the first world take for granted.

I ask you to unite your heart in prayer with mine, that the Lord God hears the cry of his people, that he binds up their wounds, that he fills their empty stomachs, and soothes their weary souls. And pray that we do not allow our hearts to be hardened to the plight of the poor and the powerless, but as we are called, that we should serve them and help them in any way we can.

Also, I feel compelled to comment on the various articles I found online about the Akha relating to Christianity, including Wikipedia. It seems there are a few individuals out there working with the Akha (which is wonderful) who are hostile to Christianity and any other concepts they deem come from the Western world and they are vocal in their opposition on the Internet. I can personally attest to the fact that I did not encounter a single Akha person who was hostile to Christians. Moreover, the Akha churches are all led by local pastors, most of whom live in their local village among the people. The conditions they live in are no better than the people they are serving. These are godly, respected men who have a positive influence in their villages and they can only have that influence by living as men of integrity, financially and morally. I also met several young people who are so full of passion for the gospel that they want to become pastors or traveling evangelists to teach their people in more remote areas about the Bible. They are already willing to give up any hope of becoming wealthy or living a comfortable life for the sake of the gospel, even as teenagers or young adults. So the ideas that Christianity is being “forced” on the Akha and their children are being stolen by missionaries are frankly just outright lies. If it were even partially true, I’m certain we would have received a much colder reception from the many villages we visited.

A Glimpse of Northern Thailand

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I must admit: it wasn’t exactly a hardship for me to leave the dead of Tokyo winter for a 6 day trip to Thailand. Though Northern Thailand was not the steamy tropical climate of Bangkok where we made our transfer to Chiang Rai, it was still a far cry from the near freezing temperatures we left back in Japan.

Our pastor, Seiji, his son Yuji and I traveled to Thailand as part of a vision trip. One part of the trip centered around Pastor Seiji’s cousin and his wife, who were serving as career missionaries in Chiang Rai. We wanted to get a better idea of the ministries they were involved in to report back to congregation and look for ways we could partner with them by sending short term teams in the future. The other part of the trip was ministry to our friend Patrick, an Akha hill tribe brother who has started his own coffee business in the mountainous region just outside of Chiang Rai. We wanted to see and record his growing and processing process and understand his story so that Pastor Seiji could help him make contacts in Japan to expand his distribution channels.

In Northern Thailand, we saw firsthand how difficult the world makes the lives of the disenfranchised: the poor, the fatherless, the country-less. Much of the work Pastor Seiji’s cousin and his wife are doing focuses on helping the people of the hill tribes in the area. Rural Thailand is not wealthy to start with but the tribal people are even poorer, with less access to educational opportunities and healthcare than the average Thai. Many are taken advantage of because of their situation and human trafficking is a big problem for them. The organizations we visited with offer shelter, education, and emotional recovery for those who have been subject to or at risk of trafficking.

I was able to serve a couple of the organizations by taking portraits for some of the kids in their programs. At New Life Center, I took portraits of the girls who lived there, many of whom were rescued from abusive situations or at risk. Some of the girls were from countries other than Thailand, making it difficult for them to go to school due to language barriers and have access to healthcare. We thought giving the girls a professional looking picture of themselves would remind them that they are beautiful, unique and wonderfully made. At another organization, I shot portraits of the tae kwan do students in action, at the request of the pastor who teaches them.

The other ministry opportunity we focused on was the coffee business of our friend Patrick. Patrick belongs to the Akha tribe and is one of very few university graduates from his tribe. He is the only one who returned to the tribe after graduating with the intent of helping his tribe rise out of poverty. With that in mind, Patrick started a coffee business and is currently producing a very high quality coffee, though in relatively small quantities. Because of the size of his production, major coffee importers and distributors think his business is too small to partner with. Pastor Seiji felt if we could document the process of coffee production and understand Patrick’s story, he would be well positioned to connect Patrick with some smaller distributors here in Japan.

Patrick took us on the grand tour of his production as well as his village. We stayed in the village, ate Akha cuisine, and learned as much as we could in two days about the wonderful Akha people. By chance, Patrick’s friend, an Akha pastor, was getting married in a city just over the Myanmar border and Patrick was able to get us invited to the wedding. We got a very small taste of Burmese culture in Myanmar as well as getting to attend a wonderful wedding, a melding of Western and Akha traditions.

Though short, the trip was opened my eyes to just how easy life is for the people of the First World. Third World people face long days of hard labor for pennies on the dollar of the sale of the products they are contributing to. They are taken advantage of at nearly every turn, from earning low wages to being turned away from schools and hospitals. They are sometimes bought and sold like property to be exploited. They are the people God commanded His people, from Old Testament to New Testament, to take a stand for. From Isaiah 1:

Cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
    plead the widow’s cause.

Though the causes of the problems are complex and rooted deeply in man’s sinful nature, the solution given to us by God is clear: seek justice and correct oppression. It is our obligation as God’s people to fight for those who have little leverage to fight for themselves. Disturbingly, some of the “Christian” contacts that Patrick tried to work with did business no differently than secular businessmen. Of course, they defended their practices with poorly veiled excuses, but at best, these people showed a complete lack of faith in God’s power and lack of respect for His commandments.

Yet despite the hardships of their lives, or perhaps because of them, the Akha and other tribal people of Thailand and its neighboring countries remain strong. The trials Patrick has endured have served to strengthen his faith in the Lord and his conviction for helping his people. Though some of the children we met had likely lived through a personal nightmare, they still greeted us with a smile and the light of life in their eyes.

One aspect of the trip that I enjoyed considering is the opportunity for Japanese Christians to serve others in the world. Japan is such an insular culture; it is difficult for a Japanese person to get a well-rounded worldview. Serving people in another cultural context helps Japanese people to realize that Japan, though a wonderful country, isn’t uniquely wonderful. I am looking forward to accompanying the youth of our church (including our children) on a mission trip to Northern Thailand in the future.