Shan-Tai prayer month 2011, day 25

Likening herself to a three-in-one coffee mix that is popular in Asia, a young Shan woman describes the call on her life to use her gifts as a Bible teacher, social worker, and rock singer to bring the message of hope in Christ to her people.

Although raised in the church, she came to saving faith while attending university through the ministry of a global parachurch organization.  Now planted in her “Jerusalem” for the short-term, she is ministering in her home church, whose acceptance of her has been less than embracing.

The majority of the 15,000 or so Christians among the more than 6 million Shan are third and fourth-generation adherents, with few true believers among them.  They have so separated from their ethnic culture to the point of irrelevancy in their ability to identify with their Buddhist brethren and don’t really even consider reaching out to them.

For the most part, the Shan church is cold and dead, but God is stirring embers among their membership and has already set this three-in-one girl ablaze with the desire to reach her own.  So she identifies with her people in their shared ethnicity, to the point of reaching out through welfare, educational and music programs run by local monasteries that are the center of Shan village life.  But as indicated by the stage name she has adopted for her singing career, she is fully Shan and fully belongs to Christ, and that is the message she longs for her people to understand, that they can come to the One who created them as the Shan race.

Pray for

• The embers among the Shan church that God is stirring and has ignited, that He would strengthen and encourage their resolve as they seek to reach out despite the lackadaisical, and even sometimes antagonistic, attitudes of the congregations they come from.
• Their personal worship to be pure and vibrant.
• Spiritual fortitude and protection from spiritual attacks on them and their families that seem to be prevalent when they are encroaching into enemy territory.

Other posts related to this topic:

• Day 24: The harvest is ripe
• Day 26: A tin village
• Good news of great joy

Download the Shan Prayer Guide:

30 Days of Prayer for the Shan
Image of coffee beans: iStock