Sharing Jesus With the Long Neck Tribe
How a long neck has become an opportunity to tell others about long life in Jesus
Dear Family,
Pu Li is a beautiful woman. One of her most beautiful features is not one that is widely recognized as beautiful in the West. In her tribe, having an elongated neck is the most beautiful feature a woman can have.
The Long Neck tribe in Thailand come from Myanmar. They are refugees because of the civil war in their homeland. Thailand has not given them official refugee status but allows them to remain. Pu Li’s only way to make a living is by selling handicrafts to tourists who have come to see her and her people’s long necks.
During the pandemic, Pu Li had no tourists come to her village. In fact, they didn’t come for 2½ years. No government help was available to them as unofficial refugees. Pu Li and her daughters were starving.
You, the donors of Heaven’s Family, have helped feed her family’s hungry stomachs by providing them with food and relief since the onset of the pandemic. Your kindness to her made her ripe for the gospel. She had been reading a Bible we had given her previously. When she heard the gospel, Pu Li gave her life to Jesus. Pu Li received the promise of eternal life. Now her long neck brings people in to tell them about long life.
There are about 150 people in Pu Li’s village. I had the privilege of preaching the gospel to them on a recent visit. Several of them decided to follow Jesus, joining those who have believed previously since this outreach began in 2020.
Pray for Pu Li and the other believers in her village to grow in discipleship and to make disciples all across their once-unreached tribe of nearly 200,000 people. Thailand is less than 1% Christian. The Unreached People Groups Ministry is working to change that.
Tourism has been recovering very slowly in Thailand. The tourists are still only trickling back to Pu Li’s part of the country. For this reason, we’ve committed to helping families with food again this year.
When you give to the Unreached People Groups Ministry, you are helping to bring people out of both physical and spiritual poverty. Most large ministries work where access is more convenient and legal hassles are less threatening. Heaven’s Family works in the tough nations because that’s where the need is greatest and because we are serious about making disciples out of unreached peoples.
Thank you for your support that is enabling us to go further with the gospel until everyone has heard.
Todd Matthews
Director, Unreached People Groups Ministry