SHARING WITH THE HMONG

We've had about 50 Hmong men and women in our teaching sessions. Most of the women are pastor's wives, but some of them are village and church leaders themselves. We were warned that the Hmong would not seem to be paying much attention, they would probably get up a lot or talk while we were teaching, but the opposite has been the case: all of them, men and women alike are attentive, most taking extensive notes, everyone very obviously soaking up the Word like sponges.

Both our morning and afternoon teaching sessions are followed by question and answer sessions that have been lasting over an hour as we talk about doctrine and church leadership situations that they want help with. Here's a sample of some of the questions and comments so far:

• "They got it all from the Bible!" (they were astounded that we weren't using commentaries, text books, or teaching our own opinions)
• "I'm married, saved and active in the church. What should I be doing to take the next step in Christian service?"
• "If a church member still carries a Buddha statue in his pocket, is that person saved?"
• (Sole pastor of 1,000+ member church spread out over 4 villages) "Who should be responsible to confront sinful behavior?" (In Hmong culture, you never directly confront someone. You go to a relative or neighbor and they go to the person for you) 
• "Is it OK to drink some alcohol but not get drunk? An American told us everyone in his country drinks at least 2 beers a day."
• One woman asked us to pray for her husband to be saved and for her son who intends to go to Bible school so he can convert his father.
• "Should we accept money for a special church project if we suspect it's from an illegal source?"
• "If we can go to a mountain area only once to evangelize, but know we won't be able to teach or even return there, should we go?"

You can tell these people are serious about Christ and they just don't know the answers to all the questions and situations they are facing with their churches. What a privilege to bring the Word of God to these thirsty souls and help these ministers and servants discover how to walk out their Christian life!