UPDATE Dear Saints: Shalom! On the 30th of March 2006, my ICM colleagues and I will be traveling to the mountainous region of the northern tip of Thailand close to the border of Myanmar and in the proximity of Chiang Rai. We have been invited to participate in a Conference, the first ever, of 3,000 Church leaders of the Lahu Hill Tribe. They will gather from China, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand The tribe originated in Southwest China and migrated into Thailand, Myanmar and India. For the first time that the leaders are aware of, they are congregating in Chiang Rai for a “strategy and action” meeting. 30% of their population is Christian but the leaders want to reach the remaining 70% with the Gospel. And they are asking ICM to help them. What a privilege and what a responsibility! Our Team comprises David Vardy,
Chairman of ICM, UK and International Board Member of ICM, Inc Khoo Hin Hiong, Founder/President of ICM Inc. Andrew Jiang, Board Director of ICM Thailand Yo Warong, Co-ordinator of ICM Thailand I am invited to be the key-note speaker and will give the Opening Message on the 30th of March 2006 and the Plenary Address on the following day. The rest of the team were invited to serve as trainers but unfortunately the entire program has to be shortened due to the snap elections being called by the Government of Thailand for the 2nd of April 2006. All Thai citizens are required to return to their hometown to vote. ICM has previously conducted training sessions for the Lahu leaders and church workers and we will be distributing to the Conference attendees copies in Thai of the new edition of our latest training manuals. We will have another training session with them in May 2006. If any of you feel the tug of the Holy Spirit to join us for this training and are qualified to teach, we urge you to join us. You will be so blessed. ICM will also be distributing 500 copies of the New Testament in Thai to the attendees. You can gather from this that there is a need for Bibles to be made available to them. Please help us to purchase more Bibles to be put in the hands of the new believers. THE LAHU The Thais call the Lahu tribe ‘Musur’, which means ‘hunters’. Indeed, they were largely a hunting community until a lack of game and a shortage of primary forest forced them into a more agricultural means of existence. They do not have such a long history as farming people, so they are not as efficient at producing food as the other tribes. For this reason, the Lahu language has almost become the “lingua franca”, spoken throughout the other hill tribes, since amongst the Lahu, hiring out labor to other hill tribes has become common
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Although
the Lahu can be quite reserved initially, before long one becomes a
welcome visitor to their village. Many villages are very poor, and a
number have captured the attention of missionaries. In recent times
the Thai King's Royal Project and other aid agencies have been helping
them with such initiatives as alternative crop production and the
marketing of handicrafts. Times are improving slowly for some
villages, despite the great difficulty of change. 
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