Introducing Thais to Christ Through Indigenous Arts & Media
Lights dim and the strumming of indigenous music fades in, familiar to the ear of the audience. On a cool October night in Northern Thailand around 200 people gathered to hear and see a dramatic movie filmed right in their community. Throughout the film showing, the audience laughed at the appropriate humor, got serious, and then pondered the message of the Creator God and His words of hope. The film entitled "When the Storms Come" is very appropriate to the current situation in Thailand now, facing what has been called “The Flood of the Century.”
One man came up to ask for prayer, and decided that night that he would follow Jesus! The following evening, another 13 families asked for prayer prayer and further visits from YWAM teams who are eager to share their faith.
Thousands of copies of this film are now being distributed all over Thailand. YWAM's Frontier Missions Coordinator for Thailand is enthusiastic:
"These are huge breakthroughs in the Buddhist World for which we are deeply grateful!" says Ben.
"The indigenous evangelistic films produced by Create International are ministry catalysts for church planters and Christians everywhere! When the films are shown, it's as if the indigenous people are preaching to themselves - bridging the message of Christ to Buddhists has never been so easy! The huge hurdle of cross-cultural communication has been diminished drastically with these films. We hope to show these films in every village of the Northern region of Thailand – where we now can imagine a church in every village!”
"It was great to be assisted by a Discipleship Training School (DTS) team from YWAM Australia who helped us launch these debut showings – integrating short-term teams into long-term strategy! It is so exciting that indigenous arts & media are being used as a strategic and integral tool by short and long-term YWAM teams, encouraging the family of Christ to disciple nations and ignite church planting movements!"
Prior to this film made by Create International, the Northern Thais (a people group of 7 million) did not have an indigenous Gospel of their own – not even the Bible has been translated into Northern Thai yet. Bible Translators estimate it will be 25 years before the Northern Thai have their own Bible - but now they have their own indigenous film!
