Outreach Partners	Mission Highlights	Short Term Trips
Haiti 2012 Initiative	Mission News Sources

Paul Taylor - work in Asia

As told during visit to NPC in January 2010

Vanuatu--10,000 members of a “cargo cult” are part of a wonderful people movement to Christ in Vanuatu.  The John Frum cargo cult has held captive the hearts of its members for the last 70 years.  As Vanuatu was turning increasingly to Christ in the 1930s, a village chief told the people, “Don’t become Christians.  Avoid education.  Return to your voodoo and pagan ways and much ‘cargo’ will be given to you.”  It was something of the wealth and prosperity message except in reverse.  “Stay pagan, and you’ll prosper.”  But the folks have seen that they have not prospered, and those that became Christians are indeed blessed, so there are turning from their pagan ways and asking the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu to help them understand and become Christians.  About three years ago 1200 of these former John Frum cult members came to the General Assembly of the PCV with the request to be disciple and incorporated into the PCV.   Very little help has been given to the PCV in this very exciting undertaking, so Mission to the World is now committing to help.  We will help them send out about 20 missionary workers from the PCV.  Each missionary worker will be trained and then be responsible for five to seven villages in a small area.  Each missionary will disciple the people in his/her respective villages and seek to develop one or two churches.  MTW will also support a Discipleship Training Center where some leaders from each village can come for more in depth discipleship.  Then we’ll assist in strengthening a Bible School where the plan is to raise up about 70 pastors to lead the new churches that are started.  I was just there February 19-22 along with Dave Kiewiet (MTW’s Regional Director for Australia and New Zealand) working with the PCV leaders and surveying the situation.  At the end of those days we agreed to take on to this exciting new project to help this people movement to come to Christ and into the Presbyterian Church in Vanuatu. 

One interesting aspect of this work is that John Paton was the first Presbyterian missionary in Vanuatu (formerly The New Hebrides).  Paton served there faithfully from 1858 until 1899.  Starting from scratch among the people who were at that time cannibals and head hunters, the Paton was used by the Lord to establish churches on all of the islands of Vanuatu.  Today 40% of the population of Vanuatu is born-again Presbyterian people.  It is exciting to build on the foundation of that great missionary.

Myanmar—The Bamar people of Myanmar (Burma) are one of the larger unreached people groups of the world numbering over 30 million.   On Feb 14-18 I visited our national partner leaders in the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Myanmar.  For the last few years I have been urging this group to tackle the difficult task of starting churches among the Bamar people.  It is exciting to see this work now taking root.  During those four days I was able to visit new church planting works in Bago town, Htan Taw Gyi (don’t try to pronounce that, but if you want to try you have to start by pronouncing the H.  That’s one syllable, or almost since it slides into the next sound.  Something like “h-tahn-toe-gee”), Bo Nat Kyi (That’s like “bow-not-chee”), and 3 new church planting works in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) which is the capital of this country of about 50 million people.  The RPCM has now adopted the goal of starting 40 new churches among the Bamar in the next ten years.  Rejoice with us that this dream is now becoming reality in a powerful way. 

Next Trip—NPC’s old friends, Cartee and Colleen and I will be traveling in March to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India.  AS you know Cartee is now MTW’s Area Director for South Asia which encompasses those three countries plus Nepal and Bhutan.  This trip will be the official turning over of leadership in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to Cartee as I reduce my involvement there and let him carry on the work.  The ministry in Bangladesh is particularly exciting as the Lord is using the partnership of MTW with the Presbyterian Church in Bangladesh to reach a number of unreached people groups.  This work began in 2003 among the Mru and Chakma people.  Today the work has spread rapidly including three more tribes.  The greatest response has been among the Chakma people where we are also seeing a people movement similar to that in Vanuatu.  Recently about 2000 Chakma stated their intention to become Christian and asked for some workers to be placed among them to help them understand and come to faith.  Please pray for that trip on March 18-April 4, that the Lord would give us wisdom as we consult with the national leaders and help to reorganize personnel in order to be able to disciple these 2000 folks.