January 21, 2025

Dear Mission Frontiers,

I was glad to see your [Jan/Feb 2025] issue that dealt with migration and the expansion of the Christian movement.

I have long felt this was an area overlooked by missiologists. I would like to add that internal migration within a people group or country is often very important to the expansion of the Christian movement. I would like to

share about this in Thailand. I served in Thailand with OMF International from 1985 until 2017. When I arrived, it seemed to me that most missionaries were very concerned that the overall Christian movement was not growing in Thailand. In fact, it was growing but hard to see.

After WWII many agencies, including OMF, sent missionaries to Thailand. They went to places all over the country and were successful in starting new churches. This growth was hard to see in the 1950s and '60s as the population of Thailand was growing at about 5%, and church growth was about 6%. The migration patterns in Thailand were from rural to the forests as new crops like corn, sugar cane, and cassava allowed people to make a living after they cut the forest down. But by the start of the '70s there was little forest left to expand into, so the pattern of migration began to shift from rural to urban.

Missionaries have worked in Bangkok for many years, but there were very few churches in Bangkok until this migration shift started in the '70s. As the rural people came into Bangkok for education and employment, some of them were Christians, the fruit of missionary efforts upcountry. These Christians were sharing the gospel with other migrants from upcountry, and they started churches. In the '80s and '90s, this pattern was very strong, and

there was tremendous growth of churches in Bangkok. But again, it was hard to see because Bangkok was growing from a city of about 2 million to 16 million during that time.

In the early 2000s, the Thai Christian leaders began to see that, in fact, the Christian movement was growing throughout Thailand. What was particularly interesting to me, was that most of the Thai Christian leaders were migrants from upcountry to Bangkok and had been fruitful in developing churches and ministry among other migrants in Bangkok. This migration from upcountry to Bangkok was not always easy for the upcountry

churches, as often the brightest and healthiest were the ones that migrated. I know of churches that had half their congregation leave in a year, or a third of the members in a year, in this migration. But the migrants did bear fruit, so the entire Christian movement grew.

There is some reverse migration going on now from Bangkok back to the upcountry areas. Some churches are very actively working on this. But the migrants to Bangkok earned their own living, and those going back want money for expenses and are not as accustomed to the less comfortable living in the rural areas.

Another potent opportunity for Thailand is the large ethnic minority churches in North Thailand (Karen, Lisu, Aka, Hmong, Yumien, and others). These minority people are Thai citizens and have been educated in Thai schools. They are increasingly migrating into all areas of Thailand for employment and education. If, as Christians, they share the gospel with the Thai, they could have a great impact and bear much fruit. They do have some barriers to overcome to seize this opportunity. Many of these barriers are in their own hearts. As Thai citizens, these people can go anywhere in Thailand, and there is freedom to share the gospel with anyone in Thailand.

More information about this can be found in: Conversion Growth of the Protestant Churches in Thailand by Marten Visser and Beyond Ourselves: OMF in Thailand 1951–2012 by Averil Bennet and David Sheahan.

Sincerely yours, Mark Leighton Placerville, CA