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When huts become high-rises

A quick glance at the finance page of your favourite newspaper will tell you that business is booming in East Asia. The strengthening economy has captured the attention of the world. “Development” is the word on everyone’s lips, from the highest reaches of the politcal bureau to the smallest offices in the remotest towns. In the Middle Kingdom, “development” means to build – and build big. Everywhere, apartment blocks, office towers and shopping centers are rising from the landscape. New modern highways appear almost overnight, connecting province to province, city to city, county to county.

Nowhere is this truer than in the frontier regions, where many of East Asia’s tribal minorities make their homes. Government policy-makers are obsessed with urbanisation, and rural communities hold a rather precarious place in their vision. As cities and towns expand at a dizzying pace, homes, fields and villages are swallowed whole. In many cases, officials are forcibly relocating villagers into newly constructed apartment buildings, sometimes the very buildings that overrun their ancestral homes. Mainstream culture, hand in hand with Mandarin, gains influence as the size of cities increases, threatening to supplant traditional tribal cultures and minority languages.

What does this urbanising trend mean for tribal missions in the world’s most populous country? OMF’s East Asia fields have engaged many of these tribal peoples with the Gospel for years. But these rapid and sweeping changes can catch even the most seasoned missionary off guard. There is certainly a soft spot among many in the missions community toward the bucolic tribal lifestyle and the idyllic village scenes that so often feature in our books and calendars. For decades, we have learned minority languages, studied the rudiments of tribal cultures, and shared stories around village fires. Admittedly, we tend to like “the way we’ve always done it.” Will all of this change the way we work and share Christ among the tribes? Probably, especially in the long run. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The story of the Church’s beginnings shows us a potential parallel. At that time, of course, the reigning superpower was the Roman Empire. The legions of Rome marched across continents, obliterating any force that dared to oppose them. Yet they also built. The cities of Europe and Asia were transformed into cosmopolitan centres of trade and commerce. A vast network of roads crisscrossed the land, enabling safer, quicker, easier travel throughout the Roman provinces. Along these new roads, Hellenism and the Greek language spread, becoming the dominant culture and lingua franca of the eastern half of the Empire. And this linguistically and culturally homogenised, accessible world greatly enabled history’s first great church movement, a movement that saw not just one, but many people groups turn to Christ.

Likewise, today we aim to mobilise church movements reaching all of East Asia’s (indeed, the world’s) peoples. The potential demise of traditional tribal society at the hands of “progress” offends many of our modern, nostalgic sensibilities. Yet we ought to remember that God rarely works according to our sensibilities. If we weep too much for the end of tradition, our vision will be too clouded to see that urbanisation (even the forced relocation of villagers) could open many doors for tribal mission – in an urban context!

The government has long been suspicious of any “outsider” activity along the frontiers. Expatriates are expected (even forced) to live in the cities, often hundreds of kilometers from their target people groups. Beyond this, workers found regularly visiting or staying in villages will likely face serious questioning and stern reprimands. In tribal villages, of course, missionaries tend to stand out as rather easy targets. Church planters have thus struggled with problems of people group accessibility, time and space for relationship building, and maintaining anonymity. Now, villages are merging into the growing metropolises, where mission workers can live and operate more freely. Officials are settling tribal people in city apartments, closer and closer to missionary doorsteps! Workers might soon find that their target peoples can be reached by traveling just across town, instead of across a mountain range or a province.

The urban assault on East Asia’s tribal regions is certain to evoke a strong emotional response in many of us. But whatever our feelings toward these developments, let’s take care to temper our value judgments. The Lord’s designs can be detected if we remain focused on seeking Him. We must move according to His rhythm and direction; it does no good to work against Him, or to ignore what He is doing! The full outcomes of East Asia’s urbanisation program are impossible to predict. They may in fact pave the way for God’s greatest move among East Asia’s frontier tribes.

an OMF East Asia worker