Rick and Chiang Harris
Missionaries to Thailand
Rick was born in Seattle, Washington, the oldest of one brother and two sisters. After moving with his family to Cottage Grove, Oregon, at age 14, he was reborn in Christ when he saw a Billy Graham evangelistic film.
Chiang was born in Rayong, Thailand, the third of six children. During her last year of college she worked part-time with OMF doing secretarial work and language teaching. This was when she heard the name of Jesus for the first time. She became a Christian when she found that all her questions were answered—something Buddhism couldn’t do for her.
In 1984 Rick went to Thailand, did language school for a year and then did church development in Central Thailand until 1989. Rick and Chiang met and married while she was working for the area director of OMF. They have two boys: Peter is 15 and Paul is 12.
Rick and Chiang rejoined OMF in 2001 and have served in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for the last three years. This field is a newer branch of OMF which focuses on reaching the minority people groups in the area around the Mekong River. There are 70 minority groups who are living in this area, which covers four different countries: Myanmar (Burma), northern Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and the southern part of China. Some of these people groups are being currently engaged by fellow workers but there are still many groups who have no workers among them.
The Harrises are resource people. They assist members in personnel needs: health insurance, language checking and keeping members’ information current. They helped produce Bibles, Christian literature, prayer booklets, etc., in various tribal languages.