The Oirats — A Forgotten People

By Tony Lambert

The Oirat Mongols live in remote grasslands and mountains in northwest China. Their homeland is in Qinghai, Xinjiang and Gansu provinces—an area as large as Alaska. They number about 250,000 people and have their own language which has four dialects. Their script called “Tod” differs from the traditional Mongol writing.

Many Oirat still follow a traditional nomadic lifestyle, herding sheep, goats, horses and yaks. They live in tents for most of the year enduring the harsh extremes of temperature of northern China.

Most Oirat follow Lama (Tibetan) Buddhism with its reincarnation and endless rituals. But this is only an overlay for more ancient animistic and shamanistic beliefs, including faith in a female protector goddess. Oirat burial customs are unique: the corpse is placed on a cart which is pulled furiously by a horse until the body falls off to be left to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey.

The history of the Oirat is dark and bloody. In 1755-57 the Qing emperor’s armies crushed the Oirat, forcing them to flee thousands of miles to the Caspian Sea in Russia. But oppression forced most of them to flee back to China in 1771. Only a few survived the terrible journey. Most died from famine or hostile raids. Today there are still 174,000 Oirat known as Kalmucks who live in their own autonomous region in Russia to the west of the Volga River.

Percy Mather of the China Inland Mission was one of the few—if not the only—missionary to reach out to the Oirat in the early 20th century. He actually composed an Oirat dictionary and was “widely regarded” by them. But in 1922 missionaries lamented that “there are no definite plans to reach them.” For over 80 years there has been no outreach to the Oirat and today there is still no church and no known believers. However, the Bible is in process of being translated. (Information largely supplied by Operation China, p.421)

GOSPEL OUTREACH IN JIANGXI
“This year our focus is ‘Taking Up the Great Commission—Lift up the Gospel of Christ.’ Three of my co-workers have set up visitation teams which in just ten days visited more than 1,000 believers’ homes. They comforted many of the sick and led more than 20 people to the Lord. They also set up two new meeting points and are preparing to set up three more! There were also two cancer patients in the last stages of their disease who through prayer have made a remarkable recovery for the better. We have seen God with us. Please pray for our evangelistic outreach. May God use it and further expand it! Our conditions for membership of the team are: 1) a clear call from God, 2) evidence of being used in God’s work, 3) a love for people’s souls, 4) a holy life.” (Letter from Jiangxi to FEBC, 22 March 2004)

OUTREACH IN JIANGSU
“It broke my heart when I first came here to find people not having heard of Christianity. Idol worship is rampant. My heart was pained as if stabbed by a knife. But God gave me opportunities to evangelize. I once led a junior high school student to Christ on the bus and helped a mother and daughter come to faith in a restaurant. When they got home, they led the father to Christ! God is so awesome! Within a week, ten people were converted.” (Letter from Miss Jing in Jiangsu to FEBC)

…AND IN HAINAN
“I am a very ordinary person. But our local authorities have labeled me as a ‘dangerous person’ as I am a preacher of the gospel, and placed me under surveillance. Evangelism and church planting are vital! Most recently we have set up another church of 20 people. I am in charge of management. So far we have set up 21 churches. This is the result of 10 years’ harvest. But we have been attacked by Satan. Please do pray for us!” (Letter from Hainan, 6 April 2004)

THE PLIGHT OF NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES
About 460 North Korean refugees flew into Seoul, the capital of South Korea, on July 27-28 as part of the largest covert operation so far to rescue victims of the Pyongyang regime—the last brutal Stalinist dictatorship. The mainly women and children flew from Vietnam across China in charter planes with the help of underground organizers and Christian aid groups.

The number of refugees has increased markedly as more North Koreans flee hunger and repression. Hundreds of thousands have fled into northeast China since the start of a famine ten years ago which has killed more than 1 million. Beijing pushed most of them back across the border but stricter controls have failed to stem the flow. Some now make the hazardous journey across China to Vietnam or Laos. Many are still in hiding in China where they risk deportation back home to prison or even death.

Chinese security troops recently had raids in the city of Nanning, near the Vietnamese border, and hauled away 270 North Koreans.

The charter flights were “a great achievement” according to the head of one South Korean missionary group that helped this group to travel through China to Vietnam.

Those who escape to South Korea undergo a two-month transition program to equip them for life in this prosperous and highly competitive country.

Pray that these traumatized people will hear the gospel from their new South Korean friends. Pray for the many thousands in hiding in China—and for the millions still bound by poverty and repression in North Korea where the gospel is still severely persecuted (apart from two show churches in Pyongyang, the capital). (The Times & Daily Telegraph, 28 July 2004)

WAR GAMES IN THE TAIWAN STRAITS
In mid-July the People’s Liberation Army massed over the horizon from Taiwan to prepare a fearsome demonstration of its power—using 18,000 seaborne troops to launch a mock invasion of Communist-controlled Dongshan Island, off the coast of Fujian province.

Such war games are an annual event but this year’s exercise has a chilling intent. The People’s Daily declared: “This year’s military exercise is a substantial warning to Taiwan’s independence elements”—a reference to Taiwan’s leader Chen Shui-bian who plans constitutional changes to which China objects. In the event of an invasion, the People’s Daily added, “the PLA would immediately take the P’enghu Islands forming an outpost position to control Taiwan island.”

The governor of P’eng-hu said: “We want peace. War will mean total destruction of P’eng-hu and its people. We live on an isolated island and I have been told that we may be only able to defend ourselves for 24 hours.”

Even that may be an over-statement: the chain of 64 low-lying islands, 37 miles long by 14 miles wide, has a population of just 90,000 most of whom live in fishing villages. They are guarded by 10,000 Taiwanese troops, but they would offer little opposition to a missile attack and ground invasion by the 2.5 million-strong PLA.

Since Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek first fled to Taiwan after losing a bloody civil war with Mao’s communists in 1949, successive leaders in Beijing have threatened to unite Taiwan and its outlying islands with the Mainland by force. According to Chinese State media, the ‘offensive’ drills involve the PLA’s most advanced weaponry including fighter-jets bought from Russia. Tensions have been heightened by Taiwan’s parliament considering a bill to authorize the purchase of £11 billion [US$20 billion] of American military hardware, including offensive weapons that could strike inland China.

As a counter-measure, Taiwan held its own defence drills in mid-July. A Taiwanese spokesman said: “Beijing is truly worried about Chen’s timetable for constitutional reform, which it views as a step towards formal independence. It wants to prove that the military is capable of attacking Taiwan. China is now ready and able.” (Sunday Telegraph, 25 July 2004)

Christians everywhere need to be alerted to the continuing dangerously volatile situation over the Taiwan issue. May reason prevail and a peaceful solution be found satisfactory to both the PRC and the people of Taiwan as well as other countries seriously concerned—the United States, Japan and other countries in Southeast Asia.

Copyright OMF International 2004