Planting Kingdom Seeds

Retracing the openness to God’s call that led to long-time service among the Isaan people group in Thailand.

By Carol Tobin

My husband Skip and I have often said that our saying “yes” to going to an unreached people group was like stepping into a river that swept us along in its powerful current. Within a few months of saying “yes,” we were a family of six, with four-month-old Noelle in arms, on the other side of the world in Thailand.

What happened? God had opened our hearts to the gripping truth of the biblical story: God bestowing blessing—profoundly and fully in Jesus Christ! And God’s intention that there be worshiping communities—churches—bearing witness to that blessing within every tongue, tribe and nation. He was inviting us to be a part of that great story. Looking back, we can see that God had been preparing us.

We had never aspired to live a “domesticated” Christian life. From the time we married in 1980, leaning into ministry was what excited us—whether that meant holding worship services in our local prisons, gathering kids in the backyard for songs and Jesus stories, or opening our home to hitchhikers and newly released inmates. We were not alone in these ventures, and over a number of years, we saw God form a group of us “Jesus People” into what now had a name: New Life Christian Fellowship.

These were years of intense volunteer involvement. We rejoiced to receive invaluable input through a training center, created specifically to serve newly emerged churches such as ours. We went as a ministry team to Haiti and noticed that where others felt overwhelmed, we were invigorated. By the time we had three daughters, we had bought a four-story home in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Somehow, we ended up with a houseful of undocumented Hispanics living with us. We learned a lot about cross-cultural discipleship in that chapter; we also learned that it was neither wise nor safe.

The next people who came for a night and stayed for a summer were missionaries serving a remote tribe in Peru. They were a quirky and far from perfect homeschooling family of five, just like us! We peppered them with questions. Our interest was piqued because our final class at the training center had dealt with the great imbalance of missionary work, the fact that a huge percentage of funds and personnel are invested in places where the gospel has already gained a foothold, while a vast number of “people groups” are left without access. Yet, God’s mandate is for us to make disciples of all nations.

Our perhaps simplistic response was, “The call has been given. Unless we hear a specific call to stay, we need to go.” Our gaze was lifting; Kennett no longer felt like the center of the universe. We asked our training center teacher where he would like to send us. “How about Thailand?” We said yes. Our pastor countered with a plea for us to go to Haiti. But we were resolved to go where people had never heard the name of Jesus.

Funds poured in. Finally, we weren’t just unbalanced fanatics. There was a name for people like us: we were missionaries! We had experienced church emerging in unlikely ways among unlikely people, so off we went, full of hope, leaving sad but supportive grandparents behind.

We were invited to be part of a small mission team in the seaside town of Hua Hin. Seven-year-old Hosanna would run to tell us when neighbors paused at our gate; she was so eager for them to know about Jesus. During those two years, Melody was born, we studied language, and we observed ministry practices that shaped our convictions about church planting—there were some things to admire, but we didn’t want to do it like that.

Most significantly, we learned about Buddhism from a young Thai believer who had been a spirit medium. From her, we learned the ways that the longings of sincere Buddhists for the Lord of Mercy connect naturally with the gospel.

We began our next term serving under a Thai pastor in Bangkok and studying for our sixth grade language equivalency test. By this time, we knew we wanted to do our church planting among the 20 million rice farming people of the Isaan plateau. We had sensed the spiritual hunger of the many who flocked to the city to earn money to send home. We knew how Isaan people tended to be looked down upon for their “countrified” ways. So, we were delighted when, in submitting to this godly man, he asked us to work alongside a local pastor in the heart of this sunbaked region. The soil there had been sustaining rice farming for 5,000 years. Could kingdom seeds be planted here? Could God receive the harvest he longed for?

Arrangements were made for us to rent a house in the village, near his church building. This was immersion. No one spoke English. And they weren’t speaking Thai! How shocked we were to discover that after all of our study, we couldn’t understand our neighbors! Skip began studying Isaan, the unwritten form of Lao spoken in the region.

I had my hands full teaching the girls. The downstairs of our house was like a huge garage. In the morning, we would slide the giant screeching security doors to the right and to the left to let in both the light and the various neighbors who chose to stroll in to watch me teach! Thankfully, this allowed the kindly older aunt next door to notice when I needed help with two-year-old Melody, which was often, as I was also pregnant. The girls had the run of the village with a handful of neighbor girls. We gradually learned the many delights of Isaan life, loving the food, the music, the humor.

The soil had been sustaining rice farming for 5,000 years. Could kingdom seeds be planted here?

Skip had a God-given opportunity to learn both from this young pastor and from missionaries nearby who were leading out with a holistic ministry model and radically contextualized church practices. In this way, a vision for what church could look like in Isaan context began to come into focus.

As our fifth year ended, it was time to discern where we would begin our own work. With our director, David Shenk, we prayed and poured over the demographic details of the largest unreached districts. It was decided that we would move over six hours south to Ubon Ratchathani province.

Within weeks after moving, Jessa was born and Skip escorted 13-year-old Hosanna to boarding school in India. We spent a quiet nine months serving and gaining the trust of leaders within three small Western modeled and funded city churches.

Skip sharpened a team vision to see not one church but a “spontaneously reproducing church planting movement spread across the southern sector of Ubon Ratchathani Province.” The Ubon churches with one voice blessed and directed us to go to the district of Det Udom. And thus began the seven year adventure of seeing this vision come about!

Many districts in Isaan remain totally unreached. However, the cluster of worshiping village-based groups in the Det district, called Life Enrichment Church, have now spread across four districts in Southern Ubon and maintain a strong vision for gospel outreach and multiplication.

Carol Tobin is a former mission worker in Thailand and a former VMMissions staff member.