Christianity among Zomi in Myanmar

Saya Za Khup, Pu Pau Suan, Pu Thuam Hang
Rev. F.O Nelson & Wife – 1950

The First Chin Baptist Churches

(By Rev Churches G. Johnson, D.D.)

Edited by Cung Lian Hup

I recently wrote an article for the MUKO magazine of the Lai Baptist Church in Yangon, telling the story of the first missionaries to the Northern Chins.

These were the Rev. Arthur E. Carson and his wife Laura, who reached Haka on March 15, 1899. We celebrate this year the Chin Evangel Centenary, one hundred years of Christian ministry in the Chin Hills—the region now called Chin State. * We thus remember those pioneer missionaries who, together with one Karen evangelist, first brought the Good News (the Gospel) of Christ to the Chins.

I appreciate the opportunity to write now about two other very important events: the formation of the first Christian church in the Chin Hills, which was the church at Khuasak, and the birth of the church at Haka.

Saturday morning, Feb 17, 1906, was an important day in the history of Christianity among the Northern Chins. On that day the first Christian church in the Chin Hills, the first of any denomination, was organized at Khuasak in the Siyin Valley of the Tiddim area.

The new Church consisted of only eleven members. These were:
Pau Suan and wife Kham Ciang
Thuam Hang and wife Dim Khaw Cing
Lam Shwin and wife
Tum Lian and wife
Sou Tun
Toum Ting
Tua Neh

Their Karen preacher and teacher, Saya Shwe Zan, was chosen as pastor, and two of the more prominent early converts, Thuam Hang and Pau Suan, were chosen as deacons.
These two deacons, together with their wives, were the very first Chins to accept baptism as the symbol of death to the old animistic way of life and birth to a new way of life in Christ.
It me about in this way. Pau Suan and Thuam Hang were village headmen and probably had some education and were able to read. Perhaps they first heard of Jesus from some travelling Lushai Christians, for people in Mizoram had missionaries earlier and some accepted the Christian faith earlier than Chins on the Burma side of the border. But it was certainly the Karen teacher, Shwe Zan, in Khuasak who was the means of their conversion. These men and their wives became believers in July, 1904, declaring that they trusted in God and acknowledged Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord. They wished to have baptism immediately, but Dr. East, who toured up to the Khuasak and Tiddim area in October, asked them to wait a bit for more teaching.

We should not forget the opposition that was sure to come when men and women declared their new faith openly in the rite of baptism, signalling a break from their past. So, on his visit in October, 1904, Dr. East found the teacher Shwe Zan in good health but cast down in spirit. There was some opposition to him in Khuasak and he feared that the villagers might kill him and harm the new converts. Dr. East consoled him with the thought that God takes care of His own, and encouraged him to give further religious instruction to the four new believers.

Thus it was not until the following year, on May 11, 1905, that the first four Chin believers were baptized. The site was a small stream near Khuasak. East called it the “Pok Lay River”, but it was just a small stream dammed up for the occasion.

The baptism of four villagers in a remote part of the Hills of Burma may not seem like a very notable event. But to those of us who look at events with the eyes of faith, it is easy to understand the joy of the missionaries and evangelists working in the Chin Hills, and of the supporters in the United States. It was a breakthrough. The years of planting seeds and watering had brought forth the first shoots of what was to become a magnificent tree! Baptism was a decisive break with the old ways of animism and indicated a new life of faith in Jesus.

The following year, in early February of 1906, seven more persons were baptized by Dr. East, making a group large enough to organize a church formally. So the first Baptist church in the Chin Hills was formed on Feb 17, 1906, as we have seen. This was the beginning of a movement that was destined to transform Chin society forever. It was the beginning of a far-reaching redemption that was to bring education, sobriety, health, faith, and hope to a whole people.

I do not know why Rev. Carson was not present at the formation of this first church. He had laboured long and hard for seven years and had just baptized the first convert in Haka, but he had just returned from furlough and for some reason did not go with Dr. East on that tour to the north.

The following day, Sunday, Feb. 18, 1906, marks the first Holy Communion given to the infant church. In the absence of Carson, Dr. East, a medical man but also ordained, got up early to prepare the table in a bamboo hut. He put on the cleanest table cloth he had, and he himself dressed in his best clothes to show respect to his Lord and Saviour. He wept tears of joy and deep emotion as he explained the meaning of the Lord’s Supper and then passed the bread and the cup to the eleven Chins, two Karens, and to himself, the one American. In his letters, Dr. East said that this simple service in a bamboo hut, with all seated on mats, was one of the most moving events in his life.

Thus in Khuasak, in this way, the first church in the Chin Hills began with eleven members and one Karen teacher as pastor. In the ninety-three years since that tiny “mustard seed” was planted, it was followed by churches in Tonzang, Tiddim, Bualkhua, Lumbang, dozens more in the north, down south to Laizo, Haka, Zokhua, and much later to Matupi and the southern regions, and so on to its present strength.

Now let us look at Haka where the pioneer missionaries, Arthur and Laura Carson, established their mission base in 1899.

They started a Christian school, teaching the Burmese language, and gradually made some impression on school children. Incidentally, at first the children expected to receive pay to attend the school, just as later some persons asked to be paid to become Christians! One of the schoolboys, an unusually mischievous kid named Shia Khaw, usually a leader in troublemaking, did settle down and make a decision to follow Christ. This happened while Rev. Carson was on furlough.

When the Carsons returned to Burma in late 1905, arriving in Haka just two days before Christmas—remember as yet there was no church, no Bible or songbook in the Chin language, no group of believers, no Christmas feast – they learned of Shia Khaw’s conversion. A few days later, on January 1, 1906, Shia Khaw was baptized by Mr. Carson in a little pond on the mission compound amidst a crowd of onlookers. Mrs. Carson described this young boy, about 15 years of age, as very earnest and ready to witness for Christ on all occasions, even though when he went into the village alone, the people spat upon him and reviled him.
After this first convert in early 1906, a few others followed, until in 1908 there were enough to form a little church. Arthur Carson had missed being at the organization of the Khuasak church, but he was indeed present for the happy event in Haka on Feb. 16, 1908, when the little group of believers were formed into the Haka Baptist Church. The ten members were:

Shia Khaw, first Haka man baptized
La Khu, first Haka woman baptized
Ngaih Ling, father of Ba Chit
Tial Pam, the Easts’ nanny, later wife of Ngaih Ling
Tum Tlik
Phir Thang
Chan Duai
Huat Ling
Tum Kir, later Cope’s cook, father of Vai Maung
Chia Khawm, father of Ngun To.

The pastor of the newly formed church was Saya San Win, the Karen teacher and preacher. It seems that because of poor health, San Win was unable to serve, and Saya Gyi Gine served as pastor in his place.

The little band of ten believers met in a room of the school building which Mr. Carson had built with his own hands. Scoffed at by their neighbours and in a way considered traitors to their old animist ways, and often belittled, their numbers have grown by God’s grace, in spite of adversity, until now, ninety-one years later, we meet as a great company of God’s redeemed people, speaking many dialects but still united by love for Jesus Christ and gathered in joy to celebrate the Chin Evangel Centenary.

Various pastors have served in Haka. The first Chin pastor was the revered Rev. Sang Ling. In my days in Burma, after Saya Sang Ling died in December, 1953, Rev. Lal Hnin (Biak To Pa) and Rev. Mang Kio Thang (Ni Ceu Pa) served faithfully and well. Now younger men, who were schoolboys on our mission compound, lead the various churches which adorn the much larger town of Haka, now the Chin State capital. Now and then my mind goes back to Pastor Sang Ling, the first Haka Chin preacher I knew, and I think about his gentle ways and loving heart. And I think of that cloth banner in the church, hanging on the wall behind the pulpit, with a Cross in the middle and the words in large letters:
Nan thi tiang i fe ter ko u law,
Nunnak luchin kha kan pek hna lai.
– Biathlam 2:10

Which in English is:
Be faithful unto death,
and I will give you the crown of life.
-Revelation 2:10
Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of Lord!

Src: CNH