A people ‘once closed’ are now ‘committed to the Gospel’

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Dikein Pulyo is a leader in the Pwo Karen community, who works in Chiang Mai’s Pwo Karen Literacy Centre. The centre derives its support partly from the literacy grant from Finland and from the Bible Society of Australia. (Please see World Report 352.)

Mr Pulyo’s life illustrates how closed the Pwo Karen people once were to the Gospel and yet how committed they are when they receive it. He worked closely with Jim Morris, a missionary serving with Overseas Missionary Fellowship (now known as OMF Thailand).

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Mr Morris was a Bible translator and Mr Pulyo was helping him to translate the Bible into the Pwo Karen language.

Mr Pulyo had been involved in the work for four years when he became ill. He had been brought up to worship ancestral spirits, and when he became ill, it was to the local ‘spirit priest’ that he naturally went for a cure.

Cure

The cure, however, turned out to be far more expensive than he could afford, and it was then that he remembered the words of Mr Morris, that “Jesus heals”.

He went to Mr Morris, who led him to the Lord and he was healed.

That was 15 years ago. After his conversion, Mr Pulyo and his wife went to Ngong Mala Bible School where they undertook six months’ study. When Mr Pulyo returned to his family, he spoke to them about Jesus and they too became Christians. His brother, Thong Peng, also went to Bible school and he is now a Bible teacher in a town called Maelai.

Mr Pulyo continued to assist with the translation work which had been started by Jim Morris and which was continued by Nancy Stephens, also of OMF, among others.

Literacy Centre