Today, the Dong celebrate "ghost day" (the festival day of spirits or ghosts). For far too long, they have lived under the deception of the evil spirits they serve. The spirits are not something to like; they are something to fear. That in itself is an indicator of the evil nature of the spirits and that there may be a good natured One. The spirits are appeased so that they would leave us alone. Does not that ever bring up the thought that there might be One Good God or at the very least, the One who has authority over these oppressors?

Recently, in a worship service mixed with Christians from the village and those from the town, the thanks given brought out this realization. The town folk were thankful for an opportunity to spend a day out in the village, where they felt so much closer to nature and the Creator. The village folks, laughing, said they were thankful for the opportunity to come into town and get away from the unceasing labor of the village.

In an e-mail yesterday from a reader living in the Dong areas, a Dong person was quoted as sceptically saying, "We will just see if the sky goes dark tomorrow," as if it were not a mathematical certainty. To them, though, this is not about astronomy or mathematics; the Dong worldview would not divide this occurrence into some scientific category in order to explain it, but would lump it together with their spiritual understanding of the world.

That is not to say they believe "a spirit hid the sun" or any such interpretation, but rather to say that from a Dong mindset, this is something that completely does not fit within how they understand, and no amount of talk on the national news will make it any different.

In reality, though, this is indeed a spiritual occurrence (not just scientific as our Western-trained minds might suppose), for One, holy, all-powerful Creator holds all this in his hands, and he can and does use it for his glory.

Most efforts to share the gospel with the Dong people have been aimed at villages, and that certainly makes sense, but in an effort to hit the heart of the Dong people out in the villages, these efforts have bypassed the county seats. The problem we now have is that the gatherings of Dong believers have very little connection to one another. They may know each other, but there is no practical tie between them that would allow them to have regular contact and fellowship with one another.

Sure, they may have Jesus as their high priest, and those passages from Hebrews are in their chronological story set which is now starting to be used in churches, but they do not have anyone else. They do not have elder, experienced, Christ-like examples who can help them walk the way of Jesus. Individual churches do not even have leaders who could identify weak areas that need growth or even shepherd the flock in general.

Most Dong churches (we cannot speak for all, because we do not even know all) are groups of believers with no mutually-accepted leadership. And besides those, probably half of the known Dong Christians are individual believers with no gathering at all. It is not impossible for them to grow in Christ, but certainly close to impossible.

If you have not seen or heard of this guide before, you can download the PDF version from our media page (just click on the image to the right). However, because few of us enjoy using a computer during our prayer times, we have also had these guides printed up into small booklets, which all include eight postcards which themselves serve as excellent prayer reminders. If you would like to order some for your church or prayer group, just contact us for more information.

There are many potential uses for the stories, but the primary use is the building up of the Dong church. It is an aid to the many churches who right now must rely on interpretation from Chinese to Dong for Bible study. It is not the whole Bible, by any means, but does have a core set of stories chosen around a theme of redemption.

Let us pray as these stories begin to be used:

There are no other known Christians where these individuals live. We have heard reports of Christians in almost every Dong county, but most of those counties have less than five: one here and maybe two there. There are very few "meeting points" of worshippers. Most of these heard about Christ either from tourists passing through or as they were in the bigger cities studying or working.

It is truly difficult to pursue the Lord in total isolation. However, the Spirit is everywhere. To all those individuals scattered throughout the Dong areas, the Spirit can fill, console, guide, and strengthen. Let us pray a prayer used by Christians for hundreds of years, but pray it for them:

"These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear form their eyes" (Rev 7:14-17).

After an entire book focused on love for one another, following God's commandments through love, and other extremely practical ways to grow in faith, the book ends with this: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." I saw two answers. One, as we just said, John's epistle is extremely practical, and without much explanation, "keep away from idols" sums up an entire topic in a few words. Two, the verse immediately preceding speaks of the true God, and being followed by a warning against idols is clearly connected to the same thought.

Just yesterday, I was talking with some friends trying to explain the difficulties in the struggle to reach the Dong people for Christ. Though most folks have heard this before, I thought I would send in this e-mail so it could be shared as a journal entry there on DongTeam. Even if it is old news, they still need new prayer.

I was explaining to my friends the problem with financial dependency. Even when Dong Christians are offered only bus fare and lodging to leave their villages to attend a training, they always come and often even bring along other "interested" family members. They will have to attend training all day; it is no vacation. But there is the catch: to a poor farmer who never gets out, even that offer translates to them as an all expense paid vacation to the big city.

And that is only the beginning. What these non-local trainings have (quite accidentally) brought about is an expectation for compensation for any Christian activity. Well, they do not think of it that way, but that is what it is. Never do we hear about locals just going to the next village to share or anything simple and without cost.

Remember Clement from the last entry and his exile. Many followed him into exile, exactly because exile was better than losing that spiritual guidance and community. There were plenty, I am sure, who did not go into exile with Clement, and stayed behind. Many Dong people are in that exact situation right now.

It has happened before and is happening again. The Lord is moving spiritual mentors out of the Dong areas, strong Christians who were helping young Christians grow in the faith. It is easy for us to feel this is a negative situation, but knowing God has all things under his control and wills only good for his children, let us pray that his will be done for the Dong Christians left without that spiritual guidance.

Clement was baptized by the holy Apostle Peter and became his zealous disciple and constant companion, sharing his toil and sufferings with him. Shortly before his own sufferings and death, Peter consecrated Clement as Bishop of Rome.

The virtuous life, charitable works and prayerful activity of Clement converted many to Christ. He once baptized 424 people on the day of Pascha. Among the baptized were people of all social classes: slaves, officials, and even members of the imperial family.

The pagans, seeing the success of his apostolic preaching, denounced Clement to the emperor Trajan (98-117), accusing the saint of insulting the pagan gods. The emperor banished Clement from the capital, sending him to the Crimea, to work at a stone quarry near the city of Cherson. Many of the saint's disciples followed after him voluntarily, preferring to go into exile rather than live without their spiritual Father.

"Grandpa and Grandma, here are your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. We come to pay our respect to you and to ask for your blessing on us. Bless us in our business, in our families, in our studies, and in every way."

The Dong people live under the deception, passed down through many generations, of who is God and who is god, a deception of who is Creator and who is created. Pray that during this important festival time, many will see the uselessness of praying to fellow creatures, but that they would finally seek the Father who created them and yearns for a relationship with them.

In this season, I often think of the twelve disciples. They too had no clue what was going on, even though they were frequently told quite clearly by Jesus. And when I think of how the Dong people will ever understand, if it took the disciples so long, I have to wonder how Jesus did it.

It was a wonderful combination of three years of daily witness, completed by the trial, death, burial, and resurrection. Of course, the disciples still did not understand immediately, but with instruction and the Lord opening their eyes to the meaning of the Scriptures, they did finally get it. In these last weeks before Easter, remember the journeys of the disciples, their paths to understanding the gospel, and pray the same will happen among the Dong people.