Topic started by Rajani (@ httpproxy.clear.net.nz) on Tue Nov 12 23:23:58 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Can I have a good Dhokla recipe please. One of my friends brought this Dhokla made out of semolina and it is so delicious. So wandering if any one has this recipe. thank you.

Responses:

• From: Hemant (@ 12-233-223-112.client.attbi.com) on: Wed Nov 13 10:49:09
  
  Hello Rajani,
  Dhokla is never made out of Samolina.
  If you want a Gujarati authentic recipe, please visit my website,
  http://www.hemant-trivedis-cookery-corner.com
  
  You will find the recipes under snacks.
  
  
  
• From: Hemant (@ 12-233-223-112.client.attbi.com) on: Wed Nov 13 10:50:23
  
  Sorry , not under snacks but under TIFFIN.
  
  
• From: Rajani (@ httpproxy.clear.net.nz) on: Wed Nov 13 21:59:03
  
  Hello Hemantgaru,
  Thanx for your quick reply. I will try your recipe and see how it goes. If possible I will give the semolina dhokla which my friend did hope she gives the recipe to me. I will get back to you later. thanx once again.
  
  
• From: Anu (@ cache-rl04.proxy.aol.com) on: Wed Dec 18 13:27:39
  
  Hi,
  One of my Gujarathi friends makes 'Dhoklas' out of Semolina...Trust me...it's equally yummy & much less 'gasier'.
  She takes, roasted semolina in a bowl, adds tarka, and makes a batter with curd. Just before steaming she adds a pinch of Eno to it.Try it out.
  
  
• From: Lakshmi (@ cs2417568-75.houston.rr.com) on: Thu Dec 19 00:02:15
  
  Rajani,
  You can make excellent dhoklas in minutes with sooji/rava.
  Take 1 cup rava, add 1 cup yogurt, a pinch of salt, haldi adn red chiili powder, and 1/2 tsp ginger/green chilli paste. Let it soak for about 20 mins. After you get your steaming utensil ready, mix in 1 tsp Eno fruti salt, stir, and steam as usual. After cooling, temper with mustard, sesame seeds, chopped green chilli, and green coriander leaves.Hope you like this recipe.
  
  
• From: Parul (@ 202.71.138.18) on: Fri Dec 20 02:42:15
  
  I want to cook dhokala which is soft and spongy. Please give me its recipe. Thank You.
  Parul
  
  
• From: Parul (@ 202.71.138.18) on: Fri Dec 20 02:45:40
  
  I want the recipe for dhokala which is soft and spongy. Thank You.
  
  
• From: Parul (@ 202.71.138.18) on: Fri Dec 20 02:48:13
  
  I want recipe for dhokala which is soft and spongy. Thank You.
  Parul
  
  
• From: Hemant (@ 202.142.88.101) on: Fri Dec 20 06:19:34
  
  Hello Lakshmi,
  Painting a crow white does not turn it into a Swan, similarly using anything in place of proper ingredients does not become a dish.
  Dhiklas are traditional Gujarati dish and usage of Dhall and Rice is a must.Anything else is but a poor imitation.
  
  
• From: Hemant (@ 202.142.88.101) on: Fri Dec 20 06:24:08
  
  Hello Lakshmi,
  Painting a crow white does not turn it into a Swan, similarly using anything in place of proper ingredients does not become a dish.
  Dhiklas are traditional Gujarati dish and usage of Dhall and Rice is a must.Anything else is but a poor imitation.
  
  Hello Parul,
  Please click on the followiing link and get SPONGY DHOKLA recipe.
  
  http://www.hemant-trivedis-cookery-corner.com/tiffins/spongy-dhokla.html
  
  
  
• From: Parul (@ 202.63.165.254) on: Mon Dec 30 02:59:40
  
  I want a recipe for dhokla which is soft, fluffy and spongy just like the one which is avaible in the market.Please send me a recipe for it.
  Thank You.
  Parul.
  
  
• From: meena (@ user-2injh6e.dialup.mindspring.com) on: Mon Dec 30 17:19:44
  
  Hemant, This is an open forum as u well know, where one can post his/her recipes, does not have to be authentic. One can be creative. Why these sarcastic remarks? Stop advertersing ur website.
  
  
• From: Hemant (@ 202.93.132.3) on: Mon Dec 30 23:40:07
  
  Hello Meena,
  I do not mean to be sarcastic.I am sorry if you are hurt.
  You are right.It is good to be creative.So please continue to be so.Innovation is always good.
  I don't think I am advertising my website.I am merely informing people about a recipe available our website.
  As far as MY WEB SITE is concerned, I think it is OUR website since people from forumhub have created it .People created, paid for the space and are maintaining it.
  So consider it as your website also.
  
  
• From: Parul (@ 202.63.165.254) on: Tue Dec 31 01:55:26
  
  Thank you very much for your kindness for your prompt reply to the query about the recipe for dhokla. I have not yet tried it,but Iwill surely inform you about its outcome.Will you please send me another recipe? It sis the recipe for "undhiayo".
  
  
• From: Geeta (@ acc9dbbe.ipt.aol.com) on: Sat Apr 5 11:10:34
  
  I am looking for a Besan paniwala dhokla receipe.
  Is there anybody who can help me to find out one.
  Thanks
  
  
• From: pavithra (@ cache7.156ce.scvmaxonline.com.sg) on: Fri Apr 11 02:41:01 EDT 2003
  
  hello hemantji,
  In ur recipe u have used besan , but will it come out well if kadalai parruppu is used ?
  plz tell me.
  
  
• From: Hemant (@ 203.195.208.26) on: Fri Apr 11 04:02:19 EDT 2003
  
  Hello Pavithra,
  You can use soaked kadalai parappu also.The result will be a bit different.But you will have fine Dhoklas.Not so spongy though but soft, yes.
  
  I have come across North/Central Gujaratis using Ulundhu parappu paste also.(fermented or soaked in butter milk and then made paste of too !!
  The result is yummy.
  
  
• From: Madhu (@ rba-cache1-vif1.saix.net) on: Sat May 8 18:32:55
  
  hi rajani,
  
  below written is a recipie for rava/suji dokla, its tasty and comes out very nice...
  1 cup suji, 1/3 cup besan(chana flour), 3/4 cup curd/yogurt, grated ginger, chopped green chillie, bit jeera powder, salt to taste, coriander chopped
  mix all the ingredients and if batter is bit thick add a little water spoon by spoon the add 1 tsp of eno quickly and put the batter in a greased thali, steam dholka for 15 mins . then put little oil in a pan , heat it and add mustard seed to it and if u want little seaseme seeds too. pour over the dhokla.. cut into any shape and have it with green or sweet sour chutney
  
  
• From: geno (@ algart.org) on: Mon May 10 02:22:38 EDT 2004
  
  
  
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  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  
  February 5, 2004, 3:10 pm
  
  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  Cross Purposes
  by Steve Hargreaves
  January 29 - February 4, 2003
  
  BANGKOK, THAILAND — In the hills of northern Thailand, near the infamous Golden Triangle region, a new kind of battle is taking place. The nexus of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos has long been plagued by cross-border shelling and small-arms fire, but the latest fighting is different. On one side are those trying to save a people's culture. On the other are those trying to save their souls.
  
  And now, squarely in the middle, stands the U.S. government. In early October the Department of Labor, as part of the Bush administration's new policy of helping fund "faith-based" organizations, announced it would give $700,000 to the International Justice Mission, a Washington, D.C.-based Christian group focused on human rights abuses.
  
  Since taking office, President Bush has made channeling federal funds to religious organizations a key part of his agenda. Although the allotment for the International Justice Mission, or IJM, is one of the first faith-based grants to be awarded internationally, others may soon follow. Last month, Bush moved personnel from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to the Agency for International Development.
  
  IJM's money is to be spent countering child trafficking, no small problem considering an estimated 300,000 women and girls are bought and sold here every year; most end up as forced laborers in factories or brothels. However, the infusion of American support comes at a time when local citizens and the secular aid workers who come to help are becoming increasingly wary of missionary work. In particular, they say Christian preachers end up stripping traditional ways from some of the most impoverished people in the Chiang Rai province, the Akha "hilltribe."
  
  One of the region's six major hilltribes, the Akha are relative newcomers. Some 500,000 members have migrated here from Myanmar, Laos, Tibet, and southern China over the last 200 years. Fleeing wars, persecution, and natural disasters, they settle in the remote mountains, erecting grass and bamboo villages, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, and, in some cases, making and selling crafts to tourists. Akha religion is best described as ancestral and animistic, meaning they believe everything has a spirit. The tribe is shunned by Thai society—and heavily targeted for conversion by missionaries.
  
  Twenty-year-old Buga Mayer, who sells hilltribe clothing and accessories in Chiang Rai's night bazaar, has nothing but sharp words for outside religious preachers. "They come to change the Akha people's ideas," she says. "It's no good. We used to have Akha festivals all the time. Now it's just once in a while."
  
  It's unclear how much evangelizing IJM engages in, if any, as representatives declined to be interviewed. And while a spokesman for the Department of Labor says the federal money is only to be used to stop child trafficking—a task that includes serving as a liaison between government officials and field missionaries who witness abuses—he also acknowledges the government has no control over how IJM spends other portions of its budget.
  
  Who's to say whether any given dollar gets spent on humanitarianism or proselytizing? With the region's average monthly wage pegged at something less than $100, the sheer size of the $700,000 grant is raising eyebrows.
  
  "That's not good news," says Alberto C. de la Paz, curator of a hilltribe museum run by Thailand's Population and Community Development Association, the country's largest nongovernmental organization. Himself a Filipino-born Christian, de la Paz is hardly a radical anti-missionary crusader. He acknowledges the benefits missionaries bring to the hilltribes, such as teaching basic literacy and thus empowering people to record their history. However, he says missionary outreach sometimes results in half a village converting to Christianity while the other half holds to the traditional faith. This split can create problems for groups trying to run development programs such as encouraging the planting of renewable crops. In many cases, he says, the two halves simply won't work together, so the whole village loses out.
  
  More importantly, de la Paz thinks missionaries contribute to the erosion of indigenous culture. By spreading a belief in Jesus, he says, they relegate ancestral and spirit worship to the history books. Along with it go the clothing, rituals, and other expressions of identity. Also at stake is centuries-old knowledge of agriculture, medicine, and family ties, which is spread through religious stories. A horticulturist by training, he equates a loss of cultural diversity with a loss of biodiversity. The less diverse our human population becomes, the less its chance for survival. "The villagers are living in what I call a cultural island," he says, "and that is being eroded."
  
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  Yet de la Paz is not the evangelicals' fiercest critic in Chiang Rai. By almost all accounts that title goes to Matthew McDaniel, a 44-year-old former carpenter from Oregon. Driving from village to village in a beat-up Toyota four-by-four, its rear end pasted with "Missionaries Suck" bumper stickers, McDaniel isn't shy about his disdain for the religiously motivated. He climbs trees to take down signs posted by missionaries. And he says he has told missionaries trying to move into his village, where he lives with his Akha wife, that he'll do "whatever it takes" to keep them out.
  
  Since moving to Thailand 15 years ago, McDaniel has started a small nongovernmental organization called the Akha Heritage Foundation. With an annual budget of $6000, the group provides services that range from the establishing of fish farms and publishing books in the Akha language to documenting human rights violations.
  
  McDaniel says the missionaries don't do anything to help the people economically. Worse, he says, the missionaries, despite having vast financial resources, have a vested interest in keeping people poor, since desperation makes for easier converts. "You don't succeed as a missionary if you teach someone to be independent," he said. "They want to control them like a resource, like trees in a forest."
  
  McDaniel says one of the main missionary activities, the opening of orphanages, is downright sneaky. "They work to take the children," he says. "Separate them from their parents and it's easier to convert them."
  
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  For their part, missionaries in the region describe their goals as a mix of the charitable and the heavenly.
  
  About 20 miles outside Chiang Rai, Gary Spengler is enjoying a harvest celebration in a small Akha village of some 30 houses. The village sits in a shallow valley, where thick vegetation on the steep surrounding hills is broken only by terraced farm plots. The houses are grass and bamboo huts resting on stilts, with one or two rooms on the inside and sometimes a porch out front. Chickens cluck about. Large banana leaves, which everyone seems to be using for plates, litter the ground, perhaps soon to be eaten by the chickens.
  
  Perched atop a small rise is a concrete church where dozens of people are attending a service conducted by an Akha pastor. Spengler is there gathering photos and video to show people back in the States. A born-again American missionary, Spengler is up-front and open when it comes to talking about his mission. "If you see a bunch of people who don't know Christianity, you reach out to them," he says, citing Bible study sessions and organizing sporting events as ways to connect with the locals. "It's not trickery. You can't force people to believe in Christ. We just wake up every day and try to help people out."
  
  Spengler admits missionaries have made mistakes in the past, preaching to people without understanding their real needs. "They used to come with a Bible pack and leave. Now they come with a Bible pack and a hammer," he says. "But obviously we would never come if it was just to feed people. That's what the Peace Corps does."
  
  Four years ago Spengler, his wife, Cindy, and their four children moved to Thailand from Virginia, where Gary worked in construction. The couple, both on the early side of middle age, are not the expected picture of Christian missionaries. Cindy, a former sorority girl at Auburn University, suggested going out for a beer. Gary, with his fit physique and stylish sunglasses, spoke fondly of surfing on the Florida coast. After spending three years as missionaries near Bangkok, they came to Chiang Rai last year and founded the Akha Harvest Mission. Now, Gary says, they're planning a 32-bed orphanage here, with the goal of caring for parentless Akha children and "having these kids raised knowing who Jesus Christ is."
  
  Cindy says missionaries are of course changing the Akha way of life, but she doesn't necessarily think this is a bad thing. "Those that want to preserve culture look at things as so myopic," she says. "Culture is not static. Life is fluid, culture is fluid." She cites an Akha custom that calls for killing one baby in the event twins are born, as twins are thought to bring bad spirits into the village. "Things are not all good in an animist society," she says. "They live in fear. They don't know where they are coming from or where they are going."
  
  And that is the primary motivation for missionaries, redirecting "lost" souls toward the pearly gates. "That is a biblical mandate," says Cindy. "Are we going to go to heaven by ourselves or are we going to see if we can bring others with us as well?"
  
  For people who consider nonbelievers doomed to hell, separating piety from politics may be impossible. The International Justice Mission's own literature states a need for "an explicitly Christian ministry" to deal with human rights abuses. The Department of Labor, however, says IJM's religious affiliation had nothing to do with getting funded. "We would not favor a Christian group over any other," says the spokesman, noting IJM competed with several other secular agencies. "It's based on abilities, not religious content."
  
  As for the Akha people, opinions about missionaries are, not surprisingly, mixed. Mayer, the bazaar merchant, questions the true objectives of religious conversion. She's a university student and Buddhist convert, both rare for a hilltribe member. "The missionaries import the American lifestyle into Thailand," she says. "They entice people to believe in God. I am suspect. Why do they do this? To increase American power, I believe."
  
  Just a few tables down, 20-year-old Fon Visaluk says she respects missionaries' efforts to turn Akha people away from drinking and smoking and their push for education. She praises the missionary who has been in her village for the last decade. "In my village boys and girls don't go to school," she says. "He teaches them. All day long he's working. He's a good man."
  
  In many ways, the judgment hilltribe people and secular aid workers pass on IJM will depend on how well the group segregates its role as American-funded watchdog from its stated commitment to "advance [Christ's] Kingdom." But at a time when the U.S. faces increasing heat from allies and enemies alike for being, at best, an overly dominant culture and, at worst, a relentless crusader, perhaps there's a better way to promote understanding than sending missionaries to do the job of ambassadors.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Note: The views expressed on this site are those of the respective authors and not necessarily those of IACA. This organization is in no way anti-Christian but rather anti-conversion. For more information about us, click here.
  
  
  
  
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  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  
  February 5, 2004, 3:10 pm
  
  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  Cross Purposes
  by Steve Hargreaves
  January 29 - February 4, 2003
  
  BANGKOK, THAILAND — In the hills of northern Thailand, near the infamous Golden Triangle region, a new kind of battle is taking place. The nexus of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos has long been plagued by cross-border shelling and small-arms fire, but the latest fighting is different. On one side are those trying to save a people's culture. On the other are those trying to save their souls.
  
  And now, squarely in the middle, stands the U.S. government. In early October the Department of Labor, as part of the Bush administration's new policy of helping fund "faith-based" organizations, announced it would give $700,000 to the International Justice Mission, a Washington, D.C.-based Christian group focused on human rights abuses.
  
  Since taking office, President Bush has made channeling federal funds to religious organizations a key part of his agenda. Although the allotment for the International Justice Mission, or IJM, is one of the first faith-based grants to be awarded internationally, others may soon follow. Last month, Bush moved personnel from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to the Agency for International Development.
  
  IJM's money is to be spent countering child trafficking, no small problem considering an estimated 300,000 women and girls are bought and sold here every year; most end up as forced laborers in factories or brothels. However, the infusion of American support comes at a time when local citizens and the secular aid workers who come to help are becoming increasingly wary of missionary work. In particular, they say Christian preachers end up stripping traditional ways from some of the most impoverished people in the Chiang Rai province, the Akha "hilltribe."
  
  One of the region's six major hilltribes, the Akha are relative newcomers. Some 500,000 members have migrated here from Myanmar, Laos, Tibet, and southern China over the last 200 years. Fleeing wars, persecution, and natural disasters, they settle in the remote mountains, erecting grass and bamboo villages, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, and, in some cases, making and selling crafts to tourists. Akha religion is best described as ancestral and animistic, meaning they believe everything has a spirit. The tribe is shunned by Thai society—and heavily targeted for conversion by missionaries.
  
  Twenty-year-old Buga Mayer, who sells hilltribe clothing and accessories in Chiang Rai's night bazaar, has nothing but sharp words for outside religious preachers. "They come to change the Akha people's ideas," she says. "It's no good. We used to have Akha festivals all the time. Now it's just once in a while."
  
  It's unclear how much evangelizing IJM engages in, if any, as representatives declined to be interviewed. And while a spokesman for the Department of Labor says the federal money is only to be used to stop child trafficking—a task that includes serving as a liaison between government officials and field missionaries who witness abuses—he also acknowledges the government has no control over how IJM spends other portions of its budget.
  
  Who's to say whether any given dollar gets spent on humanitarianism or proselytizing? With the region's average monthly wage pegged at something less than $100, the sheer size of the $700,000 grant is raising eyebrows.
  
  "That's not good news," says Alberto C. de la Paz, curator of a hilltribe museum run by Thailand's Population and Community Development Association, the country's largest nongovernmental organization. Himself a Filipino-born Christian, de la Paz is hardly a radical anti-missionary crusader. He acknowledges the benefits missionaries bring to the hilltribes, such as teaching basic literacy and thus empowering people to record their history. However, he says missionary outreach sometimes results in half a village converting to Christianity while the other half holds to the traditional faith. This split can create problems for groups trying to run development programs such as encouraging the planting of renewable crops. In many cases, he says, the two halves simply won't work together, so the whole village loses out.
  
  More importantly, de la Paz thinks missionaries contribute to the erosion of indigenous culture. By spreading a belief in Jesus, he says, they relegate ancestral and spirit worship to the history books. Along with it go the clothing, rituals, and other expressions of identity. Also at stake is centuries-old knowledge of agriculture, medicine, and family ties, which is spread through religious stories. A horticulturist by training, he equates a loss of cultural diversity with a loss of biodiversity. The less diverse our human population becomes, the less its chance for survival. "The villagers are living in what I call a cultural island," he says, "and that is being eroded."
  
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  Yet de la Paz is not the evangelicals' fiercest critic in Chiang Rai. By almost all accounts that title goes to Matthew McDaniel, a 44-year-old former carpenter from Oregon. Driving from village to village in a beat-up Toyota four-by-four, its rear end pasted with "Missionaries Suck" bumper stickers, McDaniel isn't shy about his disdain for the religiously motivated. He climbs trees to take down signs posted by missionaries. And he says he has told missionaries trying to move into his village, where he lives with his Akha wife, that he'll do "whatever it takes" to keep them out.
  
  Since moving to Thailand 15 years ago, McDaniel has started a small nongovernmental organization called the Akha Heritage Foundation. With an annual budget of $6000, the group provides services that range from the establishing of fish farms and publishing books in the Akha language to documenting human rights violations.
  
  McDaniel says the missionaries don't do anything to help the people economically. Worse, he says, the missionaries, despite having vast financial resources, have a vested interest in keeping people poor, since desperation makes for easier converts. "You don't succeed as a missionary if you teach someone to be independent," he said. "They want to control them like a resource, like trees in a forest."
  
  McDaniel says one of the main missionary activities, the opening of orphanages, is downright sneaky. "They work to take the children," he says. "Separate them from their parents and it's easier to convert them."
  
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  For their part, missionaries in the region describe their goals as a mix of the charitable and the heavenly.
  
  About 20 miles outside Chiang Rai, Gary Spengler is enjoying a harvest celebration in a small Akha village of some 30 houses. The village sits in a shallow valley, where thick vegetation on the steep surrounding hills is broken only by terraced farm plots. The houses are grass and bamboo huts resting on stilts, with one or two rooms on the inside and sometimes a porch out front. Chickens cluck about. Large banana leaves, which everyone seems to be using for plates, litter the ground, perhaps soon to be eaten by the chickens.
  
  Perched atop a small rise is a concrete church where dozens of people are attending a service conducted by an Akha pastor. Spengler is there gathering photos and video to show people back in the States. A born-again American missionary, Spengler is up-front and open when it comes to talking about his mission. "If you see a bunch of people who don't know Christianity, you reach out to them," he says, citing Bible study sessions and organizing sporting events as ways to connect with the locals. "It's not trickery. You can't force people to believe in Christ. We just wake up every day and try to help people out."
  
  Spengler admits missionaries have made mistakes in the past, preaching to people without understanding their real needs. "They used to come with a Bible pack and leave. Now they come with a Bible pack and a hammer," he says. "But obviously we would never come if it was just to feed people. That's what the Peace Corps does."
  
  Four years ago Spengler, his wife, Cindy, and their four children moved to Thailand from Virginia, where Gary worked in construction. The couple, both on the early side of middle age, are not the expected picture of Christian missionaries. Cindy, a former sorority girl at Auburn University, suggested going out for a beer. Gary, with his fit physique and stylish sunglasses, spoke fondly of surfing on the Florida coast. After spending three years as missionaries near Bangkok, they came to Chiang Rai last year and founded the Akha Harvest Mission. Now, Gary says, they're planning a 32-bed orphanage here, with the goal of caring for parentless Akha children and "having these kids raised knowing who Jesus Christ is."
  
  Cindy says missionaries are of course changing the Akha way of life, but she doesn't necessarily think this is a bad thing. "Those that want to preserve culture look at things as so myopic," she says. "Culture is not static. Life is fluid, culture is fluid." She cites an Akha custom that calls for killing one baby in the event twins are born, as twins are thought to bring bad spirits into the village. "Things are not all good in an animist society," she says. "They live in fear. They don't know where they are coming from or where they are going."
  
  And that is the primary motivation for missionaries, redirecting "lost" souls toward the pearly gates. "That is a biblical mandate," says Cindy. "Are we going to go to heaven by ourselves or are we going to see if we can bring others with us as well?"
  
  For people who consider nonbelievers doomed to hell, separating piety from politics may be impossible. The International Justice Mission's own literature states a need for "an explicitly Christian ministry" to deal with human rights abuses. The Department of Labor, however, says IJM's religious affiliation had nothing to do with getting funded. "We would not favor a Christian group over any other," says the spokesman, noting IJM competed with several other secular agencies. "It's based on abilities, not religious content."
  
  As for the Akha people, opinions about missionaries are, not surprisingly, mixed. Mayer, the bazaar merchant, questions the true objectives of religious conversion. She's a university student and Buddhist convert, both rare for a hilltribe member. "The missionaries import the American lifestyle into Thailand," she says. "They entice people to believe in God. I am suspect. Why do they do this? To increase American power, I believe."
  
  Just a few tables down, 20-year-old Fon Visaluk says she respects missionaries' efforts to turn Akha people away from drinking and smoking and their push for education. She praises the missionary who has been in her village for the last decade. "In my village boys and girls don't go to school," she says. "He teaches them. All day long he's working. He's a good man."
  
  In many ways, the judgment hilltribe people and secular aid workers pass on IJM will depend on how well the group segregates its role as American-funded watchdog from its stated commitment to "advance [Christ's] Kingdom." But at a time when the U.S. faces increasing heat from allies and enemies alike for being, at best, an overly dominant culture and, at worst, a relentless crusader, perhaps there's a better way to promote understanding than sending missionaries to do the job of ambassadors.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Note: The views expressed on this site are those of the respective authors and not necessarily those of IACA. This organization is in no way anti-Christian but rather anti-conversion. For more information about us, click here.
  
  
  
  
  Recent Articles
  
  
  Hindu gods & gospel untruths
  
  'More Christian than thou’ is Mizo polls plank
  
  Excerpt from Washington Post and Hinduphobia
  
  Shameful Conversions
  
  Apartheid in India
  
  Role of religion is to make us humans
  
  How Europe was overrun by Christians
  
  The Church at the Top of the World
  
  Recall the Goa Inquisition
  
  Ban Christian Priests & Nuns from Teaching in Schools & Colleges
  
  Cleansing of Hindus in Tripura
  
  The Rape of India
  
  
  
  More Articles...
  
  
  
  
  News Headlines
  
  
  Lord Ram Icon Vandalized by Christian Zealots Still Awaits Replacement
  
  72 Christian Militants Surrender in Tripura
  
  Student's ear torn-off in Christian School for forgetting book
  
  Sri Lanka: Christian MP appointed minister for Hindu Education Affairs
  
  To bring the converts home, VHP is getting their feet wet
  
  Clergy plan Blockbuster Evangelism in South India
  
  Church Controlling Politics in Mizoram
  
  Christian Evangelist Groups buys Cruise Liner for Global Conversions
  
  Christian Missionaries Target Hindus at Kumbh Mela 2004
  
  Christian twist to Kerala culture
  
  Hindu Groups Counters Missionaries in Tribal Gujurat
  
  Catholic Priest lured followers to invest money
  
  
  
  More News...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  
  February 5, 2004, 3:10 pm
  
  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  Cross Purposes
  by Steve Hargreaves
  January 29 - February 4, 2003
  
  BANGKOK, THAILAND — In the hills of northern Thailand, near the infamous Golden Triangle region, a new kind of battle is taking place. The nexus of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos has long been plagued by cross-border shelling and small-arms fire, but the latest fighting is different. On one side are those trying to save a people's culture. On the other are those trying to save their souls.
  
  And now, squarely in the middle, stands the U.S. government. In early October the Department of Labor, as part of the Bush administration's new policy of helping fund "faith-based" organizations, announced it would give $700,000 to the International Justice Mission, a Washington, D.C.-based Christian group focused on human rights abuses.
  
  Since taking office, President Bush has made channeling federal funds to religious organizations a key part of his agenda. Although the allotment for the International Justice Mission, or IJM, is one of the first faith-based grants to be awarded internationally, others may soon follow. Last month, Bush moved personnel from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to the Agency for International Development.
  
  IJM's money is to be spent countering child trafficking, no small problem considering an estimated 300,000 women and girls are bought and sold here every year; most end up as forced laborers in factories or brothels. However, the infusion of American support comes at a time when local citizens and the secular aid workers who come to help are becoming increasingly wary of missionary work. In particular, they say Christian preachers end up stripping traditional ways from some of the most impoverished people in the Chiang Rai province, the Akha "hilltribe."
  
  One of the region's six major hilltribes, the Akha are relative newcomers. Some 500,000 members have migrated here from Myanmar, Laos, Tibet, and southern China over the last 200 years. Fleeing wars, persecution, and natural disasters, they settle in the remote mountains, erecting grass and bamboo villages, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, and, in some cases, making and selling crafts to tourists. Akha religion is best described as ancestral and animistic, meaning they believe everything has a spirit. The tribe is shunned by Thai society—and heavily targeted for conversion by missionaries.
  
  Twenty-year-old Buga Mayer, who sells hilltribe clothing and accessories in Chiang Rai's night bazaar, has nothing but sharp words for outside religious preachers. "They come to change the Akha people's ideas," she says. "It's no good. We used to have Akha festivals all the time. Now it's just once in a while."
  
  It's unclear how much evangelizing IJM engages in, if any, as representatives declined to be interviewed. And while a spokesman for the Department of Labor says the federal money is only to be used to stop child trafficking—a task that includes serving as a liaison between government officials and field missionaries who witness abuses—he also acknowledges the government has no control over how IJM spends other portions of its budget.
  
  Who's to say whether any given dollar gets spent on humanitarianism or proselytizing? With the region's average monthly wage pegged at something less than $100, the sheer size of the $700,000 grant is raising eyebrows.
  
  "That's not good news," says Alberto C. de la Paz, curator of a hilltribe museum run by Thailand's Population and Community Development Association, the country's largest nongovernmental organization. Himself a Filipino-born Christian, de la Paz is hardly a radical anti-missionary crusader. He acknowledges the benefits missionaries bring to the hilltribes, such as teaching basic literacy and thus empowering people to record their history. However, he says missionary outreach sometimes results in half a village converting to Christianity while the other half holds to the traditional faith. This split can create problems for groups trying to run development programs such as encouraging the planting of renewable crops. In many cases, he says, the two halves simply won't work together, so the whole village loses out.
  
  More importantly, de la Paz thinks missionaries contribute to the erosion of indigenous culture. By spreading a belief in Jesus, he says, they relegate ancestral and spirit worship to the history books. Along with it go the clothing, rituals, and other expressions of identity. Also at stake is centuries-old knowledge of agriculture, medicine, and family ties, which is spread through religious stories. A horticulturist by training, he equates a loss of cultural diversity with a loss of biodiversity. The less diverse our human population becomes, the less its chance for survival. "The villagers are living in what I call a cultural island," he says, "and that is being eroded."
  
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  Yet de la Paz is not the evangelicals' fiercest critic in Chiang Rai. By almost all accounts that title goes to Matthew McDaniel, a 44-year-old former carpenter from Oregon. Driving from village to village in a beat-up Toyota four-by-four, its rear end pasted with "Missionaries Suck" bumper stickers, McDaniel isn't shy about his disdain for the religiously motivated. He climbs trees to take down signs posted by missionaries. And he says he has told missionaries trying to move into his village, where he lives with his Akha wife, that he'll do "whatever it takes" to keep them out.
  
  Since moving to Thailand 15 years ago, McDaniel has started a small nongovernmental organization called the Akha Heritage Foundation. With an annual budget of $6000, the group provides services that range from the establishing of fish farms and publishing books in the Akha language to documenting human rights violations.
  
  McDaniel says the missionaries don't do anything to help the people economically. Worse, he says, the missionaries, despite having vast financial resources, have a vested interest in keeping people poor, since desperation makes for easier converts. "You don't succeed as a missionary if you teach someone to be independent," he said. "They want to control them like a resource, like trees in a forest."
  
  McDaniel says one of the main missionary activities, the opening of orphanages, is downright sneaky. "They work to take the children," he says. "Separate them from their parents and it's easier to convert them."
  
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  For their part, missionaries in the region describe their goals as a mix of the charitable and the heavenly.
  
  About 20 miles outside Chiang Rai, Gary Spengler is enjoying a harvest celebration in a small Akha village of some 30 houses. The village sits in a shallow valley, where thick vegetation on the steep surrounding hills is broken only by terraced farm plots. The houses are grass and bamboo huts resting on stilts, with one or two rooms on the inside and sometimes a porch out front. Chickens cluck about. Large banana leaves, which everyone seems to be using for plates, litter the ground, perhaps soon to be eaten by the chickens.
  
  Perched atop a small rise is a concrete church where dozens of people are attending a service conducted by an Akha pastor. Spengler is there gathering photos and video to show people back in the States. A born-again American missionary, Spengler is up-front and open when it comes to talking about his mission. "If you see a bunch of people who don't know Christianity, you reach out to them," he says, citing Bible study sessions and organizing sporting events as ways to connect with the locals. "It's not trickery. You can't force people to believe in Christ. We just wake up every day and try to help people out."
  
  Spengler admits missionaries have made mistakes in the past, preaching to people without understanding their real needs. "They used to come with a Bible pack and leave. Now they come with a Bible pack and a hammer," he says. "But obviously we would never come if it was just to feed people. That's what the Peace Corps does."
  
  Four years ago Spengler, his wife, Cindy, and their four children moved to Thailand from Virginia, where Gary worked in construction. The couple, both on the early side of middle age, are not the expected picture of Christian missionaries. Cindy, a former sorority girl at Auburn University, suggested going out for a beer. Gary, with his fit physique and stylish sunglasses, spoke fondly of surfing on the Florida coast. After spending three years as missionaries near Bangkok, they came to Chiang Rai last year and founded the Akha Harvest Mission. Now, Gary says, they're planning a 32-bed orphanage here, with the goal of caring for parentless Akha children and "having these kids raised knowing who Jesus Christ is."
  
  Cindy says missionaries are of course changing the Akha way of life, but she doesn't necessarily think this is a bad thing. "Those that want to preserve culture look at things as so myopic," she says. "Culture is not static. Life is fluid, culture is fluid." She cites an Akha custom that calls for killing one baby in the event twins are born, as twins are thought to bring bad spirits into the village. "Things are not all good in an animist society," she says. "They live in fear. They don't know where they are coming from or where they are going."
  
  And that is the primary motivation for missionaries, redirecting "lost" souls toward the pearly gates. "That is a biblical mandate," says Cindy. "Are we going to go to heaven by ourselves or are we going to see if we can bring others with us as well?"
  
  For people who consider nonbelievers doomed to hell, separating piety from politics may be impossible. The International Justice Mission's own literature states a need for "an explicitly Christian ministry" to deal with human rights abuses. The Department of Labor, however, says IJM's religious affiliation had nothing to do with getting funded. "We would not favor a Christian group over any other," says the spokesman, noting IJM competed with several other secular agencies. "It's based on abilities, not religious content."
  
  As for the Akha people, opinions about missionaries are, not surprisingly, mixed. Mayer, the bazaar merchant, questions the true objectives of religious conversion. She's a university student and Buddhist convert, both rare for a hilltribe member. "The missionaries import the American lifestyle into Thailand," she says. "They entice people to believe in God. I am suspect. Why do they do this? To increase American power, I believe."
  
  Just a few tables down, 20-year-old Fon Visaluk says she respects missionaries' efforts to turn Akha people away from drinking and smoking and their push for education. She praises the missionary who has been in her village for the last decade. "In my village boys and girls don't go to school," she says. "He teaches them. All day long he's working. He's a good man."
  
  In many ways, the judgment hilltribe people and secular aid workers pass on IJM will depend on how well the group segregates its role as American-funded watchdog from its stated commitment to "advance [Christ's] Kingdom." But at a time when the U.S. faces increasing heat from allies and enemies alike for being, at best, an overly dominant culture and, at worst, a relentless crusader, perhaps there's a better way to promote understanding than sending missionaries to do the job of ambassadors.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Note: The views expressed on this site are those of the respective authors and not necessarily those of IACA. This organization is in no way anti-Christian but rather anti-conversion. For more information about us, click here.
  
  
  
  
  Recent Articles
  
  
  Hindu gods & gospel untruths
  
  'More Christian than thou’ is Mizo polls plank
  
  Excerpt from Washington Post and Hinduphobia
  
  Shameful Conversions
  
  Apartheid in India
  
  Role of religion is to make us humans
  
  How Europe was overrun by Christians
  
  The Church at the Top of the World
  
  Recall the Goa Inquisition
  
  Ban Christian Priests & Nuns from Teaching in Schools & Colleges
  
  Cleansing of Hindus in Tripura
  
  The Rape of India
  
  
  
  More Articles...
  
  
  
  
  News Headlines
  
  
  Lord Ram Icon Vandalized by Christian Zealots Still Awaits Replacement
  
  72 Christian Militants Surrender in Tripura
  
  Student's ear torn-off in Christian School for forgetting book
  
  Sri Lanka: Christian MP appointed minister for Hindu Education Affairs
  
  To bring the converts home, VHP is getting their feet wet
  
  Clergy plan Blockbuster Evangelism in South India
  
  Church Controlling Politics in Mizoram
  
  Christian Evangelist Groups buys Cruise Liner for Global Conversions
  
  Christian Missionaries Target Hindus at Kumbh Mela 2004
  
  Christian twist to Kerala culture
  
  Hindu Groups Counters Missionaries in Tribal Gujurat
  
  Catholic Priest lured followers to invest money
  
  
  
  More News...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Site Search
  
  
  Articles News Pages
  
  
  
  
  
  IACA
  
  
  Main
  About Us
  Contact
  
  
  
  
  Introduction
  
  
  What Aggression?
  What's Wrong?
  Why India?
  
  
  
  Tactics
  
  
  Deception
  Violence
  Medical Care
  Education
  Charity
  Sexual Abuse
  
  
  
  Action
  
  
  Petitions
  Resistance
  Blacklist
  Links
  
  
  
  
  Hindus
  
  
  FAQ
  Response
  Perspective
  
  
  
  
  Resources
  
  
  Reading
  Links
  
  
  
  
  Features
  
  
  Hijack of Hinduism
  Facts & Figures
  Assault on India
  NLFT
  
  
  
  
  Email List
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  
  February 5, 2004, 3:10 pm
  
  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  Cross Purposes
  by Steve Hargreaves
  January 29 - February 4, 2003
  
  BANGKOK, THAILAND — In the hills of northern Thailand, near the infamous Golden Triangle region, a new kind of battle is taking place. The nexus of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos has long been plagued by cross-border shelling and small-arms fire, but the latest fighting is different. On one side are those trying to save a people's culture. On the other are those trying to save their souls.
  
  And now, squarely in the middle, stands the U.S. government. In early October the Department of Labor, as part of the Bush administration's new policy of helping fund "faith-based" organizations, announced it would give $700,000 to the International Justice Mission, a Washington, D.C.-based Christian group focused on human rights abuses.
  
  Since taking office, President Bush has made channeling federal funds to religious organizations a key part of his agenda. Although the allotment for the International Justice Mission, or IJM, is one of the first faith-based grants to be awarded internationally, others may soon follow. Last month, Bush moved personnel from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to the Agency for International Development.
  
  IJM's money is to be spent countering child trafficking, no small problem considering an estimated 300,000 women and girls are bought and sold here every year; most end up as forced laborers in factories or brothels. However, the infusion of American support comes at a time when local citizens and the secular aid workers who come to help are becoming increasingly wary of missionary work. In particular, they say Christian preachers end up stripping traditional ways from some of the most impoverished people in the Chiang Rai province, the Akha "hilltribe."
  
  One of the region's six major hilltribes, the Akha are relative newcomers. Some 500,000 members have migrated here from Myanmar, Laos, Tibet, and southern China over the last 200 years. Fleeing wars, persecution, and natural disasters, they settle in the remote mountains, erecting grass and bamboo villages, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, and, in some cases, making and selling crafts to tourists. Akha religion is best described as ancestral and animistic, meaning they believe everything has a spirit. The tribe is shunned by Thai society—and heavily targeted for conversion by missionaries.
  
  Twenty-year-old Buga Mayer, who sells hilltribe clothing and accessories in Chiang Rai's night bazaar, has nothing but sharp words for outside religious preachers. "They come to change the Akha people's ideas," she says. "It's no good. We used to have Akha festivals all the time. Now it's just once in a while."
  
  It's unclear how much evangelizing IJM engages in, if any, as representatives declined to be interviewed. And while a spokesman for the Department of Labor says the federal money is only to be used to stop child trafficking—a task that includes serving as a liaison between government officials and field missionaries who witness abuses—he also acknowledges the government has no control over how IJM spends other portions of its budget.
  
  Who's to say whether any given dollar gets spent on humanitarianism or proselytizing? With the region's average monthly wage pegged at something less than $100, the sheer size of the $700,000 grant is raising eyebrows.
  
  "That's not good news," says Alberto C. de la Paz, curator of a hilltribe museum run by Thailand's Population and Community Development Association, the country's largest nongovernmental organization. Himself a Filipino-born Christian, de la Paz is hardly a radical anti-missionary crusader. He acknowledges the benefits missionaries bring to the hilltribes, such as teaching basic literacy and thus empowering people to record their history. However, he says missionary outreach sometimes results in half a village converting to Christianity while the other half holds to the traditional faith. This split can create problems for groups trying to run development programs such as encouraging the planting of renewable crops. In many cases, he says, the two halves simply won't work together, so the whole village loses out.
  
  More importantly, de la Paz thinks missionaries contribute to the erosion of indigenous culture. By spreading a belief in Jesus, he says, they relegate ancestral and spirit worship to the history books. Along with it go the clothing, rituals, and other expressions of identity. Also at stake is centuries-old knowledge of agriculture, medicine, and family ties, which is spread through religious stories. A horticulturist by training, he equates a loss of cultural diversity with a loss of biodiversity. The less diverse our human population becomes, the less its chance for survival. "The villagers are living in what I call a cultural island," he says, "and that is being eroded."
  
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  Yet de la Paz is not the evangelicals' fiercest critic in Chiang Rai. By almost all accounts that title goes to Matthew McDaniel, a 44-year-old former carpenter from Oregon. Driving from village to village in a beat-up Toyota four-by-four, its rear end pasted with "Missionaries Suck" bumper stickers, McDaniel isn't shy about his disdain for the religiously motivated. He climbs trees to take down signs posted by missionaries. And he says he has told missionaries trying to move into his village, where he lives with his Akha wife, that he'll do "whatever it takes" to keep them out.
  
  Since moving to Thailand 15 years ago, McDaniel has started a small nongovernmental organization called the Akha Heritage Foundation. With an annual budget of $6000, the group provides services that range from the establishing of fish farms and publishing books in the Akha language to documenting human rights violations.
  
  McDaniel says the missionaries don't do anything to help the people economically. Worse, he says, the missionaries, despite having vast financial resources, have a vested interest in keeping people poor, since desperation makes for easier converts. "You don't succeed as a missionary if you teach someone to be independent," he said. "They want to control them like a resource, like trees in a forest."
  
  McDaniel says one of the main missionary activities, the opening of orphanages, is downright sneaky. "They work to take the children," he says. "Separate them from their parents and it's easier to convert them."
  
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  For their part, missionaries in the region describe their goals as a mix of the charitable and the heavenly.
  
  About 20 miles outside Chiang Rai, Gary Spengler is enjoying a harvest celebration in a small Akha village of some 30 houses. The village sits in a shallow valley, where thick vegetation on the steep surrounding hills is broken only by terraced farm plots. The houses are grass and bamboo huts resting on stilts, with one or two rooms on the inside and sometimes a porch out front. Chickens cluck about. Large banana leaves, which everyone seems to be using for plates, litter the ground, perhaps soon to be eaten by the chickens.
  
  Perched atop a small rise is a concrete church where dozens of people are attending a service conducted by an Akha pastor. Spengler is there gathering photos and video to show people back in the States. A born-again American missionary, Spengler is up-front and open when it comes to talking about his mission. "If you see a bunch of people who don't know Christianity, you reach out to them," he says, citing Bible study sessions and organizing sporting events as ways to connect with the locals. "It's not trickery. You can't force people to believe in Christ. We just wake up every day and try to help people out."
  
  Spengler admits missionaries have made mistakes in the past, preaching to people without understanding their real needs. "They used to come with a Bible pack and leave. Now they come with a Bible pack and a hammer," he says. "But obviously we would never come if it was just to feed people. That's what the Peace Corps does."
  
  Four years ago Spengler, his wife, Cindy, and their four children moved to Thailand from Virginia, where Gary worked in construction. The couple, both on the early side of middle age, are not the expected picture of Christian missionaries. Cindy, a former sorority girl at Auburn University, suggested going out for a beer. Gary, with his fit physique and stylish sunglasses, spoke fondly of surfing on the Florida coast. After spending three years as missionaries near Bangkok, they came to Chiang Rai last year and founded the Akha Harvest Mission. Now, Gary says, they're planning a 32-bed orphanage here, with the goal of caring for parentless Akha children and "having these kids raised knowing who Jesus Christ is."
  
  Cindy says missionaries are of course changing the Akha way of life, but she doesn't necessarily think this is a bad thing. "Those that want to preserve culture look at things as so myopic," she says. "Culture is not static. Life is fluid, culture is fluid." She cites an Akha custom that calls for killing one baby in the event twins are born, as twins are thought to bring bad spirits into the village. "Things are not all good in an animist society," she says. "They live in fear. They don't know where they are coming from or where they are going."
  
  And that is the primary motivation for missionaries, redirecting "lost" souls toward the pearly gates. "That is a biblical mandate," says Cindy. "Are we going to go to heaven by ourselves or are we going to see if we can bring others with us as well?"
  
  For people who consider nonbelievers doomed to hell, separating piety from politics may be impossible. The International Justice Mission's own literature states a need for "an explicitly Christian ministry" to deal with human rights abuses. The Department of Labor, however, says IJM's religious affiliation had nothing to do with getting funded. "We would not favor a Christian group over any other," says the spokesman, noting IJM competed with several other secular agencies. "It's based on abilities, not religious content."
  
  As for the Akha people, opinions about missionaries are, not surprisingly, mixed. Mayer, the bazaar merchant, questions the true objectives of religious conversion. She's a university student and Buddhist convert, both rare for a hilltribe member. "The missionaries import the American lifestyle into Thailand," she says. "They entice people to believe in God. I am suspect. Why do they do this? To increase American power, I believe."
  
  Just a few tables down, 20-year-old Fon Visaluk says she respects missionaries' efforts to turn Akha people away from drinking and smoking and their push for education. She praises the missionary who has been in her village for the last decade. "In my village boys and girls don't go to school," she says. "He teaches them. All day long he's working. He's a good man."
  
  In many ways, the judgment hilltribe people and secular aid workers pass on IJM will depend on how well the group segregates its role as American-funded watchdog from its stated commitment to "advance [Christ's] Kingdom." But at a time when the U.S. faces increasing heat from allies and enemies alike for being, at best, an overly dominant culture and, at worst, a relentless crusader, perhaps there's a better way to promote understanding than sending missionaries to do the job of ambassadors.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Note: The views expressed on this site are those of the respective authors and not necessarily those of IACA. This organization is in no way anti-Christian but rather anti-conversion. For more information about us, click here.
  
  
  
  
  Recent Articles
  
  
  Hindu gods & gospel untruths
  
  'More Christian than thou’ is Mizo polls plank
  
  Excerpt from Washington Post and Hinduphobia
  
  Shameful Conversions
  
  Apartheid in India
  
  Role of religion is to make us humans
  
  How Europe was overrun by Christians
  
  The Church at the Top of the World
  
  Recall the Goa Inquisition
  
  Ban Christian Priests & Nuns from Teaching in Schools & Colleges
  
  Cleansing of Hindus in Tripura
  
  The Rape of India
  
  
  
  More Articles...
  
  
  
  
  News Headlines
  
  
  Lord Ram Icon Vandalized by Christian Zealots Still Awaits Replacement
  
  72 Christian Militants Surrender in Tripura
  
  Student's ear torn-off in Christian School for forgetting book
  
  Sri Lanka: Christian MP appointed minister for Hindu Education Affairs
  
  To bring the converts home, VHP is getting their feet wet
  
  Clergy plan Blockbuster Evangelism in South India
  
  Church Controlling Politics in Mizoram
  
  Christian Evangelist Groups buys Cruise Liner for Global Conversions
  
  Christian Missionaries Target Hindus at Kumbh Mela 2004
  
  Christian twist to Kerala culture
  
  Hindu Groups Counters Missionaries in Tribal Gujurat
  
  Catholic Priest lured followers to invest money
  
  
  
  More News...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Site Search
  
  
  Articles News Pages
  
  
  
  
  
  
  IACA
  
  
  Main
  About Us
  Contact
  
  
  
  
  Introduction
  
  
  What Aggression?
  What's Wrong?
  Why India?
  
  
  
  Tactics
  
  
  Deception
  Violence
  Medical Care
  Education
  Charity
  Sexual Abuse
  
  
  
  Action
  
  
  Petitions
  Resistance
  Blacklist
  Links
  
  
  
  
  Hindus
  
  
  FAQ
  Response
  Perspective
  
  
  
  
  Resources
  
  
  Reading
  Links
  
  
  
  
  Features
  
  
  Hijack of Hinduism
  Facts & Figures
  Assault on India
  NLFT
  
  
  
  
  Email List
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  
  February 5, 2004, 3:10 pm
  
  Federally Funded Missionaries Threaten a Southeast Asian Culture
  Cross Purposes
  by Steve Hargreaves
  January 29 - February 4, 2003
  
  BANGKOK, THAILAND — In the hills of northern Thailand, near the infamous Golden Triangle region, a new kind of battle is taking place. The nexus of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos has long been plagued by cross-border shelling and small-arms fire, but the latest fighting is different. On one side are those trying to save a people's culture. On the other are those trying to save their souls.
  
  And now, squarely in the middle, stands the U.S. government. In early October the Department of Labor, as part of the Bush administration's new policy of helping fund "faith-based" organizations, announced it would give $700,000 to the International Justice Mission, a Washington, D.C.-based Christian group focused on human rights abuses.
  
  Since taking office, President Bush has made channeling federal funds to religious organizations a key part of his agenda. Although the allotment for the International Justice Mission, or IJM, is one of the first faith-based grants to be awarded internationally, others may soon follow. Last month, Bush moved personnel from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to the Agency for International Development.
  
  IJM's money is to be spent countering child trafficking, no small problem considering an estimated 300,000 women and girls are bought and sold here every year; most end up as forced laborers in factories or brothels. However, the infusion of American support comes at a time when local citizens and the secular aid workers who come to help are becoming increasingly wary of missionary work. In particular, they say Christian preachers end up stripping traditional ways from some of the most impoverished people in the Chiang Rai province, the Akha "hilltribe."
  
  One of the region's six major hilltribes, the Akha are relative newcomers. Some 500,000 members have migrated here from Myanmar, Laos, Tibet, and southern China over the last 200 years. Fleeing wars, persecution, and natural disasters, they settle in the remote mountains, erecting grass and bamboo villages, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, and, in some cases, making and selling crafts to tourists. Akha religion is best described as ancestral and animistic, meaning they believe everything has a spirit. The tribe is shunned by Thai society—and heavily targeted for conversion by missionaries.
  
  Twenty-year-old Buga Mayer, who sells hilltribe clothing and accessories in Chiang Rai's night bazaar, has nothing but sharp words for outside religious preachers. "They come to change the Akha people's ideas," she says. "It's no good. We used to have Akha festivals all the time. Now it's just once in a while."
  
  It's unclear how much evangelizing IJM engages in, if any, as representatives declined to be interviewed. And while a spokesman for the Department of Labor says the federal money is only to be used to stop child trafficking—a task that includes serving as a liaison between government officials and field missionaries who witness abuses—he also acknowledges the government has no control over how IJM spends other portions of its budget.
  
  Who's to say whether any given dollar gets spent on humanitarianism or proselytizing? With the region's average monthly wage pegged at something less than $100, the sheer size of the $700,000 grant is raising eyebrows.
  
  "That's not good news," says Alberto C. de la Paz, curator of a hilltribe museum run by Thailand's Population and Community Development Association, the country's largest nongovernmental organization. Himself a Filipino-born Christian, de la Paz is hardly a radical anti-missionary crusader. He acknowledges the benefits missionaries bring to the hilltribes, such as teaching basic literacy and thus empowering people to record their history. However, he says missionary outreach sometimes results in half a village converting to Christianity while the other half holds to the traditional faith. This split can create problems for groups trying to run development programs such as encouraging the planting of renewable crops. In many cases, he says, the two halves simply won't work together, so the whole village loses out.
  
  More importantly, de la Paz thinks missionaries contribute to the erosion of indigenous culture. By spreading a belief in Jesus, he says, they relegate ancestral and spirit worship to the history books. Along with it go the clothing, rituals, and other expressions of identity. Also at stake is centuries-old knowledge of agriculture, medicine, and family ties, which is spread through religious stories. A horticulturist by training, he equates a loss of cultural diversity with a loss of biodiversity. The less diverse our human population becomes, the less its chance for survival. "The villagers are living in what I call a cultural island," he says, "and that is being eroded."
  
  
  
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  Yet de la Paz is not the evangelicals' fiercest critic in Chiang Rai. By almost all accounts that title goes to Matthew McDaniel, a 44-year-old former carpenter from Oregon. Driving from village to village in a beat-up Toyota four-by-four, its rear end pasted with "Missionaries Suck" bumper stickers, McDaniel isn't shy about his disdain for the religiously motivated. He climbs trees to take down signs posted by missionaries. And he says he has told missionaries trying to move into his village, where he lives with his Akha wife, that he'll do "whatever it takes" to keep them out.
  
  Since moving to Thailand 15 years ago, McDaniel has started a small nongovernmental organization called the Akha Heritage Foundation. With an annual budget of $6000, the group provides services that range from the establishing of fish farms and publishing books in the Akha language to documenting human rights violations.
  
  McDaniel says the missionaries don't do anything to help the people economically. Worse, he says, the missionaries, despite having vast financial resources, have a vested interest in keeping people poor, since desperation makes for easier converts. "You don't succeed as a missionary if you teach someone to be independent," he said. "They want to control them like a resource, like trees in a forest."
  
  McDaniel says one of the main missionary activities, the opening of orphanages, is downright sneaky. "They work to take the children," he says. "Separate them from their parents and it's easier to convert them."
  
  
  
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  For their part, missionaries in the region describe their goals as a mix of the charitable and the heavenly.
  
  About 20 miles outside Chiang Rai, Gary Spengler is enjoying a harvest celebration in a small Akha village of some 30 houses. The village sits in a shallow valley, where thick vegetation on the steep surrounding hills is broken only by terraced farm plots. The houses are grass and bamboo huts resting on stilts, with one or two rooms on the inside and sometimes a porch out front. Chickens cluck about. Large banana leaves, which everyone seems to be using for plates, litter the ground, perhaps soon to be eaten by the chickens.
  
  Perched atop a small rise is a concrete church where dozens of people are attending a service conducted by an Akha pastor. Spengler is there gathering photos and video to show people back in the States. A born-again American missionary, Spengler is up-front and open when it comes to talking about his mission. "If you see a bunch of people who don't know Christianity, you reach out to them," he says, citing Bible study sessions and organizing sporting events as ways to connect with the locals. "It's not trickery. You can't force people to believe in Christ. We just wake up every day and try to help people out."
  
  Spengler admits missionaries have made mistakes in the past, preaching to people without understanding their real needs. "They used to come with a Bible pack and leave. Now they come with a Bible pack and a hammer," he says. "But obviously we would never come if it was just to feed people. That's what the Peace Corps does."
  
  Four years ago Spengler, his wife, Cindy, and their four children moved to Thailand from Virginia, where Gary worked in construction. The couple, both on the early side of middle age, are not the expected picture of Christian missionaries. Cindy, a former sorority girl at Auburn University, suggested going out for a beer. Gary, with his fit physique and stylish sunglasses, spoke fondly of surfing on the Florida coast. After spending three years as missionaries near Bangkok, they came to Chiang Rai last year and founded the Akha Harvest Mission. Now, Gary says, they're planning a 32-bed orphanage here, with the goal of caring for parentless Akha children and "having these kids raised knowing who Jesus Christ is."
  
  Cindy says missionaries are of course changing the Akha way of life, but she doesn't necessarily think this is a bad thing. "Those that want to preserve culture look at things as so myopic," she says. "Culture is not static. Life is fluid, culture is fluid." She cites an Akha custom that calls for killing one baby in the event twins are born, as twins are thought to bring bad spirits into the village. "Things are not all good in an animist society," she says. "They live in fear. They don't know where they are coming from or where they are going."
  
  And that is the primary motivation for missionaries, redirecting "lost" souls toward the pearly gates. "That is a biblical mandate," says Cindy. "Are we going to go to heaven by ourselves or are we going to see if we can bring others with us as well?"
  
  For people who consider nonbelievers doomed to hell, separating piety from politics may be impossible. The International Justice Mission's own literature states a need for "an explicitly Christian ministry" to deal with human rights abuses. The Department of Labor, however, says IJM's religious affiliation had nothing to do with getting funded. "We would not favor a Christian group over any other," says the spokesman, noting IJM competed with several other secular agencies. "It's based on abilities, not religious content."
  
  As for the Akha people, opinions about missionaries are, not surprisingly, mixed. Mayer, the bazaar merchant, questions the true objectives of religious conversion. She's a university student and Buddhist convert, both rare for a hilltribe member. "The missionaries import the American lifestyle into Thailand," she says. "They entice people to believe in God. I am suspect. Why do they do this? To increase American power, I believe."
  
  Just a few tables down, 20-year-old Fon Visaluk says she respects missionaries' efforts to turn Akha people away from drinking and smoking and their push for education. She praises the missionary who has been in her village for the last decade. "In my village boys and girls don't go to school," she says. "He teaches them. All day long he's working. He's a good man."
  
  In many ways, the judgment hilltribe people and secular aid workers pass on IJM will depend on how well the group segregates its role as American-funded watchdog from its stated commitment to "advance [Christ's] Kingdom." But at a time when the U.S. faces increasing heat from allies and enemies alike for being, at best, an overly dominant culture and, at worst, a relentless crusader, perhaps there's a better way to promote understanding than sending missionaries to do the job of ambassadors.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Note: The views expressed on this site are those of the respective authors and not necessarily those of IACA. This organization is in no way anti-Christian but rather anti-conversion. For more information about us, click here.
  
  
  
  
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