Wan: Hmong Girl´s Story with a Foreign Sister
Bill Haymin
April 05, 2009
By Susan Staples
susanmarie777@hotmail.com
Let me begin my true story by telling you a little bit about myself. My name is Susan Staples. I became a believer in 1987. After being a Christian for a few years I felt the Lord leading me to be a missionary. After attending Bible College and going on a few short term mission trips, I heard about a Christian hostel that was helping hill tribe children in northern Thailand from our church at Calvary Chapel. I decided to go to Thailand in 2002. I have been a missionary to the Hmong people since 2004. My mission to the Hmong people has been a very rich and rewarding adventure that I hope to continue. I am currently living in Thailand among the Hmong people writing you this story.
This is a true story about someone very dear to me--Wan. Her name means "day" in Thai. She was 16 when she came to live with us at the Hmong hostel for girls. Instead of studying grades 10-12, she had decided to attend a trade school, an option for all students in Thailand. She was majoring in tourism. Wan is from Huay Haan, a Hmong village in the mountains, about 90 minutes from Chiang Khong where we live. When Wan first came to live with us, she was shy, but very polite. She rarely shared what was really going on in her heart or what she was thinking. She was the oldest of all the girls in the hostel and the girls elected her as their student leader that year. She was respected by most of the younger girls. She was a magnet for most of younger girls, and when the younger girls wouldn´t obey me, they would obey Wan. Wan was not a Christian when she first came to live with us, but she had heard about Jesus and was interested in learning more.
Wan´s first year with us was also the first year that I had run a hostel. While rules are almost non-existent in Hmong villages, there are strict rules for certain things at the hostel. For example, everyone has to be on time for meals, worship and activities, rooms must be kept neat and clean, and permission must be obtained before leaving the premises.
About three weeks after coming to live with us, Wan and I had a confrontation. She was late for breakfast and after I told her to go and help set the table, she refused to obey me. I told Wan that she needed to start listening to me and go eat breakfast with everyone else or she would be punished. Wan ran to her room crying and stayed there until she left for school. As she walked out of the house, I noticed that her eyes were red and swollen.
After two weeks of Wan refusing to speak to me--and through consultation with other staff members--I learned a few things about Hmong culture and about Wan as well.
1) Parents will repeatedly tell their children to do something and usually will never force them to obey.
2) Hmong girls get their feelings hurt very easily, much easier than my own feelings get hurt (and I am a sensitive person!).
3) More than anything, Wan wants to feel loved. When people speak kindly to her, she feels loved. When they speak harshly to her, she feels unloved and can not deal with it and crawls further inside herself.
I spent that entire first year with Wan praying for her and trying to get close to her. Everything I did just seemed to push her away. I fervently prayed for her, but saw no progress in our relationship. The Hmong pastor I work with encouraged me to keep praying, keep trying, do not give up and wait to see what God would do. It was a struggle and very depressing at times when I would feel snubbed by her.
Around Christmas-time of that year, we took the Bible students and some of the girls on an outreach to a Hmong village. Because not everyone can fit in the truck, I had the challenge of selecting which four out of the eight girls would go. I selected the three older girls, but could not make my mind up about taking Wan. I wanted her to go, but I was not sure she had accepted the Lord and I knew one of the younger girls who had accepted the Lord really wanted to go. In the end, I gave Wan the option of going. Wan decided to go, but her feelings were hurt because she felt I did not trust her. She did not speak to me the entire trip.
The start of the second year was almost the same as the first year. Then about a month into the school year, something happened. Just before worship one Monday night, Wan came into the room and she was very angry. It was the first time I had seen her express any anger whatsoever. She was talking excitedly in Hmong with a few of the other girls and I–only knowing a few sentences in Hmong–had no idea what was going on. Then suddenly, Wan just burst out crying–not quiet sobs, but screaming cries. We all went to her and held her and she kept sobbing and sobbing. I immediately started fasting and praying, asking God for wisdom to know what to do. After five minutes had passed, Wan started hyperventilating and went into convulsions. More people gathered around Wan and we kept praying. Gradually Wan calmed down.
That was the beginning of a great work of God in Wan´s life. Because she was finally able to start releasing those feelings, Wan allowed God to start working in her life. And little by little, Wan let me into her life as well. At first I was afraid to talk to Wan, mostly because I was afraid she would not accept what I had to say. But that previous year of praying and sharing with her started to pay off. A few weeks after her breakdown, Wan shared with me what had happened to lead up to that and how she felt. By God´s grace, I was able to encourage her and share with her from the Word. For the first time in her life, she started to see that God allows all things into our lives, both the good and the difficult, to make us stronger and to make us more like Jesus. It was at that point that she had accepted Jesus as her Savior and really began to rely on Him!
During that time, Wan had good days and bad days. On her not-so-good days, she would withdraw into herself and not want to take part in any of the activities we were doing. It was usually because someone had said something that hurt her feelings. One night, she started crying and told me that she should not be the student leader anymore because she was not a good leader and the other girls didn´t like her. Come to find out, she had been having issues with two of the older girls who lived in the hostel. I started sharing with Wan about what a leader is, and that if she would allow God to work in her life through this, God would use those hurt feelings to help minister to others in the future. I shared with her that all leaders and everyone who God wants to use will encounter things like these, and it´s our response to these things that determine whether we are spiritually mature or if we´re still babies in the faith. I told her that I believed God had called her to be the student leader and that as a leader, she needed to take part in all the activities and be a good example whether she felt like it or not. I said "try it and see. If you step out in faith, determined to obey God and do what He wants you to do then God will give you the strength to do it and you will see God do amazing things, things you never thought possible." That second year, Wan and I became very close, and yet she was still so very shy.
Even though Wan´s English was good, most of the time she refused to speak because she was so shy. One time I took five girls out for pizza at a small restaurant run by an Italian man and his Thai wife. The purpose was not to eat pizza, but to practice speaking English. Wan´s English was the best by far, so I had her order. Her face turned five shades of red and it took her 10 minutes to get up the courage to order. At first, her voice was so soft that no one heard what she said.
At the end of that second year, the time came for Wan to do her internship. The trade school Wan had been attending chose the place where the students would do their internships. Most of those places were nearby in Chiang Khong. Wan was adamant that she was not going to do her internship in Chiang Khong. Her teacher said that Wan would, on her own, have to find a place to do her internship. She found an internship in the northern part of Chiang Rai and I helped her find a small apartment to rent and helped her settle in for the two and a half months that she was there. She called me every few weeks, when she was feeling lonely. I was disappointed that she wasn´t attending church, even though she knew there were two good churches nearby. I think she did not attend church because of her shyness and I prayed that God would continue to help her overcome.
After her internship ended, Wan returned to Chiang Khong for her third and final year with us before graduating. Knowing this was Wan´s last year, she was given more responsibilities and opportunities to take an active role in leadership. Wan was overcoming her shyness and began taking a more active role in teaching the children´s Sunday school program. When we had our Christmas outreach, Wan was the emcee and she was a natural!
That last year, I learned that Wan had a boyfriend. When I asked her about it, she denied it. As the weeks passed and we spent more time together, Wan finally admitted to me that she had a boyfriend. He was a Christian and his father was an elder at their church. He was two years older than Wan. I spent a lot of time with Wan, encouraging her to pray and seek God´s will before making any major decisions about marriage. A part of me really wanted Wan to go on to college, but I knew that if she got married, she would never go as Hmong people simply don´t go to college after marriage. It´s the husband´s duty to provide for his family, so any schooling that´s done is done before marriage.
It was both a joyful and sad time as I watched Wan get her diploma at graduation. I was sad because I knew I would not be spending a lot of time with Wan after graduation, but I was proud of what she had accomplished and praised God for what He had done in her life. The last thing Wan said to me before she left was, "Thank you very much for everything and I will miss you very much. You must promise me that if I get married you will come to my wedding." I told her that if she invited me, I would go. That was on a Friday. The following Wednesday she called me and the first words out of her mouth was, "Pee (Pee means "older sibling in Thai) Susan, you promised." I immediately knew what she was talking about. The following day, we went to her village for the Hmong version of a wedding ceremony.
A typical Hmong wedding is very different from a Western wedding. The girl is either kidnapped or agrees to go with the husband. They go to his house, where they stay for 3 days. From that first night, they are considered to be husband and wife. During that time, the husband calls the girls parents and tells them not to worry about their daughter because she´s with him and they´re getting married. After 3 days, they go back to the girl´s village, where a big feast is prepared. Basically, there is no ceremony, but there is a lot of food and drinks. After the big feast, which takes place in the girls´ village, the elders sit down and give advice to the new couple and send them on their way. As they leave the village, the bride walks with her husband and looks straight ahead without turning back to the old life that she had before she was married. (What a picture of our old life before Jesus and our new life in Christ! "No turning back, no turning back.") She will now start a new life with her husband and his family. There is another feast in the husband´s village. Nowadays, many Christians will have a ceremony in the church and have receptions in both villages after the wedding ceremony in the church.
Now Wan–my precious "daughter" that God loaned to me for three very wonderful years–has gone to be with her husband, who I pray will take good care of her and love her as Christ loved the church. They are currently living in Chiang Mai, about five hours from Chiang Khong, so I know that I will see her again. The love that I saw her give to the younger girls at the hostel, I will see her pouring out to her own children. And she will teach her children to walk in the ways of the Lord and God will continue the good work that He has started in Wan and will carry that work on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Some news about the Hmong people
May has been declared the month of prayer for Hmong people. What a great opportunity for God's people to lift up the Hmong in concerted prayer and ask God's Spirit to move in a mighty way in and through their lives. Do you know that the majority of Hmong people live in countries where they are persecuted for being Christians? Many Hmong are still in bondage to the evil spirits that rule every aspect of their lives.
Ever since I started working with Hmong people, Hmong pastors that I work with have been sharing a vision of reaching Hmong not only in Thailand, but in other surrounding countries as well. Hmong people are scattered all throughout Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Burma and China. Interestingly enough, out of all of these countries, Thailand is the only country with religious freedom. This is a great sending point for reaching other countries. Chiang Khong is called the "Gate to Indochina" and I believe it truly is a gateway to reaching surrounding countries.
Hmong people are originally from China, although there are many Hmong stories relating how the Hmong originated somewhere in Mongolia and then trickled down into China many, many years ago. The majority of Hmong people in the world still live in southern China, about 3 million people. The Hmong in China are considered an unreached in people group.
God has called 3 people who I work with to go and visit the Hmong in various Hmong villages in China .They will be going the last 2 weeks of July and will be going with a small team of Hmong people from the States. You guys, I am soooo excited about this, as this is what we´ve dreamed of for so long – Hmong reaching Hmong. I believe God is doing something new here! I believe we are living in the last days. How long before Jesus returns again? I don´t know, but I do know that I want to be about the Father´s work. He is working and I want to join Him in that work wherever He is working, as I believe you guys do also.
If you should like to help me continue to minister to the Hmong people, you can send your donations to:
Go Ministries
PO Box 651
Norco, CA
Please make the check out to Go Ministries and write my account # 1246 on the memo section of the check.
May God richly bless you, as you endeavor to serve the Lord in the way that God has called and led each of you.
Susan
Reprinted by permission
Presented by Bill Haymin, 2009
susanmarie777@hotmail.com
Let me begin my true story by telling you a little bit about myself. My name is Susan Staples. I became a believer in 1987. After being a Christian for a few years I felt the Lord leading me to be a missionary. After attending Bible College and going on a few short term mission trips, I heard about a Christian hostel that was helping hill tribe children in northern Thailand from our church at Calvary Chapel. I decided to go to Thailand in 2002. I have been a missionary to the Hmong people since 2004. My mission to the Hmong people has been a very rich and rewarding adventure that I hope to continue. I am currently living in Thailand among the Hmong people writing you this story.
This is a true story about someone very dear to me--Wan. Her name means "day" in Thai. She was 16 when she came to live with us at the Hmong hostel for girls. Instead of studying grades 10-12, she had decided to attend a trade school, an option for all students in Thailand. She was majoring in tourism. Wan is from Huay Haan, a Hmong village in the mountains, about 90 minutes from Chiang Khong where we live. When Wan first came to live with us, she was shy, but very polite. She rarely shared what was really going on in her heart or what she was thinking. She was the oldest of all the girls in the hostel and the girls elected her as their student leader that year. She was respected by most of the younger girls. She was a magnet for most of younger girls, and when the younger girls wouldn´t obey me, they would obey Wan. Wan was not a Christian when she first came to live with us, but she had heard about Jesus and was interested in learning more.
Wan´s first year with us was also the first year that I had run a hostel. While rules are almost non-existent in Hmong villages, there are strict rules for certain things at the hostel. For example, everyone has to be on time for meals, worship and activities, rooms must be kept neat and clean, and permission must be obtained before leaving the premises.
About three weeks after coming to live with us, Wan and I had a confrontation. She was late for breakfast and after I told her to go and help set the table, she refused to obey me. I told Wan that she needed to start listening to me and go eat breakfast with everyone else or she would be punished. Wan ran to her room crying and stayed there until she left for school. As she walked out of the house, I noticed that her eyes were red and swollen.
After two weeks of Wan refusing to speak to me--and through consultation with other staff members--I learned a few things about Hmong culture and about Wan as well.
1) Parents will repeatedly tell their children to do something and usually will never force them to obey.
2) Hmong girls get their feelings hurt very easily, much easier than my own feelings get hurt (and I am a sensitive person!).
3) More than anything, Wan wants to feel loved. When people speak kindly to her, she feels loved. When they speak harshly to her, she feels unloved and can not deal with it and crawls further inside herself.
I spent that entire first year with Wan praying for her and trying to get close to her. Everything I did just seemed to push her away. I fervently prayed for her, but saw no progress in our relationship. The Hmong pastor I work with encouraged me to keep praying, keep trying, do not give up and wait to see what God would do. It was a struggle and very depressing at times when I would feel snubbed by her.
Around Christmas-time of that year, we took the Bible students and some of the girls on an outreach to a Hmong village. Because not everyone can fit in the truck, I had the challenge of selecting which four out of the eight girls would go. I selected the three older girls, but could not make my mind up about taking Wan. I wanted her to go, but I was not sure she had accepted the Lord and I knew one of the younger girls who had accepted the Lord really wanted to go. In the end, I gave Wan the option of going. Wan decided to go, but her feelings were hurt because she felt I did not trust her. She did not speak to me the entire trip.
The start of the second year was almost the same as the first year. Then about a month into the school year, something happened. Just before worship one Monday night, Wan came into the room and she was very angry. It was the first time I had seen her express any anger whatsoever. She was talking excitedly in Hmong with a few of the other girls and I–only knowing a few sentences in Hmong–had no idea what was going on. Then suddenly, Wan just burst out crying–not quiet sobs, but screaming cries. We all went to her and held her and she kept sobbing and sobbing. I immediately started fasting and praying, asking God for wisdom to know what to do. After five minutes had passed, Wan started hyperventilating and went into convulsions. More people gathered around Wan and we kept praying. Gradually Wan calmed down.
That was the beginning of a great work of God in Wan´s life. Because she was finally able to start releasing those feelings, Wan allowed God to start working in her life. And little by little, Wan let me into her life as well. At first I was afraid to talk to Wan, mostly because I was afraid she would not accept what I had to say. But that previous year of praying and sharing with her started to pay off. A few weeks after her breakdown, Wan shared with me what had happened to lead up to that and how she felt. By God´s grace, I was able to encourage her and share with her from the Word. For the first time in her life, she started to see that God allows all things into our lives, both the good and the difficult, to make us stronger and to make us more like Jesus. It was at that point that she had accepted Jesus as her Savior and really began to rely on Him!
During that time, Wan had good days and bad days. On her not-so-good days, she would withdraw into herself and not want to take part in any of the activities we were doing. It was usually because someone had said something that hurt her feelings. One night, she started crying and told me that she should not be the student leader anymore because she was not a good leader and the other girls didn´t like her. Come to find out, she had been having issues with two of the older girls who lived in the hostel. I started sharing with Wan about what a leader is, and that if she would allow God to work in her life through this, God would use those hurt feelings to help minister to others in the future. I shared with her that all leaders and everyone who God wants to use will encounter things like these, and it´s our response to these things that determine whether we are spiritually mature or if we´re still babies in the faith. I told her that I believed God had called her to be the student leader and that as a leader, she needed to take part in all the activities and be a good example whether she felt like it or not. I said "try it and see. If you step out in faith, determined to obey God and do what He wants you to do then God will give you the strength to do it and you will see God do amazing things, things you never thought possible." That second year, Wan and I became very close, and yet she was still so very shy.
Even though Wan´s English was good, most of the time she refused to speak because she was so shy. One time I took five girls out for pizza at a small restaurant run by an Italian man and his Thai wife. The purpose was not to eat pizza, but to practice speaking English. Wan´s English was the best by far, so I had her order. Her face turned five shades of red and it took her 10 minutes to get up the courage to order. At first, her voice was so soft that no one heard what she said.
At the end of that second year, the time came for Wan to do her internship. The trade school Wan had been attending chose the place where the students would do their internships. Most of those places were nearby in Chiang Khong. Wan was adamant that she was not going to do her internship in Chiang Khong. Her teacher said that Wan would, on her own, have to find a place to do her internship. She found an internship in the northern part of Chiang Rai and I helped her find a small apartment to rent and helped her settle in for the two and a half months that she was there. She called me every few weeks, when she was feeling lonely. I was disappointed that she wasn´t attending church, even though she knew there were two good churches nearby. I think she did not attend church because of her shyness and I prayed that God would continue to help her overcome.
After her internship ended, Wan returned to Chiang Khong for her third and final year with us before graduating. Knowing this was Wan´s last year, she was given more responsibilities and opportunities to take an active role in leadership. Wan was overcoming her shyness and began taking a more active role in teaching the children´s Sunday school program. When we had our Christmas outreach, Wan was the emcee and she was a natural!
That last year, I learned that Wan had a boyfriend. When I asked her about it, she denied it. As the weeks passed and we spent more time together, Wan finally admitted to me that she had a boyfriend. He was a Christian and his father was an elder at their church. He was two years older than Wan. I spent a lot of time with Wan, encouraging her to pray and seek God´s will before making any major decisions about marriage. A part of me really wanted Wan to go on to college, but I knew that if she got married, she would never go as Hmong people simply don´t go to college after marriage. It´s the husband´s duty to provide for his family, so any schooling that´s done is done before marriage.
It was both a joyful and sad time as I watched Wan get her diploma at graduation. I was sad because I knew I would not be spending a lot of time with Wan after graduation, but I was proud of what she had accomplished and praised God for what He had done in her life. The last thing Wan said to me before she left was, "Thank you very much for everything and I will miss you very much. You must promise me that if I get married you will come to my wedding." I told her that if she invited me, I would go. That was on a Friday. The following Wednesday she called me and the first words out of her mouth was, "Pee (Pee means "older sibling in Thai) Susan, you promised." I immediately knew what she was talking about. The following day, we went to her village for the Hmong version of a wedding ceremony.
A typical Hmong wedding is very different from a Western wedding. The girl is either kidnapped or agrees to go with the husband. They go to his house, where they stay for 3 days. From that first night, they are considered to be husband and wife. During that time, the husband calls the girls parents and tells them not to worry about their daughter because she´s with him and they´re getting married. After 3 days, they go back to the girl´s village, where a big feast is prepared. Basically, there is no ceremony, but there is a lot of food and drinks. After the big feast, which takes place in the girls´ village, the elders sit down and give advice to the new couple and send them on their way. As they leave the village, the bride walks with her husband and looks straight ahead without turning back to the old life that she had before she was married. (What a picture of our old life before Jesus and our new life in Christ! "No turning back, no turning back.") She will now start a new life with her husband and his family. There is another feast in the husband´s village. Nowadays, many Christians will have a ceremony in the church and have receptions in both villages after the wedding ceremony in the church.
Now Wan–my precious "daughter" that God loaned to me for three very wonderful years–has gone to be with her husband, who I pray will take good care of her and love her as Christ loved the church. They are currently living in Chiang Mai, about five hours from Chiang Khong, so I know that I will see her again. The love that I saw her give to the younger girls at the hostel, I will see her pouring out to her own children. And she will teach her children to walk in the ways of the Lord and God will continue the good work that He has started in Wan and will carry that work on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Some news about the Hmong people
May has been declared the month of prayer for Hmong people. What a great opportunity for God's people to lift up the Hmong in concerted prayer and ask God's Spirit to move in a mighty way in and through their lives. Do you know that the majority of Hmong people live in countries where they are persecuted for being Christians? Many Hmong are still in bondage to the evil spirits that rule every aspect of their lives.
Ever since I started working with Hmong people, Hmong pastors that I work with have been sharing a vision of reaching Hmong not only in Thailand, but in other surrounding countries as well. Hmong people are scattered all throughout Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Burma and China. Interestingly enough, out of all of these countries, Thailand is the only country with religious freedom. This is a great sending point for reaching other countries. Chiang Khong is called the "Gate to Indochina" and I believe it truly is a gateway to reaching surrounding countries.
Hmong people are originally from China, although there are many Hmong stories relating how the Hmong originated somewhere in Mongolia and then trickled down into China many, many years ago. The majority of Hmong people in the world still live in southern China, about 3 million people. The Hmong in China are considered an unreached in people group.
God has called 3 people who I work with to go and visit the Hmong in various Hmong villages in China .They will be going the last 2 weeks of July and will be going with a small team of Hmong people from the States. You guys, I am soooo excited about this, as this is what we´ve dreamed of for so long – Hmong reaching Hmong. I believe God is doing something new here! I believe we are living in the last days. How long before Jesus returns again? I don´t know, but I do know that I want to be about the Father´s work. He is working and I want to join Him in that work wherever He is working, as I believe you guys do also.
If you should like to help me continue to minister to the Hmong people, you can send your donations to:
Go Ministries
PO Box 651
Norco, CA
Please make the check out to Go Ministries and write my account # 1246 on the memo section of the check.
May God richly bless you, as you endeavor to serve the Lord in the way that God has called and led each of you.
Susan
Reprinted by permission
Presented by Bill Haymin, 2009
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