September 2007 Dear Friends, I'm writing this in the airport of Jinghong city, Yunnan Province waiting for my flight back to Thailand. I've been coming to Jinghong in the southern most tip of China since 2002. It's in a special prefecture of Yunnan called Xishuangbanna that's apparently given some autonomy because of its unique ethnic minority cultures. Probably half of the lowland people are Dai, and another 20 ethnic minority highlanders live in the mountains surrounding the low lying valleys. This area is actually very similar to Northern Thailand. The name "Xishuangbanna" comes from the Dai for "sipsongpanna," which means 12,000 paddies. The Dai people are essentially Tai Lue people, which are a Shan people group closely related to Northern Thai. After four or five trips, I can now understand about 50 percent of what they say—if they speak to me slowly. This area of China is of great interest to the Mekong Minority Foundation not only because of the Dai people but because this is where the Akha have their roots, and, five hours north of Jinghong by road, some of it quite poor, is where the Lahu people have their roots. Our work here has centered around trying to connect the Lahu and Akha believers with Lahu and Akha believers in Thailand. Some of you might recall that in June we had a grand idea to bring some of the Eastern Shan State (in Burma) church leaders of the same ethnicity here to share with, learn from, and encourage each other. Our friends in the Eastern Shan State Baptist conventions were not able to get across the Burma –Chinese border, so that trip ended up only involving representatives of the Thai Lahu and Akha church leaders, who were coming to build relationships with the Chinese Lahu church and Akha believers. This trip has been very busy. I came with one other colleague from the Foundation eight days ago. Six of the seven working days have been in carrying out a community development project evaluation for a Hong Kong-based development agency called Cedar Fund. They have been working in four small communities of Bulang people in an area high in the mountains right on the Chinese–Burma border. The Bulang are a small people group who number about 80,000 in China. There are quite a few more in Myanmar (known also as Burma) with even one village in Thailand. After seven years of work, the county authorities have asked Cedar to move to another township. The team was quite disappointed and concerned that they had offended the authorities somehow. They had planned to work in two more villages helping with toilets, clean water systems, health education, agricultural development, and Chinese literacy much like they have done in the last four villages. So we traveled up into the mountains by bus for about six hours. I didn't know a bus could do what that bus did. We use four wheel drive vehicles on roads like that where I come from, but this bus just kept plowing through the mud and up the mountain along the steep ravines. The middle of the rains is probably not the best time to get to this kind of place. (We actually had to get out and push and walk a couple times.)The bus was packed with men, women, children, farm equipment, chickens, and all kind of goods. At the end of four days of sleeping in their homes and eating their food, I began to enjoy these very hospitable people. They were so appreciative of the caring and loving staff that would come and teach their women and their youth, who helped wash their children. No amount of good development theory and technical know-how will ever compare to people who love and care for others and just spend time living it out. Definitely a seed has been planted in Bulangshan. God is working in all kinds of ways in this world. Thanks for your continued prayers and support, Scott and Tan Coats