NORTHERN THAILAND (ABP) — As they pour scalding green tea into plastic cups and pass it to their guests sitting on mats on the concrete floor of the “head man's” home, the Palaung villagers explain the benefits of being in Thailand over their native Burma, now known as Myanmar.
“In Burma, we have land and we have resources, but we have no peace,” said one man through an interpreter. “Here we have peace but nothing else. Life is better here.”
For 11 years, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship missionaries Ellen and Rick Burnette have walked alongside the Lahu, Karen and Palaung — members of Burmese hill tribes — as they scratch out an existence in jungle-covered mountains of northern Thailand. The Burnettes, who are highlighted as part of the Fellowship's Offering for Global Missions this year, use their expertise in agriculture to help about a dozen impoverished hill-tribe villages grow enough food to support themselves for as long as they are in Thailand.
In 1996, the Burnettes started the Upland Holistic Development Project as an openly Christian ministry designed to meet the needs of the displaced hill tribes, who lack Thai citizenship and access to government services, education and even employment. The Palaung began to enter Thailand more than 20 years ago, fleeing unrest in strife-torn Burma. Not long after arriving, they were granted asylum by Thailand's king, to whom they are very grateful.
“Our prayer has been that they will be granted citizenship,” Rick Burnette said. “If their felt need is to stay, then the question for us is how do we help them stay?”
That's one reason why the Upland Holistic Development Project operates an experimental farm, designed to grow a diversity of crops in the upland jungle environment. While Ellen manages the books for UHDP and works on citizenship issues, Rick, who has a master's degree in agriculture from the University of Tennessee, works diligently to unlock the secrets of growing agroforest crops on mountainous land that was once covered in lush, tropical forest.
On the UHDP center's 16 acres of scrubby, hilly forest, Rick and the hill-tribe staff of 10 have established nurseries for such crops as rattan palms, which produce edible shoots and cane for use in making baskets or furniture; spices and vegetables such as forest peppers, corn and acacia; multipurpose crops such as indigo and bamboo; and what Rick considers the world's sweetest pineapple.
“We've identified more than 40 types of plants that UHDP and the hill-tribe people can use,” Rick said. “Biodiversity is the key. Our philosophy is that within one ‘wah' — basically the distance between my outstretched arms – there needs to be something of value planted. If there are native plants, we say use them. Get as much as you can from nature.”
Because the hill tribes have access to very little land, they are discouraged from practicing monocultural farming. If all of their effort goes into one crop, and that crop fails for reasons beyond their control, then the village will starve. By having a variety of crops, if one variety fails, they will always have something on which to fall back.
“We're not after high production; we're after stability,” Rick said. “To our Western eye, it looks like it's a mess. To us, everything needs to be laid out and separate. But this type of farming, with different crops growing under trees all mixed in together makes sense to the hill tribes. It's really farming by niches.”
In the early days, the Upland Holistic Development Project had a hard time finding workers. “It's pretty remote and rural,” Burnette. “We had two Palaung teams come and stay here to get it started. Two of them are still here — Apat and Alap. Apat has been instrumental in getting our nurseries started and tending to them. They both made a commitment to this project. We couldn't do what we do without them.”
With the exception of the Burnettes — who live in northern Thailand with their sons Jesse, Benjamin and William — the entire UHDP staff comes from hill tribes. The project's manager, Jamlong, a Lahu and a Christian, has been on staff for nine years. All of the 30 people who live at UHDP are from hill tribes.
Jamlong typically leads in prayer when he visits the villages, where Buddhism and animism are the forms of religious expression.
UHDP is host to dozens of visitors each year, ranging from missions teams to agriculturists to university students. Staff members not only maintain their duties on the farm, they cook and provide for the teams who stay at the facility.
During the spring of 2004, the Burnettes moved from Fang, which is near UHDP, to the city of Chiang Mai, more than two hours away. This arrangement limits Rick's day-to-day involvement on the project, but he's completely confident in Jamlong's leadership and the staff's ability to continue the ministry.
“In this part of the world, there is no shortage of people working with unreached people groups,” Rick said. “We have a niche because we are holistic and try to look at the whole spectrum of needs.”
The Upland Holistic Development Project has also expanded into livestock. The project now has several concrete basins for catfish farming, and pens for growing Chinese moisan pigs. When the project latches onto a successful idea, they take it out to the villages, and barter or sell the villagers what they need to get started. Both materials and ideas are exchanged. And the UHDP staff learns something from the hill people on nearly every visit.
“I usually leave a village encouraged and refreshed,” Rick said. “I see people coping, surviving and in some ways thriving in a difficult situation, and they have been all of their lives. It goes back to the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' There isn't anyone meeker than those guys.”
This year's CBF Offering for Global Missions has a goal to raise $6.3 million.
— Lance Wallace is a writer for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Photos available from Associated Baptist Press.