“I want to be a ‘Rice Christian’ don’t you?”
Sometimes well-meaning people have used rice, i. e., food or material benefits as an incentive to convert to Christianity. Those who convert for such reasons have been called "rice Christians." Obviously such conversions last about as long as the rice lasts. I would like to turn this pejorative phrase into a provocative phrase for our blog this month and describe a very different kind of "rice Christian." Come with us to Asia as we tell you about some “rice Christians” with a supernatural staying power we have met, admire, love and for whom we pray.
Travel to the island of Luzon with us and be prepared to drop your jaw as our eyes move from a valley floor to over 3000 feet in the air with rice growing everywhere. Behold the Benaue rice terraces! If the terraces were placed end to end they would circle half way around the globe. The American Society of Civil Engineers awarded this 2000 plus year old project with its International Historic Engineering Landmark Award. It has been called by the non-engineering types simply, the “8th Wonder of the World.”
Imagine the work involved in the making and ongoing repair of the terraces and the tapping and channeling of springs and streams for irrigation. Imagine just getting to and from your “fields” daily. Then there is the back-breaking work of planting the rice. With your bundle of seedlings in hand you plant each plant one by one. The harvesting is incredibly labor intensive too. The cutting and drying and raking and bagging of rice is amazing. The Ifugaos have our respect and admiration as the makers and keepers and harvesters of the Benaue Rice Terraces.
But 2000 years ago when these terraces were being built another harvest began as the Spirit of God worked through the Word of God and "the Greatest Wonder of Wonders in this World" began and continues! There are Christians who work as hard with their minds and hearts and yes even their bodies to learn the Ifugao language and translate the Word into that language and work and keep working and praying for a harvest. We know Christians who plant and work as “rice workers” and "rice Christians" in the Philippines. They have and are doing the difficult and demanding work of translation, as rice workers, with their feet in the mud and back in the sun and heart and mind and soul in the Word. They are, it seems to us, “rice Christians,” laboring as terrace builders, rice planters in difficult places praying for the Lord to bring a harvest through His Word.
Would you join us in praying this month for all the Wycliffe and national translators and their families laboring in the Philippines? Would you join with us in praying for plans to return to give some pastoral care and encouragement to these “rice Christians” in the Philippines this fall? Would you join us in praying that the Lord make us and you like these “rice Christians” wherever in the world we are? kg
Additional pictures on June post page.
