Pacific Rim February 2007 Prayer Emphasis:
The Tavoyan of Myanmar

“In peace I will both lie down and sleep for Thou alone, O LORD, dost make me to dwell in safety.” Psalm 4:8, NAS.

The well over 100,000 Tavoyan people live in a small strip of land on the coast of Myanmar adjacent to Thailand called the Tanintharyi division. They are a peace loving people whose dominate religion is Theravada Buddhism. The Tavoyan are ethnically and linguistically close to the Burmese majority, but their dialect is enough different from standard Burmese to make it hard for the Tavoyan to be understood. Less than 1 in every 1,000 Tavoyan are Christian.

American Baptist Missionaries have worked in the Tavoyan area for many decades, but most of their work has focused on the Karen people. They described Buddhist Tavoyan people as slow to respond to the Gospel.

Recently groups of Tavoyan people have migrated to Thailand to escape conscription into forced labor for the Burmese military. Currently it is estimated that over a thousand Tavoyan people are living in Thailand as refugees.

Pray that:

God will create a spiritual hunger in the Tavoyan people so they will be prepared to receive the Gospel.

God will call long-term missionaries with a heart to reach the Tavoyan people.

God will call thousands of intercessors to lift up the Tavoyan people until His church is established.

Relief efforts to Tavoyan refugees will result in God saving, calling and sending many evangelist/church planters for this people from within this people group.

God will call out a believer with people group research skills to gather better information about the Tavoyan people.

Believers in Myanmar will become burdened to reach out to their Tavoyan neighbors with the Gospel in a culturally sensitive way.

God will open the door for massive seed sowing among the Tavoyan people before the end of 2007.