I remember his smile best. Tai had this quiet humility about him…it was his smile that said, “God changed me, Jesus is my everything and I want the world to know it.” Tai was part of a team of local leaders I had been coaching for years. He wasn’t always a faithful church planter but started off as a fearful spirit worshipper.
Tai was just one seed from a certain unreached people group among a harvest of souls that had not yet been gathered. There were no churches among Tai’s people when we started in the mid-2000’s. I led dozens of teams on motorbikes down mountain valleys and through streams to prayer walk. We prayed for Tai, his people group, his village, years before Tai ever heard the name, Jesus.
Around 2014, the Spirit of God moved into the valley. Dozens of villagers came to faith through prayer, healing, and freedom from demon oppression. The story of creation to Christ’s judgement resonated from village to village. Tai’s entire household became one of the first to start meeting regularly for worship in their home.
Every Sunday, you can see the sun rise over the valley and hear the sound of worship in the local language ringing from a wooden house on stilts. Tai was warned multiple times to stop gathering and stop sharing about Jesus. Faith in Jesus was deeply offensive to local shamans who believed Tai had abandoned the ancestors – and local communist leaders believed Tai was following a “foreign religion”. The pressure in the valley to deny Jesus was unrelenting. But we continued to love and encourage them all, especially Tai, who was handcuffed and locked in a village jail for three days for starting a new church in 2017.
Tai, a humble farmer and family man, was gathering the harvest and growing into a fruitful disciple maker throughout the province. In 2020, COVID made travel impossible, yet Tai and the team continued to grow, baptize, and shepherd the local flocks in their valley. Post-pandemic the whole world was ready to get out and get busy. The teams ramped up ministry activities. With faith, sandals, backpacks, and 110cc scooters, the vision was to reach every people group and place in the province. Tai and team had faces beaming with joy as they shared about a brand new church started among a new unreached people group in 2022.
God was working and there was fruit beyond anything I could have ever imagined. But God wanted to show that the seed must first die in the ground in order to bear much more fruit.
Our teams have monthly rhythms where leaders gather for scripture, coaching, and planning. Tai called that morning and said, “I’ll be late cause some visitors are at my house now, don’t worry I can make the ride by myself, I will see you all in the afternoon.” That was the last time we heard Tai’s voice. After hours of no contact we thought he’d gotten into an accident. We took a truck to search along the route down valleys and ravines late into the night.
Three days later I get the worst possible photo message you can get. Tai’s body was found in a jungle ditch off the side of the road. He was broken and bruised. His face was nearly unrecognizable, his side bore a stab wound and burns covered his body. Tai died wearing my old clothes that I had given him – his favorite clothes. From what we could gather the whole team was monitored for months. Tai was targeted, followed, abducted off the main road and interrogated for info related to the growing churches.
I think of Stephen in Acts 7, when he saw Jesus and his face radiated with the light of God’s glory as his accusers hurled stones to kill. I imagine…I believe, brother Tai radiated the light of God’s glory as his torcherers inflicted pain to kill. I believe he didn’t give up any sensitive information but simply made Jesus his everything, offering, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them…” as he fell asleep.
Evil believes it can extinguish God’s light and thwart God’s purposes. The enemy will use pain or power or politics to bury the seed but they don’t know the truth that “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.” John 12:24
Tai’s wife is now widowed, Tai’s many kids are now fatherless, and Tai’s churches are brokenhearted… but we are not without hope. We know that the Gospel has never advanced without suffering and the glory of God cannot be seen without death. We know without a shadow of doubt that Tai is still smiling.
In fact, I can see Tai’s face now, beaming with joy as bright as the sun cause he’s been embraced by his Father, “Well done, my good and faithful servant, whom I love… well done.”
The Asian Rough Rider 