MISSIONS, THE MESSAGE, AND THE MEANS
Exploring questions of Christianity & culture in Laos B Y S A R A H R E I L LY
The Lao People’s Democratic Republic lies in the heart of continental Southeast Asia and has trembled beneath waves of armies and refugees throughout history. The most recent of these conflicts, the Laotian front of the Vietnam War, was dubbed the “Secret War” because it was kept largely hidden from the American public. At the time the US had signed agreements ensuring the neutrality of Laos, but during the war, which was certainly no secret to the Lao people, Laos earned
the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country in the world. The communist Vietnamese and their Lao counterparts, the Pathet Lao, gained full sovereignty of their countries in 1975, and an era of extreme xenophobia began. In the 1970s and ’80s suspicion of foreigners was so extreme that all foreign missionaries were expelled from the country and the Lao government went as far as to eliminate Thai letters from the Lao alphabet. In the 1990s restrictions on foreign travelers and domes-
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