Laos Mission

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Bell tower of the First Church in Chiang Mai, founded by the Laos Mission in 1868

The Laos Mission (also, North Laos Mission, North Siam Mission) was founded in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand by the Rev. Daniel McGilvary and Mrs. Sophia McGilvary in April 1867. It was established as a mission of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church in the United States.

Mission

The original vision for the mission came from Dr.

southern China
in 1917.

The mission founded its first church, Chiang Mai Church, now known simply as First Church, Chiang Mai, in 1868. After a brief period of evangelistic success, the mission underwent a time of persecution in 1869, during which two converts were martyred. The mission did not fully recover until the late 1870s. In 1880, it founded three congregations including the Mae Dok Daeng Church, known today as the Suwanduangrit Church, Ban Dok Daeng. In 1885, the mission sponsored the founding of the Presbytery of North Laos, officially under the Synod of New York City, to give oversight to the churches.

By the 1890s, the mission increasingly emphasized medical and educational institutional work, founding boarding schools, such as Prince Royal's College and Chiang Rai Witthayakhom School, American printing house (Wangsingkam), hospitals and dispensaries in each of the stations. The churches, meanwhile, numbered 37 by 1920, the last year of the mission, and communicate membership numbered 6,649 that same year. The presbytery continued in existence until 1934, when it was incorporated into the

American Baptists in Burma. For a brief period from 1911 to 1914, the mission's church grew rapidly in the wake of malaria and smallpox epidemics in various parts of northern Siam. With improvements in communications between northern and central Siam, the Laos Mission was united with the Siam Mission in 1920-21.[1]

See also

References

  1. ^ From Herb Swanson with permission
  • Curtis, Lillian Johnson. The Laos of North Siam. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1903. (Reprint. Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 1998).
  • McFarland, George B., ed. Historical Sketch of Protestant Missions in Siam 1828-1928. Bangkok: Bangkok Times Press, 1928. (Reprint. Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 1999).
  • McGilvary, Daniel. A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lao. New York: Revell, 1912. (Reprint. Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 2001).
  • Pasuna, C. Lanna Dynamics: Changing of Language in Payap County (Monthon Payap) Under the Influence of Siam from Missionary Archives, 1893-1926. "Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences" 8(2) (July-December 2020).
  • Swanson, Herbert R. Khrischak Muang Nua. Bangkok: Chuan Press, 1984.
  • Wells, Kenneth E. History of Protestant Work in Thailand 1828-1958. Bangkok: Church of Christ in Thailand, 1958.
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