In 1897, Dr. Albert Benjamin Simpson joint two
organizations he previously formed in New York City and a new name, The
Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), was chosen. Dr. Simpson said, “We
are an alliance of Christians for worldwide missionary work.”
In 1947, Rev. and Mrs.
Ted Andrianoff sailed from New York to Vietnam as missionaries of the
C&MA. During the 1948 annual Vietnam Field Conference, they were assigned
to work in Xieng Khouang, Laos. They arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos
in August and began language study immediately. In January 1949, they left
Vientiane to Xieng Khouang.
In the spring of 1950,
they were able to lead the first Hmong person in the town of Xieng Khouang to
accept Christ. This new convert began to evangelize his own people with the
help of an evangelist from the Khmu tribe, and people began turning to Christ in
a great number which church growth specialists called the “People Movement.” By
July the number of believers had reached 1,700 and by March of 1951, a total of
2,300 Hmong people had become Christians. Four years later the number climbed
to 5,000. A short term Bible school began in January 1951. Many Hmong young
men were chosen from the villages to be trained and sent back to evangelize,
teach, and preach in the remote villages. In January 1961, in its tenth year
anniversary, the town of Xieng Khouang fell to the Pathet Lao and the Bible
school was closed. It was reopened in Vientiane at the end of the
year.
The war spread rapidly
throughout northern Laos making it difficult to reach the villages with the
Gospel. Radio broadcast became the most important media for reaching the Hmong
for Christ. Gospel messages were recorded in Vientiane and sent to the
Philippines to be broadcasted by the Far East Broadcasting Company in Manila.
Due to the faithful ministry of the dynamic young pastors, the radio broadcast,
and the energetic lay evangelists, the number of Christians in Laos grew from
the first convert in 1950 to approximately 20,000 members in 1975. Of this
number, 70 percent were Hmong.
When Laos fell to the
Pathet Lao in 1975, the Americans evacuated two thousand Hmong military leaders
and their families out of Laos to Thailand. This was followed by thousands of
other Hmong, crossing the Mekong River from Laos to Thailand. Many of them were
Christians. At the end of 1975, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Services began to process Hmong refugees in Thailand for resettlement in the
United States. Many of them were Christians.
In early 1978, the
C&MA called a meeting to be held at the Rolling J Ranch in central
California. It was attended by twenty-five Hmong pastors and lay leaders coming
from many parts of the country. From this initial meeting, the Hmong Field
Conference came to existence with 1,525 members. The Field Director was elected
and Denver, Colorado, was chosen for the main office. In 1985, the name was
changed from Hmong Field Conference to Hmong District of The Christian and
Missionary Alliance. In 2003, the Hmong District celebrates its
twenty-fifth-year anniversary with 81 churches scattered throughout the United
States with an inclusive membership of 29,437 people.