Laotian Witchdoctor Turned Church Planter

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:00:25 – Setting the scene in Laos: meeting pastors in a village home
00:02:10 – Testimony of ​“Yellow Shirt,” former witch doctor turned church planter
00:05:30 – Miracles and healings: planting churches through prayer for the sick
00:08:15 – Deliverance story: demon-possessed man set free, entire village accepts Christ
00:12:00 – The Word of God vs. animist practices
00:14:20 – Geography and political challenges in Laos
00:16:10 – Persecution stories, including a miraculous escape from execution
00:19:00 – Closing reflections: persecution is normal, the Gospel advances

JOY: Welcome to our podcast series Stories from the Field—the podcast that takes you deeper into the lives of national workers around the world. I’m your host, Joy Kita, and with me are Ron and Charis Pierce. Welcome back to the studio, guys.

CHARIS: Thanks.

RON: Today we’re going to Laos. We don’t often talk about Laos in Southeast Asia, but it was one of the most exciting interview trips I’ve ever had. We met with a group of pastors who came in from all over the region.

We were sitting in a very traditional Lao house, made of teakwood, with high ceilings. The walls were covered with memorabilia and family pictures. This one wasn’t on stilts — it sat flat on the ground, with animals outside and a meeting room attached. The leader of the movement wasn’t there at the time, so he brought in eight of his workers. They sat around and shared their stories with me.

One of those pastors is the story I want to tell today. We call him Yellow Shirt. He was a church planter who came from a very difficult background — he used to be a witch doctor, and not just any witch doctor, but a very powerful one.

In many Lao villages, people believe in house spirits — animism. They go to these spirits for blessing, protection, healing, prosperity, and to ward off evil. Over the generations they pass down a book, like a family Bible, full of incantations, sacrifices, and remedies. It’s their manual for life.

Yellow Shirt was that leader. He was the head witch doctor of his area — the ​“big kahuna.” You could tell he was a leader by how others treated him.

When it was his turn, he told his testimony. He described the power he had — he said he could put a red-hot knife between his teeth and lips without being burned. The spirits would protect him. He said he could curse a tree, and within days it would die.

JOY: I wonder how someone ever discovered they could put a red-hot knife in their mouth!

RON: Exactly! But it was all about demonstrating power.

When he told me this, we were sitting at lunch. The other pastors were on one side, and I was on the other with my recorder. He said there were no scars from the knife, so I got up, walked around, and asked him to open his mouth. Right there in the middle of eating, I checked! The other pastors laughed at me, but sure enough, no scars.

Then he went on. Catastrophe struck — his mother and young son both became very sick. He tried everything: the incantations, the sacrifices, even selling eight water buffalo to be sacrificed. But nothing worked, and both died. He was devastated and ready to give up.

At that time, a Christian friend — amazingly, another pastor — came to him and shared about Jesus. Yellow Shirt accepted Christ, burned all his witch doctor paraphernalia, and soon became a church planter himself.

I asked him how many churches he had planted. His answer: 45.

He explained his method. When they enter a new village, they first go door to door and pray for the sick. Many are healed. Then they gather the people, preach the Gospel, and tell them who the true Creator is — the one who healed them. That’s how he plants churches.

When I asked if this was ongoing, he said, ​“Oh yes, we just planted one last Sunday.” Then he pulled out the oldest iPad I’ve ever seen — beat up, dirty, cracked — and showed me hundreds of pictures of his church plants.

One series of photos from last Sunday stood out. It showed a man chained to a platform in the middle of a village. The people told him the man was demon-possessed, violent, uncontrollable, and dangerous to children.

Yellow Shirt said he walked over to the man, who snarled and growled at him. He placed his hands on him and prayed for 20 minutes. Slowly the man calmed down, his demeanor changed, and he was completely set free.

The villagers were watching from a distance. Yellow Shirt called them over and told them to remove the chains. The man stood, smiling, greeting people, and even sharing a meal. He was totally transformed. Then Yellow Shirt preached the Gospel, and the whole village accepted Christ. That was just last Sunday!

This man is like a modern-day apostle Paul — traveling, planting churches, seeing God perform miracles. For him, this is normal. And in many parts of the world, people have been waiting eagerly to hear who the true Creator is. They are animists, worshipping rocks, stars, and trees. His strategy is powerful because he starts where they are — just like Paul in Athens, introducing the ​“unknown God” as the one true God.

Yellow Shirt once relied on his book of incantations. Now he relies on the Word of God — the Bible that shows the true power of the Holy Spirit and how to live for Christ.

JOY: Geography lesson — Laos is close to China, right?

RON: Yes, it’s south of China, bordered by Myanmar, Cambodia, and Vietnam. And yes, it is a communist country. That means great resistance to the Gospel from authorities.

For example, we met a pastor who was arrested with five new believers. They were put before a firing squad, but when the soldiers fired, none of the guns went off. All the rifles misfired. The guards panicked, went back inside, then eventually returned, untied the men, and told them, ​“Go home. Don’t preach anymore.” But of course, they continued.

So yes, there is persecution in Laos, but when I asked the main leader about it recently, he simply said, ​“Yes, it’s normal.” For them, persecution isn’t the main story — the Gospel is.

JOY: That’s such a reminder. Our problems here are so small compared to what believers face around the world. Thank you both for sharing this powerful story.