OUR HISTORY
The Story of the White Donkey and William Marcus Young
As told by his great grandson, Marcus Young
William Marcus Young
In 1887 William Marcus Young left his home as one “sent by God” to Burma. Upon arrival on the golden shores of Rangoon, he was posted in the isolate, unchartered Burmese, Shan States. It was an exciting yet arduous journey on a bumpy bullock cart with constant dangers of fierce bandits and government opposition. Finally after three months of travel their small caravan arrived at Mong Nai of the Shan States, Young’s new frontier post. There he immediately set to work preaching and teaching at villages in the surrounding hills carpeted with pristine jungles.
William Marcus was a man burdened for souls, and he understood his real authority was in heaven. So he prayed while he traveled the hills and prayed in his little house. He prayed himself to sleep at night and he prayed as he woke to the dawn’s pale glow through the wood slats near the bed mat. He cried out, “Lord, Lord, help me to bring many thousands to You.” Many, many hard lonely years this man conversed with God about His harvest.
One day, as a day could be measured in eternity, God was gazing down on His harvest field from heaven. (Looking at his vast harvest fields is one of his favorite pastimes and he had just moments ago been talking with his good friend William Marcus.) Now his great heart was moved and he motioned towards a nearby bowl of redolent incense. The bowl was engraved with these words: “The Prayers of the Holy Ones”. An angelic being tipped the bowl as thick, fragrant smoke began to rise from it. Several jewel-like sparks fell out and plummeted towards the spinning globe, the harvest fields called earth.
Then God spoke and a bright messenger tore into the realm of time and space catching one of the fiery sparks. Other flaming messengers also sped across the skies but this one who held the pulsating seed of revival moved towards Burma, the sleepy jewel of Southeast Asia. He carried it over the emerald mountains of eastern Burma and crossed into Yunnan, China. Down among a tribal group called the Wa who live in the Burma/China border regions.
Old Headhunter
In those days, the Wa were a fearsome tribe of head-hunters and opium growers. As the messenger streaked past them, dark spirits lifted their weedy, deformed heads and stared. It was not often that light bearers came into this dark region. The darker powers had been undisturbed for years.
The heavenly messenger ignored them, continuing on until he came to a hut apart from nearby village. He glided down and stepped through the woven bamboo wall of the hut where a man meditated. This man was a descendant of a royal line of Wa prophets who worshiped the mysterious True God. They were the voices for the True God. Men who were known and respected by the Wa as oracles. They were the wilderness voices crying to the Wa, “Stop getting stone drunk” they declared, “Stop sleeping with other men’s wives. Your head hunting is evil. Prepare your hearts for the day the True God is revealed.”
The messenger pressed the seed of fire into the man’s hands and left as quickly as he had come. All that the prophet saw was a flash of light but suddenly he clearly knew what he had to do. The morning air was still cool against his cheeks as he stuffed a few green bamboo containers of steamed rice and chilies into his shoulder bag. He grabbed his long curved knife off the wall and tucked it into his belt ducking through the entrance of his dark home. Climbing down the steps of his house, he ignored the pain in his joints and shuffled under the house to untie three white donkeys that seemed to glow in the darkness of the makeshift stable. Chuckling at the donkeys to get them moving he began his journey down a faint trail moving away from the village.
A week or so had passed and now the man was pushing steadily up a steep mountain trail in Yunnan, China. He rode the lead donkey perched on a rough wooden saddle covered by a woven blanket. The lone man sensed he was nearing his destination. When the sun was finally high overhead he walked into a sprawling mountain village called "Not Water Buffalo". Naked children ran and danced around the donkey’s legs as they trod through the muddy narrow lanes. And one of the older children ran off across the lanes to find the men who were working out in the fields.
The Wa Village
After the elders of the village had all arrived from the fields to greet the honored prophet, they gathered in the headman’s house, slipping into its dark heart and squatting about the fire. They drank their bitter tea with leaves floating at the bottom of the cup, smoking tobacco and exchanged long formalities, as was the custom. Then the prophet stiffly rose gesturing for the elders to follow him outside. “Come, I have brought you a gift,” he said. They followed him back outside as he walked over to the donkeys. He laid his hands upon the donkey in the middle and blessed it. Then he turned to them and declared: “Follow this donkey. It will lead you to the true God.”
The Wa had traditions that said you could take a bundle of walking sticks and walk and walk until they were all wore down into little stubs and still you could not find the True God. You could also take a copper cooking pot as thick as your wrist and cook and cook until you wore it clean through and still…not find the True God. Yet it was said, a day would come when the True God would be revealed. Could this be the day?
So this offer of discovering the true God was stunning…the men wandered back to the headman’s house. There they hunched over the fire sipping green tea while gesturing back and forth with bamboo pipes. They jawed and grunted at each other as the fire’s smoke thickened the air and crept through the dry grass roof. At last they felt of one mind.
Wa Elders Talk at the Fire
The elders had decided that it was better to listen to a true prophet than an old tradition. They packed their shoulder bags and slung their jungle knives into their knotted waist ropes. When 12 of them had gathered near the edge of the village the white donkey stopped grazing and headed into the deep jungles.
It was a mountainous region. The big toes of the Himalayans. The jungles could be dense. It would take two grown men to reach around many of the trees. The donkey led the way down a dim trail. By evening it had stopped near a quiet stream so they began to set up camp. They next day when light broke across the sky the donkey was waiting and ready to go. They followed it all day. And the next. And the next…
The White Donkey (Pony)
Days became weeks. They had traveled over 200 miles as the crow flaps its wings across the open sky but many more miles than that because of the steep and winding mountain trails wrapped with vines as thick as Burmese python. But that particular morning they had come to a view point and they could see the city of Kengtung off in the distance. Where the trail emerged from the forest it also forked. The one fork led downwards to the city, the other angled at an upward slant towards the jungle. The men paused to consider.
“Supposed we went to that city?” one of them suggested. “We could freshen up from our journey and get a little rice to help our meager supplies. “Surely,” interjected another, “We could sell a few of our things and get a profit at the local bazaar.” “Oh yes!” replied a third elder, “That way we wouldn’t look like utter fools when we come home with shame upon our face.” “It’s true!” another fellow said, “We’ll never live down following a donkey through the hills this far to find the True God. Our luck is so bad we’ll be the laughing stock of the hills when we get home!”[1]
They all agreed to head to the city disregarding the fact that the donkey was headed up the other trail. But quickly, something amazing happened. That donkey chased after them. It tried to herd them back onto the other trail. The Elders shouted at each other while dodging the donkey.
“Maybe we should follow it some more!?”
“No matter, I’m finished!” Yelled another grunting as the donkey butted his back-side.
“Well what if we just tried it a few more miles?”
“Cant hurt, that’s true.”
They shouted back and forth. “This donkey seems to know something.”
Wild Wa Early Believers
So follow it they did for small ways up the trail until at last they came to a fenced off property. The donkey trotted over to a hole in the foreground and stopped. The men looked about and saw no one. There were a couple wood-bamboo houses in the background. One of the elders walked over peered down into the hole. A strange man was down there. He was had very pale skin showing between the mud and dirt that covered him. It was William Marcus Young my great granddad. The Wa looked down at the missionary and said, “Can you tell us about the True God?”
William Marcus was already overwhelmed by an equally sovereign move amongst a neighboring tribe called the Lahu. They had tradition about a white man with a white book that contained the knowledge of the True God. One of the Lahu’s spiritual gurus has discovered him preaching at the Kentung bazaar.
Bazaar
So when William Marcus climbed out of the well he was digging, the Wa delegation said, “You must come back with us and tell our people.” William Marcus had to refuse. He was already inundated by the response of the Lahu. He had very little help and his sons were still too young to shoulder the load of ministry with him.
Seeing the crushed look on the men’s faces, compassion rose in his heart. In faith he spoke a simple promise: “If I can not come to you, my sons will come to you. If my sons can not come to you, then my grandsons will come to you and if my grandsons cannot come to you then the day will come when my great grandsons come to you.”
William Marcus Young was my Great Granddad. As a child I heard many a time about the elders who followed a donkey to a well in search of the True God (Siyiex in Wa). However, it was not until I had actually worked in SE Asia for 5 years that I heard this part of the story. The part where a righteous man gave a promise and it carried down for four generations.
Though I have had the privilege of working and living among many of the different ethnic groups in SE Asia, getting to know the Wa peoples has been one of my deepest honors. It is stunning for me to think that the journey I am on was spoken of almost 100 years ago by my great grandfather.
My grandfather went on to be with his Lord in the early 90’s. He had served in China and Burma the majority of his life as a bible translator and evangelist among many other things. My father was a medical missionary in the Philippine Islands and that is where I spent my childhood years. Dr. Philip Young currently resides in Thailand and works among the ethnic hill people of that country.
The end of the story is still being written. It is the never-ending story of God’s love for all people. A story of joining generations together in the eternal purposes of heaven. Alyxius and I have two sons and two daughters and they may one day live and build among our beloved peoples of SE Asia. You never know what may happen if you should choose to listen to a donkey!
Marcus and Alyxius Young
*A Note From Marcus Young: Though the story above has been enhanced for readability I have personally visited the village the Wa Elders came from as well as heard this story many times as told by my father and granddad. The key historical content has been presented as accurately as possible. The story has been traditionally told with a white donkey but it was likely a white pony. My family likely called the hardy little mountain horses, "donkeys" because they were small and stubborn. William Marcus was said to have pioneered 10,000 square miles off the back of a donkey. It is said he rode the white “donkey” frequently.
