Kado

     Although Wurm & Hattori in their 1981 reference book, The Language Atlas of the Pacific Area listed a total of 5,000 Kado living in the Gnot-Ou District of Phongsali Province, more recent research has placed a figure of only 200 Kado in Laos.  There are approximately 130,000 Kado in northern Myanmar, where 90,300 speak the Kado dialect and 38,200 speak Ganaan.  An additional 100,000 Kado live in southern China, especially around Mojiang and Yuanjiang counties in Yunnan Province.  In China the Kado are officially counted as part of the Hani nationality.  The Kado ethnic group and language are not the same as the Mon-Khmer Katu in southern Laos, who are also known as the Kado.  In fact, one source states that the Tibeto-Burman speaking Kado "have been incorrectly lumped with the Mon-Khmer Katu group of southern Laos for census purposes."

     To make the situation more complic-ated, according to some sources a language called Kaduo is spoken in Laos, and is the same as that spoken by the Yunnan Mongolians in Tonghai County of southwest China.  We believe this language is not in Laos and has been confused for the Kado.

     In China the Kado are one of the most Christian minority groups. H. A. Baker, an independent Pentecostal missionary, commenced work among the Kado in 1932.  Later Danish Assemblies of God worker Axel Jansen and some Seventh Day Adventist missionaries came and sowed the seed for a great revival among the Kado in China between 1940-47.64 Scripture portions were translated into Kado in 1939.  By 1950, 33 Kado churches had been established but they were all forced to close between 1952-53.

     Today there are believed to be as many as 40,000 Kado Christians in China, and many also in northern Myanmar.  The small number of Kado who migrated to Laos, however, are some distance away from the Kado believers and most have never had the chance to hear the Gospel.

     It is uncertain why this small group of Kado in Laos migrated away from the main body of their population in China, but their absence has resulted in them missing out while thousands of their counterparts in China came to Christ.  They are still waiting for their first missionary.

Pray for the Kado