Day 15: The Sani People

Who are the Sani?
Near the city of Kunming, in Yunnan Province, lies the Stone Forest, an impressive collection of towering natural limestone pillars. It is here where the Sani of China make their homes. Legend has it that the gods created the Stone Forest to give young lovers a place of privacy. Today the Stone Forest attracts masses of Chinese and foreign tourists, providing the Sani with abundant opportunities to sell their traditional handicrafts. It is for this reason that the Sani are believed to be China's wealthiest minority group.

Single Sani girls traditionally wear a turban containing all the colors of the rainbow. This has come to symbolize faithful love, and has its roots in an ancient story about a young girl's devotion to her dead lover. Overcome by grief at his funeral she threw herself into the fire, out of which two colorful clouds rose to form a beautiful rainbow in the sky.

There is a large Catholic population among the nearly 106,000 Sani, along with about 3,000 Christians. Many unbelieving Sani eagerly accept Christian literature offered to them by tourists and Christian workers, however, unless they have a good command of Mandarin Chinese, they are unable to completely understand it. The Sani still wait for the Scriptures to be made available to them in their own language. As they adapt themselves to the Han culture around them, and continue in their profitable souvenir industry, they are further becoming disinterested in spiritual matters.

Points of Prayer:
1. That the Sani would not confuse financial wealth with spiritual fulfillment.

2. That every Sani unbeliever would come to know the faithful love of Jesus.

3. That the Scriptures would soon be translated into the Sani language, and that gifted and equipped workers would be sent to evangelize this people group.