page_title: Lairawn Baptist Association
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Lairawn Baptist Association / Background
caption_attribution_description: Kalay Valley
context_page_description: Lairawn Baptist Association is the organization of 62 Baptist churches throughout Kalay Valley, Sagaing Division, Myanmar. The majority of the Burmese population is made of profess Theravada Buddhism and only 6% practices Christianity, with two-thirds of them being considered Protestant. Almost half of these Protestants are Baptist. The LBA mainly serves the Chin people who speak Falam dialect. It is one of the twenty eight associations of Chin Baptist Convention which is under the umbrella of Myanmar Baptist Convention. As of 2015, the association has 78 pastors and 21305 members. The association is divided into 12 areas and each area has their own by-law and constitution, but they work together with each other in unity in the context of LBA, encouraging and resourcing each other. The motto is Pitlin Lam Pan.
context_section_description: Lairawn is a Chin version of today's Kalay Valley, Myanmar. The rich agriculture land and its climate made is possible to grow crops for the whole year. The area has a good transport link with the rest of the country and it is also an industrial area. Since it is a good place for living, the Chin people of Myanmar started to migrate to the area as early as 1915. The mass migration started after the Second World War. As the population of Chin people are increasing, Churches were established throughout the area. Each Protestants denomination such as Methodist and Baptist established churches respectively. Baptist Churches were also established independently in the area as early as 1952. The then Baptist Church pastors saw the need of an association to uplift their moral and spiritual supports. Thus, they formed the Kalay Valley Baptist Association (KVBA) for all of the Baptist churches in the area, regardless of the languages. Since, there were many different dialect within the KVBA, Burmese language were used for Church services. All of the Baptist churches in the area were under the KVBA until 1989.
  As more Chin people migrated and the community grew stronger, the people wanted to worship in their own dialect. The villages which the Falam people live during 1945–1955 in Kalaymyo are Thiamthi, Angteng, Vanbaal, Pamunchaung, Chaungkhuah, Myaungsone, Myaunghlah, Cicai, Sentaw, Tuanchaung, Sadaw, Cekan, Taungphila, Tahan, Hmunlai and Pinkhung. At this time, Falam people have affiliation with Falam Baptist Association.
  As there are many different dialects among the Chin i.e. Falam, Hakha, Tedim etc... several associations were formed on the basis of their particular dialect. In 1990, the people who use Falam dialect broke away from the Kalay Valley Baptist Association (KVBA) and formed Lairawn Baptist Association (LBA). Hakha formed their own association called Chin Baptist Association and the KVBA remains as it was but its member were mainly Tedim dialect speakers. The LBA has just celebrated its Silver Jubilee in 2015.
caption: Lairawn also known as Kalay Valley
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