The second leadership conference in Pying Oo Lwin,
Myanmar (another name for Burma) is the highlight of our mission works on this
month, October 2013. The conference was under the overseeing of the Shan State
national ministers and organized by Robert Fish (Ah Lay Bo), one of our
seminary (AIS) students. The majority of
the Christian leaders came to the conference from Lisu churches at the central
region of Myanmar and over 50 leaders came from the Northern part, particularly
Myitkyina; and some church leaders at the boarder of China-Myanmar also attended
this conference. A little over 200 church leaders attending this conference.
These Lisu churches have a long history backdating
to early 1900s when the first missionary, J. O. Fraser, started to evangelize
and convert hundreds of thousands of Lisu animists in China into
Christianity. During the Christian
persecution under the Mao Tse-tung revolution, the tens of thousands of Lisu Christians
migrated from China into Burma, India and Thailand. As the nature of Lisu people, loving to tell
and share stories, God’s Kingdom has expanded to their neighboring ethnic
groups of people, for instance, Rawang, Lahu, Wa, Hmong and Shan.
Pying Oo Lwin where the conference was held
A group picture of everyone at the conference
A leadership class
At this conference, a former professor at Cincinnati
Christian University and currently a teaching minister at Parkview Church of
Christ, Ohio, Dean Hammond spoke on Christian leadership and Nick
Wongratanamajcha conducted a daily workshop on Youth Ministry, which is virtually
nonexistent but essential among Lisu churches.
If it is God’s willing, Nick and his team (one
of the groups attending from Myitkyina– a cooperative of 10 churches asked Nick
to start the program with 400 youth in their area) will begin to establish
Youth Ministry programs into the thousands of Lisu churches in Burma, China and
Thailand. This is very challenging!
Dean Hammond teaching on Christian leadership
Nick preaching at an evening service
Nick at his Youth Ministry class
The Youth at Nick's Youth Ministry class
It was a great privilege for me to work with these 200
church leaders. My spirit was lifting up while listening to them sing beautiful
hymns with angelic voices, seeing probably a third of them sing from the heart without
looking at the hymnal books; humbly experiencing how God has moved at the conference;
and above all, to speak on the book of Philippians, emphasis on what it means
to be heavenly citizens, to the Lisu, a nomadic culture and context—moving around
due to the political unsettlement, economic crisis or agricultural
depletion. My desire is to see these
Lisu churches in Burma be a life-transforming church based on the Word of God and
to be ready and aware of the new era of Burma, which is becoming a more and
more open country; at this time of an opening country, both good and evil will
come into their homes, society, and their churches.
Stephen at his Bible class
Since Burma has changed tremendously in the past few
years. Myanmar, today, looks different
from the past. The country has various
potentialities in developing the country in a positive direction. However, there are many areas needing to be
transformed. Most villagers are very
primitive. Reports say that Burma has only two classes of people: the rich and
the poor. The gap between the rich and
the poor is a chasm distance. The rich
are extremely rich while the poor are extremely poor. The
country is still far behind in several areas.
The international airport at Mandalay was working without any modern day
technology. This is the only
international airport perhaps that has no computer. The air conditioner wasn’t working at the
waiting room. People, even the airport personnel, were chewing bitter nut. It
was hard to even understand what they were trying to say when they had their
mouth full of bitter nut. Chewing bitter
nut is very popular in Myanmar. Also, foreigners are not permitted to stay at
any homes, only hotels. The roads are
mostly one lane. They drive on the right
side of the road while the driver is on the right side, so when the driver
would try to pass the car in front, he could not see around him. So, many time
we had to grip our hands tightly to our seats. These are just some descriptions
of Burma that I would like to share with you. So if you can imagine, this is a
country that has been closed off from the world for so long.
Prayer Needed
The religious discrimination, the clash between Buddhism
and Muslim causes severe impact upon social upheaval and political
unsettled. Since Buddhism is the
national religion in Burma, the Buddhist movement led by a Buddhist monk named
U Wirathu not only encourages the Buddhists to boycott trade with Muslims and
shop only at Buddhist-owned stores, but also enforces to burn down many villages
and eliminate several towns. For
instance, the riots in Meiktila, 100 miles south of where the conference was
held, on March 2013 burnt more than 1300 homes in Muslim neighborhoods and
killed 43 people. Also in Lashio, 170 miles north of where the conference was
held, from
May 28 to 29, 2013 according to the government one person was killed and five
injured, included five homes, three mosques, one cinema, four warehouses, 32
shops, two cars and 11 motorbikes were burned. Both of these incidents were kindled by this
Buddhist movement. While the government
has begun to reform and making relations with the West, Myanmar needs to take a
firm stand on human rights, pluralism, and security for all of its citizens,
promoting the rule of law. Please pray
for people in Myanmar, particularly, Christians that the religious violence and
persecution would not expand into churches (which many fear that Christians will
become the next victims), rather using this time of conflict to demonstrate
God’s love and peace to their neighbors.
Please pray also that the Lisu churches in Myanmar would be rooted in
God’s Word, rather than human teachings, particularly, the liberation
theology. Today, this human theology is
considered to be the main stream of Christianity in Myanmar. This type of theology indeed causes division
or discrimination which leads to pride and definitely becoming a stumbling block for evangelism. Pray for the Lisu churches so that they would
not be entangled with this evil trap!
Family in Focus
Every one of the Wongratanamajcha is doing
great. In fact, this week is the first
week in several years that we all have some free time to spend together. Becky, John and Isaac are on their school
break. Nick and Stephen are on their
ministerial and teaching break. October
23, 2013 is the first day in many years that we went out, having a family
picnic at the park. Praise the Lord for
this precious family time! Mary is still
busy taking care of the Burmese students in their daily needs. The freshman of our Burmese students went
back to Burma on October 6, 2013, while another group of Burmese students has just
arrived and began studying God’s Word with us since October 17. This group of students will be scheduled to
go back on December 15, 2013. At the
moment, they are studying the Doctrine of God taught by Isaiah Yinthum
(Laoyeepa). Starting from November 5,
Stephen will teach for 6 hours a day consecutively to December 12, 2013 (with a
break on November 18-22). Please lift
him to God so that he will have energy to serve Him faithfully and
accordingly.
We deeply appreciate your prayers and partnership in
expanding God’s Kingdom and in making disciples in Southeast Asia and China.
In Christ’s Love,
Stephen and Mary
