Praise the Lord for answering prayers! Stephen has not been on a mission trip to Burma for 12 years. Because of an increase in request of Christian leaders in Burma for a leadership conference, Stephen took a trip to central Burma to meet with many prominent leaders to discuss this request. God answered many prayers and opened the door to make a mission trip to this area.
Last year 100 of Lisu leaders came together to meet, but there was no teacher to teach them. Stephen felt very bad for them when he heard this news. After this recent trip and meeting and discussing with the leaders, we have agreed that the first week in November will be best to hold a leadership conference for preachers, leaders, elder, and evangelists in central Burma.
Burma at this moment has changed a lot. It has improved dramatically from a political viewpoint. The country has been opened to travelers and we have seen many foreigners traveling inside the country. People have more freedom to travel around inside the country. We saw a lot of new transportation opportunities through bus and airplane. The country looks nicer than it used to be. We saw hardly any military personnel in the streets. We saw more police control, rather than soldiers. All of this is a good sign, especially for Christians to spread God’s Word in this Buddhism-dominant country. As you may know, Buddhism in Burma is stronger and stricter than Buddhism in Thailand. Hopefully in the near future, mission works will be done more in Burma.
However, the life conditions of the common people are very bad. Most of them are struggling for their daily food because they have no jobs. The gap between the social classes is still very wide – the rich are very, very rich while the poor are very, very poor. Many of them could not meet their daily needs. During this trip, we have seen and met various sick people. Most of them are suffering from TB infection and malaria breakout. We met one lady who was suffering at her bed. She complained that it was very painful when she breathes. This first happened almost six months ago. One of our team asked her why she did not go to the hospital, since the hospital is not far from her house. She responded that she has no money to go. However, she asked us to pray for her. So, we did pray for her. We saw many other people suffering like this lady.
The hindsight of this mission trip is that God allowed Stephen to have a chance to spend time with a Senator and Chief Minister from Shan state, who are both Christians. They host him for the night and spend time to talk with him about the future ministry of Asians For Christ/ACMInternational. They are willing to oversee all of the future mission works in Burma, particularly in Shan state. We thank God for this because we have seen that we can do a lot of mission work, especially bringing the Good News to the lost people in this area.
Thank you very much for your prayers and support.
In Christ’s Love,
Stephen and his teammates
Ps. Various mission works are needed at John’s school, Grace International School, please check out the web www.gisthailand.org
