A church has been planted in Mingalardon (North Yangon) because of the food distribution which started in 2020. DA (pastor) who is the head of an orphanage called A Child Centre. He kept B4T member in touch with the developments and invited the member to preach in the flourishing church, where B4T member could attest to the reality and vitality of this church plant.
It all started back in April 2020 when a team of B4T members gave out the first food distribution and DA and his team went from door to door delivering the food packages while sharing the Gospel. He invited the people to join him for bible studies at White Dove in the evenings and even during the days as no one was working at the time. Slowly over time, a core group of pre-believers was built. You will recall that we made a total of six food distributions in 2020 (April-May-June and then Sep-Oct-Nov) leading up to Christmas which was another major outreach that B4T funded.
DA worked very hard and recruited people from outside to help him. There is Pastor John from Hmawbi who helped him with teaching three days Bible seminars. Now he has a lady who comes at 8:30 AM on Sundays to lead Sunday School with some 40 kids. He only has 20 children left in his orphanage as most of them have now left for their villages and there is a shortage of male teens to help him. Still, he is managing well and doing a fantastic job.
There were about 20 adults in attendance (some came late, and some left early) as well as some 20 children from the neighbourhood. Together with the 20 kids from White Dove, there was a total of 60 present. Everyone came from the immediate community and DA introduced me as the one who supplied them with food when Covid-19 started and now during the Coup. A bit embarrassing but I guess it placed me in the people’s good books! The church has NO name yet. It looked and felt like a church plant. No live band, no guitarist, no keyboard. The music was from a phone amplified by a lone speaker. There was no projector and for the first time I had to preach from printed paper. The service was simple with only children presenting three different songs and then it was sermon time. It was all over in just over 2 hours, short for Myanmar where services last for a minimum of three hours.
I do not consider myself an evangelistic speaker and so I had struggled to prepare today’s sermon since I knew that there would only be two believers among the attendees, the rest being pre-believers and as it turned out three were first-timers who therefore heard the Good News for the first time. God was amazingly at work. I had decided to just use one verse, John 3:16 and expound on it, focusing on God’s love that gives. I had asked DA to write that verse on the white board and we could therefore go back and forth and point out the different words (which I guessed because my written Myanmar is non-existent!). There was immediate connection because Myanmar people are primed from memorizing anything and everything. This was put to good use here and John 3:16 became alive for them.
I had arranged with DA that I would end by asking people to give their life to God just as He had given them His one and only Son and that I would then pass the altar call to him as he would be able to make it more fitting and acceptable to them. This he did and when he asked those who wanted to give their lives to Jesus, Oh! miracle of miracles, seven people stood up-four men and three women. Some other people wanted to stand up too, but DA knew who they were and told them to sit down because they had already accepted Jesus. So, his call was clear and not ambiguous. Only those who had never accepted Jesus should stand up. I then committed all of them to Jesus and prayed for their follow-up.
After service, one still non-believing couple, had offered to provide lunch for everyone. It was a simple one consisting of fish in a spicy sauce and a bean soup. As guests, we had vegetables and fried mushroom as extras. DA had invited two of the new converts men, both truckers, to join us for lunch. They were both now unemployed. During the service, the main prayer request was for employment. The people are suffering, but in their loss and confusion, they are finding peace in the loving arms of our Father.
This is the time for us to share the best news ever and I am so blessed to be part of what God is doing here. I would not want to be anywhere else.