Random Ramblings

The Commission & Experiencing Burma

March 22, 2010 at 9:32 PM (Observations)

*This is part 3 of a series of excerpts from my journal documenting my recent trip to South East Asia

1/20/10
10:00am
Yangon

We are completing the God’s Plan For Church Planting course this morning with the group.  Each student is doing a final presentation of their personal church planting strategy.  They are going through the 4 points of Evangelize, Establish, Equip and Expand.  As they are completing their 7-10 minute presentation, our translator asked that we would lay hands on each one and pray over them and commission them to their respective regions and people groups.

I just prayed for one of the guys and I felt Jesus strongly.  As I put my hands on his shoulders, I just felt the power of God upon him.  Wow I’m not even sure what else to say about that.

About halfway through, we presented certificates to all the students since Tim had to catch a plane at noon.  We took pictures of all the students holding up their certificates.

We prayed for the first few students but since then, they have begun to pray for each other.  It is a powerful thing to witness.

We’ve been keeping the presentations to a maximum of 10 minutes and some of the students are eager and hit the 10 minute mark.  One of the guys in the front has been keeping track of time for us through the whole training and when time is up, he emphatically rings his bell!

1/20/10
9:00pm
Yangon

After we completed the training and said our goodbyes to the group, Sherman and I went back to the hotel for a short rest before heading out to Bogyoke Market.  This has been one of the most intense parts of the trip so far.  We walked around the market and picked up some gifts.  We saw street vendors, beggars and all types of people in the streets.   You see VERY few Westerners in Yangon.  I guess that is why the street vendors are not overly obnoxious.  Surprisingly, most could speak decent English…good enough to bargain a price with you!

We saw this boy on the street doing finger paintings which were absolutely phenomenal.  He was doing them so quickly.  Literally he was making these beautifully detailed and colorful paintings in less than 10 minutes.  He was selling them for a dollar a piece!  Sherman bought 3 and I bought 2.

I was telling Sherman that Burma has a unique smell.  I could pick it up everywhere we went.  I told him that it is too bad that my camera can’t capture smell!

We stopped for dinner and had great conversation about many different subjects.  Somehow we brought up Watchman Nee and I asked Sherman if he had read Sit, Walk, Stand.  He said no but he had something better than that.  He said he met him in Oakland when he was about 9 years old.  He said that he remembers clearly meeting him and what he will never forget was how humble he was.

The market was so much to take in.  It was pretty overwhelming since it was my first experience in a 3rd world country.  It was definitely a sobering experience seeing the extreme poverty and the way people live on a daily basis and how much I take for granted.

1/21/10
12:30pm
Yangon

Today has been quite an adventure already.  After breakfast, Sherman and I headed to the Shwedagon Pagoda.  It was absolutely immense and something you have to experience first hand to fully understand.  There is the main structure which is hundreds of feet tall, then within the complex there are tons of smaller temple-like structures and hundreds of golden statues of Buddah.  I just watched as the people sat and worshippped, prayed and meditated before the statues.  Some would constantly pour water over the Buddah and washed it.  We saw monks walking through and many would talk to people to practice their English.  There were very actually very few Westerners there and I found that to be refreshing.  It seems like as soon as a country gets flooded with tourism, everything becomes commercialized.  You really get the feel of genuine culture in this country.

We sat down in one spot for awhile just to watch the people walk by.  I haven’t had the opportunity to see a lot of children but every time I do, I fall in love.  Asian children are beautiful.  I got a few great pics of kids walking by.

It was was profound to see the dichotomy of the poverty of the people of this country and the wealth that has gone into building, maintaining and expanding this pagoda.  If all of the money that was poured into this place was used to feed the poor, the situation would be so different here.  But the oppressive government controls every aspect of society.  It was saddening.  Here is a short video clip I took there:

SHWEDAGON PAGODA VIDEO

Sherman and I returned to the hotel and took a 10 minute walk to the river.  On the way, every few feet I saw people selling everything from food, tires, tools and random trinkets.  There are tons of vendors on every block.

We made it down to the harbor and watched the men loading and unloading the supplies from boats.  There were smaller river taxis taking people back and forth across the Yangon River.  We sat out and watched the people work for awhile.  As we walked back, I noticed strings on the street level that went up to apartments on different floors.  It looked like it could have been a way to either let someone know that you are downstairs or to send something up.  Either way, it is ingenuity at its finest.  It was just fascinating to observe the different aspects of how they live.

1/21/10
6:00pm
Yangon

Our translator from the training came to pick us up at 1pm and since his car was being repaired, we took a taxi to the Yangon Education Center for the Blind.  A lady from his church works there and took us on a tour through the classrooms.  We had an opportunity to meet with the principal of the school and she told us that there were over 160 students enrolled.  They teach them up through middle school, then they go into public school.  They are taught a trade in the school as well.  The women learn basket weaving and sowing, the boys learn to work with bamboo and both boys and girls learn Japanese massage.

It was pretty intense walking through the classrooms and observing the blind children.  My heart broke to see these beautiful children and know that they could not see us.  One class sang the ABCs for us.  We went into a few different classrooms and watched them working with braile machines.  In one of the classrooms, the teacher was blind as well.

We went over to where they were doing the Japanese massage.  They were offering a one hour massage for $7 US!  I told the lady there that in the US they charge $35 for half an hour!  We also got to see the guys working with the bamboo.  They made these intricately woven stools that I know took hours of work and they were selling them for $5 US.

On the same grounds as the school, we visited the Myanmar YWAM base.  We met the director and another guy from Switzerland that runs the school with him.  After Sherman shared what we do, we came to find that this base focuses on church planting as well.

The conversation we had here was one of the most profound ones that I’ve had in my life.  The guy from Switzerland was sharing that how when the students come in, one of the first things he has to do is to deprogram them of many things that they learned which are not “supra-cultural principles”, Tim calls them.  He said that the missionaries are to be honored for bringing in the gospel and laying the foundation, but they also brought in their culture and put that on the people, robbing them of their culture.  In the courses, they try to establish the mindset that the church is not a building and they can meet anywhere to worship God.  That they are not required to sing hymns associated with any particular denomination and they can sing traditional Burmese songs to worship God.  That they are not required to forfeit their culture when they come to Christ.  He talked about how when missionaries came in, they saw that when the people would play their harp they would worship the spirit of the harp.  Needless to say, the missionaries did not like that and told them that they could not use their instruments rather than show them how they could redeem that and use it to worship Christ.

He shared how there were many limitations on where foreigners could even go within the country.  He said that this has been a blessing in disguise.  He said that this has forced them to train indigenous leaders to bring the gospel to the areas that we cannot go.

He had some interesting things to say about Buddism as well.  He said that if you study out the writings most of what Buddah talks about, Jesus fulfilled.  He said that if Christians understood more about Buddism, they could more effectively reach the people.

The conversation made me realize how significant it was to hear how the group in the training we just completed really GOT IT.  These foundational principles outlined in the Bible are so simple when you remove all that the Western church has brought in.

It was great to hear what they were doing with YWAM and share what we were there doing.  It was really profound to hear the perspective from another foreigner who has been living in the country and in the culture for awhile.  It really helped me understand the significance of the work we were there to do.

When we left, our translator took us to an authentic Burmese restaurant.  The food was really good and really cheap.  When the bill came, I asked how much I owed.  He said it was about $8.50 US and when I started to give that much, he said “No, for all 3 of us.”  I was like whoa!  Everywhere we went, the food was delicious and cheap!

He was also just sharing his vision that he has for Burma.  He wants to find 15-20 serious Christians that want to plant churches in the Karin villages.  It is one of the most unreached people groups in Burma.  He is half Burmese and half Karin and definitely has a heart for his people.  He wants to do the church planting course with that group and commission them out to the Karin people.  He definitely has an apostolic anointing.  He has a ton of connections and a lot of influence in the Christian community.

We got to talking about worship and he asked if people in my church get slain in the Spirit.  He has a Baptist background (like the majority of Christians here that have gone through Bible school) so I answered very carefully.    He said that due to the Baptist background and Buddist culture, most Burmese Christians are not very emotional.  However, he said that we do have to worship God with our emotions as well as our mind.

We took a cab back to the hotel and we stopped by the Baptist Convention Center.  We went to see where he records his weekly 15 minute radio program for Lutheran broadcasting network.  He took us to the printing press on the grounds where they print all of their materials.  He showed us his church but said he isn’t able to go regularly since he frequently has speaking engagements in other churches.

It’s been quite a full day so even though we got back to the hotel at 5pm, I told Sherman that I was fine to relax for the rest of the evening.  Almost 4 pages of journaling and we didn’t even do any ministry!