Battle Log

• Battle Log
• Myanmar (Burma) Short Term Missions

As I write this, I’m sitting on a flight coming home to Christchurch from Yangon. This report will cover the last three days of outreach for the NZ team (the AU team had an extra morning of outreach).

On Monday, my team was at Inya Lake. As I reflect back on this day, the highlight was the very last conversation of the day. My translator had to leave a little early, so for the last thirty minutes of the outreach I tried to find people that spoke English to talk with.

A young couple responded positively to my question: “do you speak English?”. They were both university students and were studying languages. She: English, He: Russian - but he knew enough English to follow along with the conversation, and she translated when required.

It was a long conversation, and so the outreach finished late, but it was so worth it. We worked through the logic of the mini flip chart, and the gospel message it explained. They were deeply challenged, and asked wonderful questions. They understood that salvation is a gift, but there is a great cost (in this life) in accepting it.

When the conversation finally ended, I could tell the guy was still counting that cost, but I was delightfully surprised to see the girl say she wanted to trust in Christ! I gave them gospels of John, and a tract each, and I asked her if she was serious to please get in touch via the contact number on it. I leave them in God’s hands.

Tuesday saw my team at the Dagon Center. My translator and I had some good conversations throughout the day, but there were a few translation issues which made many of the conversations difficult. But this was not a bad thing, it just became an opportunity for the translator and I to work through these issues. We spent some time working through relevant Bible verses; we learned from each other.

After this, we moved into a final conversation of the outreach. And it was a doozie! I ended up getting one of our other translators involved as well, and between the three of us, we were able to move through the mini flip chart, with a young man, smoothly. To my joy, the young man, even after counting the cost, expressed a desire to place his trust in the sacrifice of Jesus. He said, “Why would I turn down a gift like that?”. He also received a gospel of John and a tract, and was encouraged to get in touch. He is also in God’s hands.

Wednesday was the final day of outreach for me. I was torn, it is so wonderful being in Yangon talking to people about the gospel, but I so miss my family back home. Getting through the day felt like climbing the final mountain before breaking through to the valley on the other side… but we made it!

We were short by two translators, but this was not a problem, because the team members who didn’t have translators were able to have many conversations with English speakers at the university - they had a marvellous time.

The rest of us stayed at the Hledan Center. In spite of a man constantly blowing a whistle in his strange attempts to direct traffic, we were able to have many gospel conversations.

The highlight was a conversation I had to take over. There were two men involved. And they had both been through the flip chart but were very resistant in different ways. The first young man looked offended and didn’t say much. The second older man was doing nothing but talking!

I decided to get my translator to focus on the man that talked a lot, while I focused on the young man who was able to speak English. His issue was with evolution (he was a zoology major at the university). Science explained everything - so he said. I spend some time with him working through this, while trying to move the conversation to the gospel (more important!). Unfortunately, his friend turned up and needed to take the young man away - he didn’t want to leave, he wanted to work the discussion through, but he had to go.

I was now able to join my translator and work with the man that talked a lot. I managed to get this man to slow down a bit so that we could really start dialoguing. Usually when people talk alot, it means they are very resistant. But to my surprise, I was able to get the man to explain how a Buddhist gets to “heaven” (good deeds), and then explain why that is impossible to achieve. He stopped talking, and started listening (except to answer the questions I was asking him). I could tell he had been given information that he had to consider further. He gratefully received a tract and a gospel of John.

So that brings an end to the February 2020 mission to Myanmar. My reports have only been a glimpse of some of the many wonderful gospel conversations the team has had over the two weeks. All glory to God for any fruit. Thank you for praying for the team, and I hope you will be able to join a future mission with us.

View previous Myanmar (Burma) Short Term Missions report (16 February 2020)

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Myanmar Mission Trips

For more information on why we do missions in Myanmar and how you can even come along on a future trip, click here.

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