Report from Doulos Correspondant in Myanmar, November 21, 2008

In October, I went to Taunggyi, the eastern capital of Myanmar, for teaching one week there. I taught the subject, “How to approach Buddhists with the gospel.” It is really challenging subject for me because I have been teaching this subject for several years. For me personally, I feel that Christian life is to tell good news to the people in spite of many excuses and reasons. As Myanmar is a Buddhist country, I teach them how to share the gospel effectively to the Buddhists. I talk some basic teachings of Buddhism, Buddhist way of thinking and their life situations. I do not teach how to use old ways of sharing the gospel. I said “we should not repeat the old ways of sharing the gospel.” That’s why we avoid saying something like “if we die what will happen to us.” We discussed what Buddhists are really saying. According to Buddhists, if we do good, we will get good things. But in reality, especially in Myanmar’s present situation, wicked people are rich and they have good life. If we do good, we will be suffered in Myanmar. For example, if we do not cheat in examination, we will not get high marks. But if they cheat and give money to authorities, they became rich and rich. As we are facing such kind of situation, we discuss with our students that how to share the gospel with people who are not happy with Buddhists way of life. I do not use the method, but help them to create their own methods by seeing or knowing the situations of the people. We learn together the situation of the people to know more and more about people.

One day, I took all 26 students for outreach ministry. Before we go for sharing the gospel, we pray and take time for worship for one hour. We pray together as a team to realize the power of the gospel. We went to different places to tell the gospel. Our motto is to tell people about Christ no matter who they are. “Just tell it.” We preach it. Then, in the evening, we came back and gathered together and we shared our experiences each other.  When all students share their experiences, one thing that I realize is people are hunger for the gospel. According to our students, many people say to come back again to tell them more. They want to hear more about Jesus.

And I came back to Yangon, where I am serving as a teacher. After two days, I received a call from Taunggyi. They said they don’t know whether it is good news or not. Because of our students, one Buddhist monk wants to become a Christian. He is from the village called Panthakwa. Actually, he is not the leader from the village monastery, but he is a prominent leader. If he becomes a Christian, our church from that region will have problem with the local leaders. It is in the autonomous region of the National Paoh Army, a tribal ceased-fired group. If the Buddhist monk accepts Jesus, the community from that region will create problem with us. So, we really need your prayers. If the Buddhist monk becomes a Christian, some of his people will automatically become Christians. This is the Lord’s doing in our midst. Thank you.