Remember the cheerleader movie Bring It On? Also an excellent Broadway musical, by the way. I am not ashamed to admit that I like the movie. It’s funny. This month I often found myself saying, ‘Bring it on!’ to God. From the get go He blew us away. Here’s how.
June found us in Myanmar (Burma), a country relatively untouched by the Western world because it was closed for so long. I did not know there existed a country without a McDonald’s. There is! I was there! So exciting! (I hope they continue to hold out. Sorry, McD’s.) Adventures in Missions has previously not sent teams to Myanmar, so we are helping to pioneer the country. My team was tasked with finding new ministries with whom to partner in the future. If you recall we did this in Costa Rica. Unsung Heroes 2.0! On our first go round in CR we began with a lot of internet research. That’s typical. Myanmar is not typical.
After three days of travel, my team landed in the old capital city of Yangon. Another team went north to Mandalay. Because Myanmar is a new country for AIM, we spent our entire time focused around one city. The second team focused around their city. We quickly found that travel between cities takes several hours and is not the easiest, so staying in one city made a lot of sense.
On our first full day in Yangon we tried unsuccessfully to take a train around the perimeter of the city. Apparently they run only in the morning. With disappointment we walked back to our hostel. Along the away one of my teammates started talking with a man who you could tell just wanted to talk with the foreigners near him. Turns out he is a Baptist pastor and was on his way to the convention office.
Say what?!
Needless to say a few of us accompanied him to the office, eager to make our first contacts. We met a couple of the leaders who told us what they are doing in the city. They invited us to meet with them the next week when all of the pastors would be at the office. They then connected us with the YWAM Myanmar director. We set up a meeting for the following day.
Again, say what?! Bring it, God! We made no effort to meet these men, but God threw them into our path.
Our meeting with YWAM was amazing. We were able to join them for two separate ministry days – one was a house church of HIV+ people, the other was a children’s drop-in center. The director also gave us contact information for about ten other ministries.
For real?! Bring it!
Our week filled up so quickly that it was a couple of days before we could meet together as a team and set up goals. Not once did we need to search the internet for people to meet. God continued to put them in our path. We visited orphanages, churches, a Christian business school, and a seminary.
Everyone we met was wonderful. The people of Myanmar astound me with their friendliness and hospitality. A few times when we asked someone for directions they stopped what they were doing and led us to the place. Three of us took a walking tour of the city one day. In the middle of our tour the clouds opened up and dumped buckets of rain. We sought shelter under an awning and decided to wait out the rain. Meanwhile there was a family beside us who offered us their umbrellas. They gave us their umbrellas to finish the tour! Who does that? Our tour guide returned them later, don’t worry.
We made many friendships over the course of a month that will hopefully last a long while.
Man, what a month. Here’s one last picture of a pagoda in Yangon. These structures were prevalent in the city. At night they shone brightly and lit up the skyline.
