Friday morning T-squad boarded a bus in Chiang Mai and rode for 6 hours to the border of Thailand and Myanmar. We then made the very sweaty walk across border and through customs into Myanmar with all our luggage. 50 moist racers then climbed on another bus. They rode this bus for roughly 11 hours before splitting into their teams and traveling to their ministry sites for the month.
Once I walked across the border it was immediately apparent that this culture was different than anything I have experienced before. Myanmar had their borders closed off to the rest of the world up until a couple years ago. Their culture is very unaffected by western cultures and it was pretty obvious right away. Men wear skirts and the locals stared at a group of 50 white people like it was the Thanksgiving day parade. It is culturally inappropriate for a man to walk one-on-one with a woman unless they are married, and women always have to have their knees and shoulders completely covered.
Those are the unique things about this culture that I took notice to right away, but now, after being in the country a couple of days, I have noticed some of the below-the-surface cultural aspects of this country that got me excited. There has been a lot of graciousness and kindness towards us from people that we met at the local church but also workers at restaurants that we went to. The people here have a sort of hunger and openness for other cultures. Locals show a genuine interest in us for no other reason than the fact that we are foreigners, which is something I am thrilled about for our ministry.
My team’s ministry this month is very relational. Our host runs an English class throughout the week and is also in charge of a church on Sundays. Our role is simply to use that platform to build relationships. This can look like fostering connection with the students we help in the class before eventually inviting them to church (the church doubles as a free English class), but it could also look like starting conversations with strangers by inviting them to class. This physically would take the form of handing out flyers for the English class and setting aside times to have conversations with the people that we meet. We also have a role in helping out with the church services just by leading a couple of worship songs or sharing testimonies on how God showed up in our lives. After doing manual labor last month I am excited for the change of pace for this ministry month.
I am also excited for how this month of ministry could help my personal growth. There are a couple of areas I feel challenged to grow in this month. One of the areas is love. At the halfway point in the race it’s been really easy to feel like ministry is just going through the motions. When I go out and minister to people I want it to be from a place of love and because my heart breaks for people that need it, but I know that it is so easy to do ministry almost out of a place of obligation. I’m praying that this month God gives me his heart which means my heart breaking for everything that breaks his. The other area I want to grow in this month is intimacy with the Lord. I felt the need to spend more time deepening my connection with the Father, so I am making it a point of emphasis to be as present as possible by giving up as many distractions as possible.
So to sum everything up: Myanmar is awesome, God is awesome, and I am super excited for this month.
