My team has made it safely to Myanmar after around 34 hours of travel, and we are all settled in to our new ministry. We are working with a small church in Mandalay, Myanmar and we are blessed to have their pastor, Moses as our host.
The morning after arriving in Mandalay, we jumped right into ministry and went to Sunday morning church. We played and danced with the kids before the service, and then were escorted to our seats in the very front row. It is a small church, about 20 people in a one room school building. We sang a couple of worship songs, then Moses told us that it was time to share testimonies. We were all pretty confused, and honestly a little scared to get up in front of people we just met and share our full testimonies. But what we soon found out was that to them, your testimony is quite literally testifying how God has been good to you that week.
One by one, every member of the church got up and shared and Moses translated for us. A couple people in, a little girl got up and said “I am thankful that this week I was able to get a new pair of shoes. Thank you Jesus for my new shoes”. As Moses translated that, he explained that they don’t have much, and that even a pair of shoes is a testament of God’s goodness. My team and I all looked at each other in a little bit of shock, but we all felt a deep love for this new kind of testimony sharing.
We are often so focused on the hard parts of our testimonies; some people struggled with drugs, others had close family members die, and others fought years of addiction. While the Lord’s goodness without a doubt still shines through in these testimonies, sometimes we forget to simply testify to those around us how the Lord is so so good every day.
In that moment at church, the Lord broke my heart for Myanmar, and for that little girl. This country has so much need, but I also see so much of Jesus in them. From Moses being passionate about sending missionaries from his church to other states in Myanmar to the little kids doing the Church Clap with us, the Lord is moving in such evident ways here.
I will post another blog next week giving more details about our day to day ministry, but for now, please continue to keep my team, me, and the church we are working with in your prayers!
-Michelle
