07/04/2017 Tuesday
My team and I have said our goodbyes to Myanmar Mission College, and have arrived at our ministry site in India. My team and I are once again in a rural area, and will focus on village ministry this month. We are staying in a small church on a tiny compound. We finished two days of orientation with AIM to prepare us for India. I’d like to assure anyone reading this that we are safe, but that persecution is real. Our host has been beaten several times for his faith. Because of the area my team and I are staying in this month, I cannot share many details about where we are except to say that we are in Southern India. In an effort to preserve the ministry here, and our host’s safety, we are not allowed to leave the compound other than when we visit the slums each evening. Please continue to pray that God will use us during this time to share the gospel and love on the people who God has put on our paths.
To be willing to look like a fool for Christ took on a different meaning for me on our last night in Myanmar. It happened on the 29th, the night before we left for the airport to head for India and I’ve been trying to take some time to process it ever since. Because this is something that you don’t hear about often (or at least in the US) I hesitate to write about it on a public forum, but I feel strongly that God needs the glory. I’m asking you to read with an open mind and heart and ask the Holy Spirit to shed light onto each word written here in order for truth to shine, and for God to be glorified. I want to share, because I feel compelled to testify what God has done.
Following God takes faith, and we read about crazy things He does in the Bible, and we’ll hear crazy stories that happen to other people, but what do you do when you’re the one it’s happening to? I can’t help but feel silly for what I’m about to write, but I know it happened and I know it’s true. I can’t explain how I know this, except for the faith that God has given me and my team to believe.
Our first night in Myanmar, I saw an angel on the college campus. I wasn’t looking with my physical eyes, but I was looking with my spiritual eyes. I saw many angels, but there was one that stood out and looked different than the rest. I felt the Holy Spirit urging me to approach the angel, and when I did I saw that he had a scroll in his hand; he unrolled the scroll to reveal that on it was written a message in a language that I couldn’t read.
Immediately I felt my flesh wrestling with my spirit. The doubt flooded in and I began second guessing what I had just encountered. If it was real then what was the point of seeing a message that I couldn’t read? The entire thing sounded crazy, and irrational.
Of course I didn’t tell anyone. But I never stopped thinking of it.
Everyday I prayed asking God for wisdom and clarification concerning what I saw that night. Eventually my prayers focused on the campus, the students, and our hosts who founded the campus. Before I knew it, I was praying for them each day and the more I prayed the more I felt God revealing to me how much He loves them and loves Myanmar.
A few days before we were supposed to leave, our team leader called a meeting and said she felt strongly that our team was supposed to stay an extra night even though the other two teams were scheduled to leave. Right away I felt that uncomfortable burning you get when you know God wants you to say something but you don’t really want to. I pulled her aside and told her that although I didn’t understand why, I was also feeling like we should stay another night. I also told her that I felt like I had something I should tell the students (but I had no idea what that was at the time).
After taking a day to pray and ask God if there was something specific He wanted to do on our last day at the campus, we felt Him laying it on our hearts to pray for each student and wash their feet on our final evening spent with them.
By the time Thursday came around, I still felt like I needed to share a message and was becoming increasingly annoyed by the fact that I didn’t know what it was. All of us spent the day preparing for the evening service in our own way. I spent the day praying and that afternoon I felt like God had revealed part of what He wanted me to talk about but not all of it. I shared with my team what I was planning on saying, and Rebecca shared what she was planning on sharing with them and explaining why we stayed an extra day. We discussed if we should have a translator, and after saying we’d pray about it never reached a definite decision.
It wasn’t until we prayed as a team together that God told me the rest of what He wanted to say. My teammate Christa began to pray and as she was praying everything become so clear to me. A God waited to share what He wanted to say until about ten minutes before I was supposed to speak, but He made it so clear that I would have to be a fool to doubt it.
Rebecca explained why we were there, and read the passage about when Jesus washed His disciple’s feet. I walked up to the microphone and it felt like it wasn’t even me standing up there speaking. The Holy Spirit began to give me the interpretation of the message that the angel carried the first night in Myanmar. I had no sooner began to speak when our host’s wife came up beside me.
“I’m going to translate for you,” she said. It was an answer to our question earlier as to if we should have a translator. As soon as she said the words it was further confirmation that they needed to hear what was going to be spoken.
Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t like speaking in front of people and I don’t like being the center of attention. But God moved that night, and it was beautiful. As I stood before the students, I didn’t care if I sounded foolish talking about seeing angels on their campus. I only cared for God to get the glory and for them to hear what He wanted to say and for them to encounter Him. My desire for them to encounter God outweighed any fear I had of sounding foolish.
And I began to share what I had seen, and as I shared God began to reveal to me what was written on the scroll. He released a word over them that night, and He was saying that there was going to be a spiritual shift in the country and in the students. He wanted to give them more of Him, and allow them to encounter His Holy Spirit in ways that perhaps they never had before. I spoke about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and encouraged them to ask for more of the Holy Spirit and more of Jesus and more of God.
They didn’t think I sounded crazy. They believed, and we felt the heaviness in the room as the Spirit of God was moving in them and in us. Rebecca and Alisha washed feet while Christa and Molly prayed over the student getting their feet washed. Anna and I made our way row to row praying over each student.
Burmese culture is more reserved when it comes to a public display of emotions, but I watched as some of the students began to have their eyes filled with tears and be visibly moved by what they were experiencing.
Because the rows were so narrow, Anna and I knelt on the ground in front of the student we would pray for. At first, they stayed seated, but then when would kneel before them they would get on the floor and bow their heads joining us. I was touched by their humility, and further touched by their servant hearts. It was hot and humid, and I was dripping in sweat while I was trying to pray. Then they began to fan all of us that night, and there was one girl who followed me the entire time fanning me and picking beetles off of my shirt.
There was one student in particular, who God had highlighted to me right away. He has a genuine heart for God, and each time we would teach and preach he would be at the edge of his seat wanting more. He had pulled his chair away in a corner and was sobbing. I had been praying for the students around him, and he was the only one left at this point. I hesitated because I wasn’t sure if he needed time just with God, but he looked up at me and immediately knelt on the ground before me with his hands clasped and head bowed.
It was a powerful night for all of us, and even trying to tell the story doesn’t seem to do it justice. I realized that the reason why God didn’t let me understand the message the angel carried right away was because He wanted me to be praying for Myanmar each day and for the students. He wanted to give me a heart for them before I could speak to them.
Myanmar will always hold a special place in my heart and I know other girls on my team feel the same way. We fell in love, and all we could do was be in awe of God that night. God has been moving in the student’s lives long before we came, and He will continue to do so. On this particular night however, God gave my team and I a front row seat to get to see what He was up to. He shared with us a piece of His heart for them, and I will cherish it forever.
God taught me a lot about faith in Myanmar, and I genuinely believe that that night wouldn’t have happened without faith. It took faith for our team to stay back an extra night, although we weren’t sure why we needed to at first. It took faith for me to believe in what I saw, and then share it publically, and it took faith for the Burmese students and our host to believe what was being spoken that night.
To God be the glory forever and ever.
