Support a church in Myanmar!

 

Imagine 75% of your county  wiped out.  We heard
stories of mothers losing the majority of their families and individuals
clinging to coconut trees for hours to survive. As their families were stripped
from their lives, also was the feeling and vision of hope.

 

Currently, life in the Delta is in survival mode. Every day
they wait for rice bags to arrive, rebuild bamboo homes, and relocate orphans
due to lack of space.  The rice fields are still soaking in salt water and
much of the cattle were lost during the storm.  Food is scarce and
children go to school under UNICEF tarps.

 

Getting there involved an arduous
journey.  The road to the delta was long, hot, bumpy and wearying. At one
point the ancient van ground to a halt after a particularly jarring rut. “Ah, we get out and push,”
said our translator. So we got out and pushed the van. It started again, we hopped in, and went, chuckling, on our
World Race way.

 

Fifteen hours over the bumpiest, most potholed roads – not a
single minute went by without braking hard or bouncing over a huge hole brought
us to the city of LaButta, the largest city in the Irrawaddy Delta. Cyclone Nargis hit the area in
May 2008, devastating villages all around and killing about 130,000 people.

 

We
weren’t supposed to be there.

 

Only Burmese
government officials and a few NGOs were allowed to go into the delta. Aid workers only.  No tourists.

Until
we arrived.

 

The
road to LaButta is lined with the remnants of wooden houses (in the States they
would have been called shacks) that had been blown away by Nargis.

 

Some were still being lived in, with tarps over their
bamboo-woven roofs. Many were in shambles on the ground.

 

Team member Katie Rowland described the following stop along
the way: “I hopped out of the van once to find somewhere off the road to
relieve myself, and found myself literally on top of another destroyed house.
Suddenly I noticed an older woman sitting in the rubble of the house.
“Minglaba,” I said, greeting her in Burmese. Bamboo rods and woven
mats were scattered over the old site, and all that was still standing was a
huge water jar, the kind you find outside most village houses in Southeast
Asia. The woman kindly pointed me to the back of the once-house, where larger
bushes would hide me from any passers-by.”

 

Once we arrived, we linked up with a
local church.  Since
Cyclone Nargis hit, the church has grown with 70 new people giving their lives
to Christ. Formerly, most of the church members had been Buddhist. But they’ve
found hope in Jesus that they never found in Buddha. As they meet in a wooden
shack and pray on woven straw mats, they’re defying their government, which
endorses Buddhism.

 

In a wooden shack on woven
mats the body of Christ rises to its knees and cries out in prayer. Fervency
and desperation mark their cries as they clasp their hands in front of their
chests, or hold them open to God, asking Him to bring His KINGDOM to their
country. To Myanmar.

 

While in Myanmar, here is what we heard:

…Thousands
of orphans crying for their lost families

…Bells
ringing as the Buddhist celebrate another traditional holiday

…Government
officials telling locals to stay away from foreigners (esp. Americans)

…Cyclone
Nargis survivors hunger pains

…A
child’s scream as another is taken to become a child soldier

…Fear
of man in the sound of silence

…A
mother’s broken heart shatters as she sees no future for her family

…Ultimately,
their hearts begging for hope.

 

Will you help us help the
people of Myanmar rebuild their church? They say it will cost $8000. 
Please join us. The People of Myanmar need YOU! 
Please help us help those who were devastated by the cyclone last spring…

Send checks to:

 Write checks out to
“Adventures in Missions” and in the ‘for’ line write “World Race
Ministry – Myanmar”.
If you prefer, you may click here to donate online
through AIM’s secure website.  Please indicate “World Race Ministry –
Myanmar” in the box.