Bibles For Burma!

We just got back from an amazing trip to Thailand and Myanmar. God showed His presence and power among us through divine protection, signs, miracles and spectacular answers to prayer.

If you’ve been following along, you will know that we started with an international director’s gathering in Thailand. But I sketched that out in a previous post, so on to the adventure in Myanmar!
After the Director’s Meetings and conference in Thailand a handful of us went as a task team into Myanmar. We flew from Bangkok to Mandalay, then raced 8 hours up the “scream highway” through the night to Lashio. The team included Stephen and Ne-I Pew Tun our tribal partners, Rudia Kim Korea Director, Meshelle Cox Economic Development Coordinator, with Jewell Sedgwick, Dionne and I as International Directors.
In Lashio we as a team were the speakers at a three-day leadership conference for local tribal pastors and ministry leaders. There we distributed the Bible in Burmese to everyone who wanted one, and then sent cases of Bibles up to Namhsan. For those three days we challenged and equipped Christian leaders and saw miracles, signs and wonders. An Eighty-year-old man testified of healing from constant pain; a woman who had broken her back and injured internal organs in an accident testified that she was instantly healed; children found salvation and were healed; we even watched a small eye forming in a blind woman’s empty eye socket!
But our hearts were continually praying for Namhsan. The high point of our trip was supposed to be outreach up in the mountains of this remote hill tribe village. All throughout our trip, however, fighting between the Burmese Army and local tribal factions was ongoing. Because of this our permission to stay in Namhsan was suspended. But God had so much in store for us!
Our native partner suggested that we stay three hours from Namhsan at the foot of the mountain, and take a series of day trips – six hours up and back. This was the only way we could see to achieve our goals of praying over the mountain, meeting some of the people, and finding some small property from which to begin outreach work. The father of the woman who had been healed of her broken back and other injuries was so delighted he donated the use of his brand-new luxury van and a driver. This was an unspeakably amazing sovereign provision from God!
So we stayed in Hsipaw and trekked in style up to Namhsan, passing startled motorbike and water buffalo cart drivers. The first day we met some of the very few Christians in the area, pray-walked the village, and found a large house to rent for our local partners to use as a home and an initial outreach center. Our time there that day was all too brief.
On the second day we started very early. On the way we walked up a beautiful stream on the mountain and into the jungle to pray over the land; we met the family of our local partners in their traditional home; we put the initial rent down on the house and took a break for lunch. During lunch we were approached by an immigration official who asked us to leave the mountain. We are in a restricted area when we are up there, and we didn’t know that the fighting had intensified over those two days. We had driven through the conflict area up and down both days, and were so covered by divine protection that we hadn’t even noticed!
So we hurriedly finished our lunch and cut our visit short. As we were driving down the mountain I asked to stop once again, so we could pray over the people and the land. We stopped at a lookout that gently jutted out over a green valley and a small village below. We prayed and prophesied over the people and the land, proclaiming that the mountain is the Lord’s and all that is in it! As we blew the shofars and anointed the land for the Kingdom of God, three old men came striding up the sheer cliff to meet us. They told us that they were village elders and had heard our message. They had come to agree – and welcome us into their land and their people. It was like the visitation of the three wise men.
Once down off the mountain we went back to Lashio in grief and prayer for this beautiful, remote village area, and for our partners and friends who were still up there. In Lashio again, we prayed one-on-one with local people in a strictly Buddhist neighborhood as news spread that people were being blessed and healed. We ministered at a small church and an orphanage. Soon we began getting news updates of the fighting in Namhsan: first it was worsening; then a stray RPG had hit a village home and injured the family in it. Over the next few days the fighting engulfed the streets of Namhsan. To curtail this, first the government cut off the electricity to the whole area… then they cut off all communication.

 

In the midst of all this, our partners were able to take possession of their new home. They immediately opened it to villagers affected by fighting, and began to give some of the Bibles we had brought. Only days after this, a fire broke out that engulfed one end of the village. Six villages and towns in the region were hit by catastrophic fires on the same day. The fire in Namhsan burned for sixteen hours and destroyed over half of the homes. During the fire our partners were involved in prayer and rescue. The fire burned up to the building we had rented, and at last was put out. In the end there were no injuries or fatalities, but half of the people of the village are now homeless.
Our partner in the area reports: “308 houses were burned, 1275 people lost their homes yet no one was hurt. Fire Victims families now live in the ministry house in Namhsan. Over half of the town is burned.
“My laptop battery charger and motorbike tires were burned. My laptop battery charger was at the electric fixing shop which burned down. When i tried to help the people with my motorbike within the fire, my motorbike tires were burned.
“My wife was praying and my son was sleeping soundly after praying. We did our family devotional time on that day even though the people in Namhsan were worrying about the fire. I was also helping people escape. We were very tired. After the fire, I went to the fire victims center and donated cash. It was the money from our blessings that you gifted to us before leaving Lashio.
“I cannot use my computer now. My laptop computer charger was burned.

“Please pray for all of Palaung state. The war is getting very big.

 

“Many of the villagers who live near Namhsan have run quickly to the Cities to escape the fighting. Please Pray!”

 

So there you have it. God was able to use us in Myanmar to minister, to literally bring the Word of God, to pray and to establish a ministry center which was pressed into immediate

service as a disaster relief station. Please pray for Namhsan, for our partners there, and for God’s Kingdom moving forward in Myanmar.

Please give as you can for fire victim relief, for the ongoing Bibles for Burma project, and for our work in Myanmar as it continues. Remember, 100% of what is donated goes directly to projects among tribal people. You can give online at

pacifichope.org or

throughtheveil.net, or send checks to:

Pacific Hope
PO Box 1688
Sonoma, CA 95476

Thank you for your continued love, prayer and support-

Scott and Dionne
And the whole Through The Veil / Pacific Hope Team