“There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.”
January 2016 Newsletter—Special Mission Trip Edition
Greetings in the name above all names—the Lord Jesus Christ. We have returned from a whirlwind
trip of 34 days inside Myanmar and Thailand, leaving from New York City on November 16th. Many of our supporting churches and Facebook friends prayed faithfully for us and we are very grateful. This will be a little longer newsletter than normal but I want to share my heart and I hope that you will find a few minutes to enjoy the blessings—the fruit of your giving and prayers. Pastor Richard Hack President Dr. Bob DeWitt Founder Executive Director Matthew Mayer Financial Secretary Representatives Lou DiFilippantonio Jim Reedy Missionaries Timothy and Athanasia Davis TiffanyMcDonald Peter and Ruth Judson Emmanuel and Aivie Sinoy Some of our National Preachers Saya Htein Win Ei Saya Thaung Lian
Thailand: After 28 hours of flights aboard Air China’s new Boeing 747-8, we arrived at Bangkok, Thailand where I preached for FBMI Missionary Eddie Arold at the First Baptist Church of Nawong. It was great to see his ministry as he is one of our home church’s missionaries, supported monthly and doing a great job . The next day we flew to the city of Mae Sot, along the Myanmar border, where we spent the next week among the students of the GLBM-supported “Bliss Baptist Academy,” a ministry of the Gospel Baptist Church and GLBM Missionary, Emmanuel Sinoy. I know of no other ministr y in Thailand or Myanmar that is reaching more souls for Jesus than this one. While there we traveled Thailand’s Death Highway, high into the mountains, to preach in the Umpium Refugee Camp. There we found believers who are trying to help many orphans but they have no place to house them. God spoke to my heart and I said, “By the grace of God, I will raise the funds to build a house for these children!” Myanmar: GLBM Representative Jim Reedy and I crossed the Moei River and the Friendship Bridge on foot, dragging our heavy luggage behind us and, after passing through Myanmar Immigration and Customs, rendezvoused with GLBM Missionary Peter Judson (or, as he is called in Myanmar—Kyaw Kyaw Aung). We climbed into the back of his truck with three of his young converts and traveled across the Karen State mountains, into Mon State, to the city of Malawmyine (pronounced “Mow Low Mee Yin” with the accent on the 1st syllable), a very rough and tiring journey. There Peter has started the Malawmyine Baptist Church and after just five months has an average attendance of 40 and already training a half-dozen preacher boys in his own Bible Institute. I had the privilege to baptize several of his new converts while there. We also visited the Leprosy Hospital again and had a wonder ful r eunion with some of the patients who accepted Christ as their Saviour during my visit last year. We went from Ward to Ward, praying and ministering grace to the people. Many more leprosy patients turned to Christ during this visit and I promised them that I would return.
After several days in Malawmyine, we traveled six hours by bus to the big city of Yangon (old Rangoon) and then took another bus seven hours to the village of Aunglan where Pastor Htein Win Ei (my initial contact in Myanmar back in 2008) has a wonderful church, school, and orphanage. There we preached three times a day for a week. When you visit this place it is like having a Mount of Transfiguation experience: you want to build three tabernacles and just stay because God is there. But, as in almost every other place and ministry, there are many needs. We helped provide some needed supplies. But many of the boys are still sleeping on the ground in a cleaned-out chicken coop. A dormitory is being built but another $20,000 is needed to complete it and the construction must be completed soon. Please pray! After a week in Aunglan, we took another bus back to the city of Yangon to meet up with our friend
Saya Mang Sar Saya A Lin
Saya Joel Myint Aung Saya Necremia Saya Lal Ram Hgak Saya James Saya Bawi Ling Saya Way Thang Saya Tin Maung Lay
Dan Glushefski and his son, Jesse. They are members of Rochester, New York’s Old Paths Bible Baptist Church and wanted to see our ministries first hand. We spent the next couple days with GLBM Missionary Thaung Lian and his dozen or phans. These ar e childr en that I have not spent much time with but they are precious. Christmas was coming and I discovered that they had never been to a restaurant. They had never experienced ice cream. And none of them had toy one. So I loaded them all into a truck and took them to a restaurant. We helped them order and their eyes nearly popped out of their heads when they saw what was brought to them. They ate all of it; I mean every crumb. But when it came time for ice cream, they didn’t know what flavor they liked. They didn’t know what chocolate was. So we ordered everything! Then I took them to a store, gave each one ten thousand Burmese kyats (or what amounts to about $9.50) and told them they could buy with that money anything they wanted for Christmas. Some boys chose remote-controlled cars and a little girl got her first teddy bear. We returned to their rat and bug-infested apartment and I talked to them from the Scriptures. I told them, “I have blessed you—given to you— because God has blessed me. It is really God’s blessing through me to you. But the biggest blessing is that God so loved the world that He gave…” We discovered that these children have no beds but sleep on the floor. GLBM will give the money to build them wooden bunk beds. Pastor Thaung Lian has begun work on a new building where they can live and they will move in when it is completed. They can take these beds with them when they go. As in Aunglan, another $20,000 is needed to complete this building project. After several days with these children, everyone of them, and us, cried big tears as we tried to say, “Goodbye!” And, again, I promised that I would return and see them again.
On Monday morning, December 14th, we boarded yet another bus and rode six hours back to the city of Mala-
wmyine where, this time AS NEVER BEFORE INSIDE MYANMAR, we actually did street evangelism and went door-to-door with our preacher boys and Peter Judson. We talked to many Burmese people in the streets, both Buddhist and Muslim alike, and we were invited into many homes. We gave out gospel tracts and copies of Scriptures and found many people to be hungry for Bible truth. In a home where both the husband and wife are school teachers, one of our preacher boys stood up and gave his testimony with tears: he said, “I was no good. I was a drunkard, a street fighter and jail bird.. But Jesus Christ has changed me as nothing else .” A ministry of Lighthouse Baptist Church, 209 Gardner Rd. Horseheads NY 14845 Office: 607—739—9062 ♦ On the web: www.lbchorseheads.org ♦ www.goldenlandbaptistmissions.com
As I had promised, we returned to the Leprosy Hospital in Malawmyine, me carrying my Bible, a few harmonicas, and a guitar. We made our way again
through the ulcer and amputation wards, dealing with the smell of rotting flesh and soiled bandages. The patients, all in pain to one degree or another, smiled and some shouted when they saw us. I sat down on the corner of one of the patients wooden-plank beds—not as nice as most of our garage work benches. I played the guitar and sang, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…” The patients smiled and soaked up every word as though they understood completely. We preached and gave testimonies of salvation in Christ. In one ward, I approached a woman whose head was shaved and covered with the sores of leprosy. She cried and told me that there was terrible pain in her ear. I placed my hand on the side of her head and, with tears running down my own face, I prayed for her, begging God to ease her suffering. She said to me, “BaGyi, no one does like this! Why do you come and do for us like this?” I thought of David who said, “No man cares for my soul…” But we do care for these people!
In the last ward two old women lay on their wooden-plank beds in a back corner.
They both had prayed with us three weeks earlier to believe and turn to Christ as their Saviour. Neither woman had hands any longer and most of their feet had been eaten away by leprosy. As I approached I could see that the woman on the left, laying on the hard wooden boards without the slightest padding, was drawn up on her side in a fetal position and was quivering in pain. Her eyes were closed but there was no sleep nor rest for her troubled body. I drew near her face, put my hand on her shoulder, and took her leprous nub in my other hand. She opened her eyes and smiled at me. I could not keep back my tears. I said, “I am so sorry for your suffering!” She said to me in her broken English, “It’s okay. I have waited my whole life for someone to come and tell me about the Saviour and I have never been so happy as since the day I met Him.” I do not expect that old woman to still be alive and suffering when I return again. But I will indeed return, and, Lord willing, soon. Back to Thailand: In Peter’s truck I drove us back across the Mon and Karen States to the Thai border and, on the way, encountered a Burmese Pit Viper in some weeds along the road where we stopped to rest and take some pictures. The snake could have killed any of us but the Lord was looking over us well and, even though our preacher boys wanted to kill and eat, we let it live to feed someone else another day. Arriving back in Mae Sot, Thailand, we spent three more days preaching and spending time with the Gospel Baptist Church, Bliss Baptist Academy, and the orphans.
We traveled the Death Highway once again to the Umpium Refugee Camp and carried some orphans back to the City of Mae Sot. We were told that little
“Sherri” and her younger brother “Senecol,” children from the Karen Tribe, have “nobody” and they were both sick with infection. Their mother had died and their father had remarried. His new wife did not like his children; so he threw them both out. Someone had carried them to the camp and they had been living under someone’s bamboo hut. My heart broke. The decision was made to take them back to the orphanage in Mae Sot where they could live and go to our school. Along the journey down the treacherous road and through the winding mountains, Sherri was weak and squatting in the bed of the truck behind the cab. I was sitting on a bench beside her and I motioned several times for her to come sit with me. She was afraid. Then, like most of us, she got sick and vomited between my feet and on my shoes. I banged on the window for the driver to stop and, when we got her cleaned up, she finally climbed up in my lap, curled up in my arms, put her head on my chest, and went to sleep.
There are many orphans like Sherri and Senecol. Not all of them can come to Mae Sot,
or Yangon, or Malawmyine and, to my dismay, we cannot help them all. As we train Burmese preachers and plant new churches in Myanmar, we’ll help as many as we can. In Mae Sot, the current financial need is overwhelming and greater than anywhere. It’s because the ministry there is more mature and complicated. There is an immediate need of $35,000 to secure the property where these ministries are based. The need is time sensitive and we are praying for a miracle. But while we visited the Umpium Refugee Camp the second time, our friend Dan Glushefski, gave $2500 cash to build a house for the camp orphans. I praise the Lord for answering my prayer and I want to thank Brother Dan!
But another miracle has occurred that most people in the West are unaware of: The country of Myanmar has been ruled by a
brutal military junta since 1962. But recent elections there have given the Burmese people much hope and, us, a huge window of opportunity. As representatives of the “National League For Democracy” take their elected positions in March with a historic majority in their Legislature, the country will open its doors wider than at any time in most of their citizens lives or experience. They have never known this kind of liberty. But with liberty comes both responsibility and vulnerability. Six years ago I said this: “When Myanmar opens, we must already be on the ground.” Well, the time has come and we are on the ground. But we must take more ground before the cults find the same open door and spread their false doctrine.
Saying our goodbyes and winging our way from Mae Sot back to Bangkok, we then flew to Beijing, China and around the world, over the head of our own
Statue of Liberty to JFK International Airport. At Baggage Claim we discovered that the Airline had lost most of our luggage. We finally arrived home very early on the morning of Saturday, December 19th, just in time to celebrate Christmas with our families. We were all completely spent and “worn to a frazzle” but thankful for every experience and, more, the souls who came to Christ because of your giving and prayers.
You all know why we do this?
It’s all for Jesus. But along the way, as we have obeyed His command to “Go,” we’ve fallen in love with the people of Myanmar. I can honestly say that I have never met a Burmese person I didn’t automatically love. God has put them in my heart. But to go to the people we love over there, we have to leave the people we love over here. And that’s not easy, for us or them. Through every trip I’ve made over there, my wife, Carolyn, has worked through much fatigue and loneliness to keep our home and ministry going here. Because of both health and finances it has been impossible for her to go with me. But later this year we hope that she will join me on my next trip and I ask you to pray toward that end.
God bless you for partnering with us to reach those who have never heard the sweet story of Christ and His love. Please continue to pray for these needs and the souls in my beloved Myanmar and Thailand.
...BaGyi Bob
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