MYANMAR IMPACT REPORT 2020 focus in 2020 on personal evangelism, discipleship, visiting and encouraging new believers, and praying for the sick. God has been blessing the missionaries’ and pastors’ personal evangelism. The unbelievers are thinking about their destination. Especially Buddhist people are thinking about when they die, where their home will be.” Our other country director, Pastor Thang*, reflects: “Harvest Bridge was able to give a great witness by providing support for food relief. And with this support, the pastors could be a witness to their people. In terms of spiritual life, at first it seemed like there wasn’t growth. I pray with the other pastors by phone, and a great concern was that many of the new church members are from Buddhist backgrounds and are young in their faith. The pastors worried that with such a long break from church that they would fall back to Buddhism. But with COVID-19 relief, this
was a great encouragement to the church members. It gave a great blessing of fellowship to help these new believers who were struggling to live day-to-day. These believers saw that their pastors’ preaching and teaching is not only theoretical, it is the practical love of Jesus. Their faith was renewed through this. We all are talking very often about worshipping God normally in church again, and doing home visits. I believe there will be new ways of evangelizing in the new year. In Myanmar it has been one year since going to church in person, so we have learned and have new ideas of how to reach people after this year. We have met and reached many people through relief, and we are excited for them to come to church in 2021 now that we’ve been introduced to them.” Pastor Lian* reflects on some of the challenges, as well as the growth in 2020:
“Though there are many restrictions, I still have ways to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. I have conducted a homecell twice in a week and Bible study once in a week. I have conducted house-tohouse ministry with less people. The people are so excited, and we rejoiced having those meetings. We pray for one another and listen to the Word of God from the Bible together. We are growing in the Lord. I have seen people come closer to our living God through our efforts. Also, there are some new seekers who joined our meetings who have believed in Jesus Christ. One of the new believers who accepted Christ recently has been persecuted by his family. He was warned by his parents who said, ‘If you continue to follow Jesus Christ, you will be excommunicated from our family’. This man said to his parents, ‘I can’t stop following Jesus Christ because He has given me a new life.’ His parents got angry with him. He asked us to pray for his parents to come to Jesus Christ, and that this persecution will not be continued.”
