July 6, 2016
The following report was written by Darren Williamson, Minister of the church in Keizer, Oregon, who led the Myanmar mission team:
The Keizer Church of Christ, Keizer, Oregon, conducted a successful six-week campaign in Yangon, Myanmar this summer. The team consisted of eight members of the Keizer Church (Leon Haight, Bill Zoerner, Roger Elliott, Dick and Pam Haines, Joann Matson, and Darren and Melody Williamson), three members from the Lobster Valley church (Zach Snedker and Cris & Brian Leavitt), and one member of the Newberg Church (Amy Rockwell). This team worked closely with local Yangon evangelist, Philip Van Biak Liam, to reach out to students in the nation’s largest city.
The WEI website, the Eventbrite website, and personal invitations led to 53 students participating in the campaign and a total of 31 students receiving a certificate of completion. Many seeds were sown among the primarily Buddhist student population, and the team spent a lot of time encouraging (and being encouraged by) the small local churches in Yangon.
One of the highlights of the campaign was the relationships that developed between team members and their students. Many of these students will continue to study WEI materials online with teachers they met during the campaign.
An additional blessing of the campaign is that two members of the team, Dick and Pam Haines, stayed in Myanmar for a few extra weeks and traveled north to the capital city of Naypyidaw to follow up with WEI students. Dick and Pam not only studied with their current WEI students but enrolled more than a dozen new students in WEI. We are hopeful that through their efforts and follow up by local evangelists a new church can be established in Naypyidaw in the near future.
God is truly opening doors in Myanmar.
