Report on Buddhist ministry in Burma

1. A Dream Comes True
August 2008
Shwepaukkan
Yangon
Myanmar

2. Matthew 19:24-26 ...
Jesus looked at them and said,
“With man this is impossible, but
with God all things are possible.”
“Whatever the mind can conceive and
believe, the mind can achieve”
- Napoleon Hill

3. Goal and Objective
“Every child will hear of their Creator and His character
Mission Statement
“Ye are the temple of God”

4. The story of Auntie Jo’s house…
1996
My brothers, sister and I bought a wonderful
property for our parent’s retirement at a Buddhist
neighborhood. When I found this place, I
believed and knew I would be doing God’s
work for the Buddhist neighborhood.

5. 1998
In 1998, our father passed away. He never got
the chance to see the house we had purchased for
him and my mother. He lived a busy life as a
minister doing God’s work all around Burma.
Whenever we asked him to see the place, He
would humbly decline and say, “I have so much
to prepare for my evangelistic meetings and
office work.”

6. 2004

7. My Dad was a very faithful pastor. The
majority of his life was spent to fulfill God’s
work. On weekends when he wasn’t
traveling for evangelistic meetings, he
visited and did canvassing work at the city
where he lived. One of his children would
accompany and travel with him on each
and every visit. Those were experiences
we shall never forget.
Story continued…

8. Auntie Jo was the daughter of British military general.
Her father was assigned to be in India with the family.
While in India, she met a Burmese Indian man who
worked in the army. She was married to him and
followed him to Burma in during the time of World War II.
After having two children, he left her and married
younger girl and took their children with him.
She never returned to England. She became a teacher at a
Christian school. However, after the socialist government
took over all the private Christian schools, she was
unable to secure a job. Since she was a Foreign
Resident Citizenship (FRC) in the country, she lived with
her best friend’s family. She became a private English
tutor and did this for a living.
Story continued…

9. In 1980, my mom became one of Auntie Jo’s English students.
One day she asked my parents if she could come live with our
family because her best friend’s husband got a promotion and
had to transfer to Rangoon. Since she was a foreign
residency citizen, the government didn’t allow her to move or
transfer to any other places in Burma. So my parents decided
to adopt her like their own parents.
For the majority of her life, Auntie Jo suffered from a chronic
illness which caused her to experience frequent seizures.
Her sickness affected all throughout the year. She became like a
baby in our family. Before she passed away, she became
seriously ill and was admitted to Rangoon General Hospital
(RGH) for more than a month. I spent most of my time with
her at the hospital. I will never forget her great strength as she
refused to complain of her severe pain. The hospital in
Rangoon provided her with great care.
Story continued…

10. In 2005, I attended a language school. I was in search of a
nursing school. One snowy day, I went to Pastor Doug
Bachelor’s meeting at Slingo high school’s gymnasium.
I was alone and trying to talk to people but no one seemed to
be friendly so I returned to my seat. While looking at the
other people sitting on my row, I saw an elderly woman and
had a feeling that she might like to talk to me.
Excitedly, I went and introduced myself to her.
Her name was Jo. She told me everybody liked to call her
“Auntie Jo”. When I said I was from Korea, Jo was very
interested. She said, “My brother and his wife used to be
missionaries for the Korean publishing house in Seoul. Right
now, my niece is currently a missionary teacher there.
2005

11. It was in the year 2005 that my dream of becoming a
student in America came true. I had always wanted to a
student in America since I was a little girl. Although I am
married with three children, I still continued to
entrust my dream to God.
In January 2, 2005,
my plane landed in America.
My dream comes true!!!

12. Since meeting Auntie Jo at Doug Bachelor’s
evangelistic meeting, we became very good friends and
shared a mother-and-daughter relationship. She treated
me as her own child and told me of a nursing school in
Orlando, FL. She helped me become a student at
Florida Hospital College of Health Sciences.

13. I knew meeting Auntie Jo was not just a coincidence. It was not long
before I started to call her “mom”. I now had two Auntie Jo’s in my life.
Remember the property we had purchased for my parents?
We decided to name it “Auntie Jo’s house”.

14. On my 40th
birthday, after praying so much, I told
to my biological/birth mom, “I really want to help
the children in your neighborhood. Could you
find a teacher who can teach the Buddhist
children about God and English? Perhaps
someone to aid them in having a successful
scholastic experience?”

15. Around May 2008, my mom met a young man at her church who had just
finished his study from the Adventist Seminary in Burma. His name was
Mung. He was a teacher at the Adventist school in upper Burma. He had
come from a very poor family and his family needed financial support. He
had a low salary and was earning less than 30 dollars a month. It wasn’t
enough for him to support his family.
Because of this, his family asked him to work overseas. Although he loved his
life as a teacher, he decided to listen his family and went down to Rangoon
to apply for a passport. While waiting for his passport, he worked at the
restaurant but sometimes had to work on the Sabbath day which he didn’t
want to do.
One Sabbath day, while my mom was in church, she met Mung. She saw that
he loved to play piano, guitar and sing. He was very involved in church
activities so mom invited him to visit Auntie Jo’s house and asked him to be
a teacher. Shortly after, he moved into my mom’s house to become a
teacher at teach at Auntie Jo’s house.

16. Since August 5, 2008, we started helping orphans and
children from the Buddhist neighborhood. We helped to
make sure they were succeeding in school.
We started holding worship services on Friday and Sunday
evenings. The services comprised of the children and
their parents. We sang and studied the Bible together.
There were games, classes and story telling. To this day,
the children and their parents still continue to do this.
Activities at Auntie Jo’s house

18. In the beginning of the ministry taking place at
Auntie Jo’s house…Some of the neighbors didn’t like the
worship services so they reported this to the government office at
the local community. My mom was asked to stop the worship
services but God didn’t allow it. My mom still continues to have
worship services with more than 30 people every Sabbath day. The
children want to go to church with my mom but mom is unable to
take them every week due to transportation difficulties.
Transportation takes one hour and requires frequent transfers from one
bus to another. The children enjoy being in church and the rest of
the attendees want to stay for the evening Adventist Youth program.
However, they are posed with a problem. When the program is over,
it is too late in the evening and most of the time, there no longer are
any buses available. Another problem is that my mom also has to
provide them with lunch and dinner. Unfortunately, most of the time
my mom is unable to afford the expenses.

19. Every week, pastors come to help
my mom at Auntie Jo’s house.

20. These are the children learning how to
sing. My mom’s bed has been
converted into a desk.

21. They love to listen to stories.

27. Most of the time, the parents don’t want to send their
children to Auntie Jo’s house because of the Bible study.
They fear they are only learning things from the Bible.

28. They have now come to know the meaning of Christmas.

29. In 2008, we provided a medical service for the community.

30. Plans for 2009
• My mom plans and is preparing to open a
library.
• We plan on continuing to provide medical
services with health seminars every 3-5
months.
• We are also planning on building another
building next to Aunty Jo’s house. This
building would serve two purposes: an
orphanage as well as a church.

31. January 1, 2009, I spent one hour with all the children. They
were singing, telling Bible stories, saying memory verses and
sharing their appreciation for the chance to study and learn about
the Bible.
There are so many people who need God in their life – they all need
help in fulfilling this. Thank you for your continued support and prayers.
Please continue praying for them.
Thank you!