Good Attendance

We had a record breaking attendance in our morning worship service since we arrived last January. This can be considered good in a predominantly Buddhist country. The back of the church building were usually vacant was filled with people yesterday. The worship service was indeed a blessing to a mixture of believers who attended. People from different tribes (Karen, Chin, Shan, Wa, Kachin and Burmese among others), different nationalities (Americans, Singaporeans, Thais, Myanmar and Filipinos), different missions organizations (SIL, IMB, ARDL, PGM and Independent), different religions and denominations. A lady missionary from Singapore did the preaching through chalk-talk and her 12-year old daughter played the violin.

The English worship service was initiated with our senior Pastor. Pastor Shin Maung believed that it was a good idea to start an international worship when we came here last January. Since we can speak English, we helped in organizing the morning worship. We agreed that it will attract more Buddhist Thais and Myanmar people and at the same time missionaries who are looking for church to worship and to fellowship with.

The regular church members could not attend the morning worship service because most of them are working. So the evening worship is usually the most attended worship during Sundays. But now both worship services are well attended.


For us it is the grand vision of our Lord Jesus Christ for his church. It is the true unity of believers of different culture, race and religions. This unity indeed will draw people to Christ. As Robert Nash Jr. says:

Christians are to embrace people of other religious, theological and political persuasions. The purpose of the existence (of the church) is to overcome difference, not to create it. They of all people, are to be most aware of the cultural realities that divide human beings. They are to value what is good in their own cultural context. But, at the same time, they are to lift themselves above their particular context in order to point to a universal kingdom in which religious, theological, and cultural differences no longer exist.