Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA)

The Lord is in your midst

Trekking to find a new sister in Christ

By Curt Dobbs

Published November 1, 2011 in Witness

He is Lord of all

Last August, I went to an unbelievably hot, rainy and grimy place called Dallah, situated outside of Yangon (Burmese for End of Strife), a misnamed former capital of the Southeast Asian war-ridden country known today as Myanmar (formerly Burma). Myanmar is a country full of natural resources, yet—ruled by military junta—it is considered to be one of the least developed countries in the world, where government corruption, child labor, and human trafficking are rampant. Accompanying me were David Franklin, PCPC elder and World Missions team chair, and two other members of the South East Asia Partnership of which PCPC is a part, Robin Lee and Lloyd Kim.

After a rickety taxi ride, a ferry ride (the kind you see on CNN where 300 people drown after the ferry sinks in some less-than-modern place), another bumpy taxi ride through the boonies, then a trek through 6-12 inches of mud, and finally traversing pole ramps over mud and water, we reached a house church, where—unmistakably—God was present!

As we walked in, approximately thirty people, crammed into a space the size of a small American dining room, were singing praises to their God and King. We don’t know how long they had waited for us. (It could have been hours,  since transportation is not a small problem in Myanmar and one can rarely make it to an appointment on time. On the previous day, another house church in a different village had waited for us for five hours.) With the rain and sweltering temperatures of the rainy season, the crowded room felt like a sauna, as we, drenched and exhausted, joined the locals in worship.

Shamed by their conditions and by their bold and unfading faith, when it came time for me to greet them and bring a message of encouragement, I struggled for words. I read from Zephaniah 3:17:

The LORD your God is in your midst,
A Mighty One who will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
He will quiet you by His love;
He will exult over you with loud singing.

I choked up several times and finally had to stop, or I would have started crying. Thankfully, it was hard to distinguish tears from sweat. Then David spoke and Robin spoke. Next, we had a time of prayer for those who made requests. There were several of them, but one quickly got my attention. A lady asked prayer for her younger sister, who was sitting on the muddy floor next to her. The sister had lost her home and was staying with her. She was not a believer, but had shown interest in God and church, and was asking questions. I looked at her and she looked back at me, smiling.

I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to pray for her salvation. During the group prayer time, I asked God to draw her to Himself, prayerfully requesting that this might be the very day. I found myself repeating that prayer more than once. I felt that God might be doing something, but what?

A Mighty One who will save
When it was time to leave, we took pictures of everyone, and once again I saw this lady. She smiled at me again. I felt a strong, unmistakable urge to talk with her, so I asked the pastor’s wife to translate for us. As we began talking, others watched and listened attentively. I asked her if she could sense that God was present in the room. She said, “Yes.” I asked if she could feel God talking to her. She said, “Yes.”  I asked her if she realized that we all do things wrong—that we all sin—that she has sinned. She said, “Yes.” I asked if she wanted to know the love of an all-powerful and all-loving God. She said, “Yes.” Looking straight into her eyes while I held her hand, dripping sweat on her, I asked if she would like to pray to receive Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. She said, “Yes!”
We prayed a prayer of salvation and after we had finished, I took her face in my hands and told her how thrilled I was that she had become my sister in Christ and that we were now in the same family as God’s children through the love of Christ. Her sister and many were still taking it all in. We were all teary-eyed but very happy.

I am ashamed to say that I do not even know her name. I was so affected by what had happened—which was clearly directed by the Holy Spirit—that I had forgotten to ask. But God knows! And her name is now written in the Book of Life.