matt2819.com/myanmar

This page is about my history related to missionary work and Myanmar, and some ideas about where it’s all heading.

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What am I doing in Myanmar?

What is it I’m doing in Myanmar and where is it all heading?

History

First, a little history (click here if you want to skip the history). When I was about 17 years old I was hoping to be a fighter pilot in the Air Force and was taking all the right classes in high school to give me the best chance. Unfortunately, for reasons I’m not aware of, I didn’t do very well in many of my subjects as I was having a lot of trouble studying, and therefore having even more trouble passing. So, as I was watching my dream drift away from me faster than I would ever be able to fly, I prayed to the Lord and set my future before Him, asking Him if He would please sort it all out as it wasn’t looking good from where I was standing.

Not many weeks after that prayer I was looking through a Christian magazine and a small 3cm x 3cm advert jumped out at me. It was for MAF, Missionary Aviation Fellowship, and they were looking for pilots. I thought that this was a much better idea than being a fighter pilot because I could still fly but I’d also be serving the Lord. It was at this very moment that He planted in my heart the desire to serve Him as a missionary. I investigated what it would take to be a MAF pilot and set myself on that course, the only major hurdle being that I’d need about $20,000 to $30,000 to do the course. As I said, this was a major problem, so I got myself a job and started to save. Well, I saved … a bit … but the expenses of life crept in upon me and I just couldn’t save enough before the next set of bills came in. My new dream was now fading away also.

Well, although the MAF dream wasn’t coming to pass the desire to be a missionary was still there very strongly, I was just waiting for the opportunity to come my way. I’m happy to say that the desire to be a missionary has never really left me and through the years has been something that I felt would happen eventually.

The Highs and Lows of Life

Life throws some crazy things at us, and during my twenties there were plenty of crazy things going on. In the years that followed my decision to be a MAF pilot I had highs and lows with the Lord, and even had some years when I rebelled significantly against Him. As a result I was getting even further away from being a missionary and although the desire was there, my life wasn’t in the right place for it to be happening. I was starting to think that maybe I’d thrown it all away and made myself unusable for missionary service.

But we have a marvellously wonderful, loving, gracious, and merciful God. While I was being the stray sheep, He was being the searching Shepherd. He has brought me back to the flock and has been working in me to bring me to a better understanding of Him and His awesome ways.

He has placed me in a great congregation with excellent bible-based teaching, and has given me opportunities to be blessed as well as be a blessing. One of the blessings upon me has been the opportunity to experience some short-term missionary work in Myanmar.

Love for Myanmar is Born

In July 2004 I was sharing with my pastor, Rev Dr Peter Barnes, how I was keen to be involved in missionary work and what could I do to prepare. His response was something I’d been waiting to hear ever since I was 17. He said “Bill [director of mission partners] and I are going to Myanmar in November [2004] to teach some theology subjects to 2 bible colleges, why don’t you come with us?”. This was God at work in bringing a very long desire in me to a reality. Naturally I was thrilled not only to be invited, but to finally get to see what missionary work was really about, so I answered without hesitation “YES, absolutely!”.

What I’ve Been Doing in Myanmar

So I’m now up to the bit where I answer the question I raised at the beginning of this page “what is it that I’m doing in Myanmar and where is it all heading?”.

I’ve been to Myanmar on five short-term mission trips so far, the first being the trip with Peter and Bill in November 2004, the second was in July 2005 with Betty, a semi-retired ex-missionary English teacher, the third was in July 2006 with 2 other guys, the forth was in December 2007 with Peter Barnes, my minister, and the last short-term trip was for 2 months – December 2009 and January 2010. For the 2004 trip there was no real job assigned to me, I was really just there to see what went on and assist in any way I could. Bill had mentioned that if I get the chance I might like to try and teach some English but we’d see how it panned out. Our time in Myanmar was only for 10 days and for the first few days or so I observed and helped where I could. For the remaining days Bill put me to action in teaching some basic English while he taught the more advanced students. Although we only had about 5 days of English teaching we managed to get some ground work out of the way and get an understanding of their needs in this area, and this information came in very handy for preparing for the next trip the following July.

Where’s It All Heading?

Upon my return to Australia after the November 2004 trip I asked Bill if this could be something I could do regularly with the hope of going full-time. He said that if I was keen to pursue it then mission partners would be happy to assist where possible. He gave me some books to read and some suggestions of courses I might like to do and so my work was cut out for me for the next couple of years. The books are read and the courses are almost complete. One of them is a course in how to teach English to speaker of other languages (TESOL) and the other course is an Associate Degree in Theology. TESOL, which I chose to do as correspondence, has become an event rather than a course. It’s taken me almost 4 years and I think I’m a little past half way (not good considering most people finish within a 12 month period). I’ll keep chipping away at it and the kind people at the TESOL course head office have advised me that it’s still ok to keep going but to “please hurry up and finish”. I really hope to be able to finish it soon.

2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Missionary Journeys

My second trip to Myanmar was in July 2005 to teach more English and offer further support to the 2 churches mission partners has a partnership with. This was a 3 week trip and allowed me the chance to teach quite a lot of English to the basic-level students. My class started out with 8 students and grew to about 18 as the word got out. It was a great time for us all, both students and teacher, and gave me a real taste of what this might be like as a full-time missionary.

July 2006 saw me return for the third time. This was a 4 week trip to teach more English to the new influx of beginners and also to teach all the college students how to share the gospel based on the 2 ways to live format. I went with Rev. Norman Shellard, a semi-retired minister and nursing home chaplain from Launceston, Tasmania, and Paul Reilly, a truck driver and zealous brother in Christ from Broadford in Victoria. Norman taught 1 & 2 Timothy and the advanced English class, and Paul, who was only with us in Myanmar for 10 days because of work commitments back in Aus, was like I was in 2004 and helped out where he could and was always on the lookout for opportunities to encourage the brethren. It was a great time of ministering and encouragement with both of these guys as their love for the Lord was an enormous encouragement.

December 2007 saw me return for my fourth visit to Myanmar for 13 days where I assisted Rev. Dr. Peter Barnes who was lecturing on Hebrews. Peter’s health was not 100% so it was requested that I go with him to support and care for him should he require it. Fortunately he didn’t need any help and in fact felt better than he had for months after only a few days there. It was a great opportunity for me to learn about Hebrews and I was able to knock over some TESOL assignments as well.

My recent fifth and final short-term trip was during December 2009 and January 2010. I arrived on December 4th and left 62 days later on February 3rd. The type of visa I normally get is only good for 28 days, but there’s a well known way of overstaying without serious ramifications, and that’s simply to pay a USD$3 per day overstay fee upon departure. It cost me just over USD$100 but was well worth it.

Six months prior to going Thang Bwee had asked me to teach on the Letter to the Ephesians. It was to be a proper degree level subject lasting for 32 hours. So for that 2 months I taught for 2 hours in the morning, 4 days per week for 8 weeks. Now if you do the maths you’ll realise that that adds up to 64 hours, but I said it was a 32 hour subject. The reason being is because everything I teach has to be translated into Burmese, so for every hour I teach there’s an hour of translation. Therefore it takes 64 hours to teach a 32 hour subject.

The afternoons saw me preparing for the next day’s lesson and much the same in the evenings, though there was a little down time to relax and refresh.

Suffice to say it was the best trip so far for many reasons, but mostly because it gave me the best feel of what life will be like when I move there as a full-time missionary. Earlier I said that it was my final short-term trip, by which I mean that the next trip I take will be a long-term one, where I set up a residence, go to the Yangon University of Foreign Languages for the first year, and then settle into teaching at Theology, Evangelism, Bible books, and English at the Reformed Bible Institute, as well as starting an English school for adults in our area.

To Sum It All Up

So to sum it all up, what I’ve been doing in Myanmar is first and foremost teaching English and then, more recently, Evangelism and Bible books, like Ephesians. All the trips, the time, the effort, and the expense has been coming together to allow me to do full-time missionary work in Myanmar. Very long-term I’ll have to see what the Lord’s plans are, but perhaps we’ll establish satellite English classes in other parts of Myanmar for the purpose of evangelising the lost of that country, or we might investigate opening a Christian School as part of an orphanage. Difficult to say at this point but those are some ideas being considered.

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