It was great to catch a glimpse of God at work among our brothers and sisters in Myanmar during the first half of March.  The primary focus of my visit was to encourage the work of the School of Inductive Bible Study (SIBS) that has been launched by the Karen Baptist Convention (KBC).  The KBC is one of 19 regional and language conventions that together make up the Myanmar Baptist Convention.

It was wonderful to see the progress Saw Daniel is making with his SIBS students.  The school grew out of his years of ministry devoted to the leadership development work of the KBC.  As he served, God stirred within him a desire for renewal within the churches, renewal based on a fresh encounter with Scripture.  With the blessing of the KBC leadership and support from some of Myanmar’s most respected Baptist leaders, Daniel began the SIBS in mid-2007.  

This March was my second visit to the fledgling SIBS and I was able to see the students  had made real progress since I first met them in August of 2007.  When I asked Daniel about changes he has been seeing, he got excited as he talked about what is happening during SIBS devotional gatherings.  Each day at SIBS begins and ends with a time of praise, prayer and meditation on the Scriptures, usually led entirely by the students.  At the beginning, Daniel told me, the meditations from the students were essentially reheated versions of things they had heard in their churches, usually with very little grounding in Biblical passages.  Now the students are sharing messages with each other that spring from a fresh and personal understanding of Scripture, messages that connect the Bible and the students’ lives in an energizing new way.

I also had a chance to see the students putting what they were learning at the service of others.  The KBC held a discipleship training seminar for pastors and church leaders in several of its Yangon-area associations and invited me and the SIBS students to help with the first day of the seminar.  It was exciting to see the students serving effectively as small group discussion leaders in an inductive Bible study.  As we talked about the experience afterward, they were thrilled to have been used by God to help leaders in their churches see the text of Mark’s Gospel with new eyes... and to have their hearts touched by the Word in new ways.

I thank the Lord for the chance to play a small role in these new developments in God’s global mission... and thank you for the prayer and financial support that enables me to be there!!