Lesson One: Learn to Walk in Love with Jesus and with the family: During my preparation of the
mission, I was very pushy, repeatedly asking my spouse to seek no-pay leave from her employer so
that she could join a one week mission with my to Myanmar. From Dec 2008 to March 2009, Hong
Kong was under economic downturn, with massive layoff. My wife did not dare to seek the one
week no pay leave. I kept pushing her, and up to a point, we had a little family quarrel.
God saved me from further mistake. Through prayer meeting, the school teacher and the classmates
reminded that if the family was not ready, I should consider staying with my family in Hong Kong for
a local city mission instead.

After praying, I expressed my willingness to give up my desire to go for an overseas mission. She
answered, “It was too late. Her boss had agreed to grant me the exception. But it was good to
hear that you can give up your desire for me.”
When my spouse arrived at Myanmar, we listened to the witnesses by some foreign missionary
families in Myanmar and discussed on our own family concern to become a missionary family in the
future, and. Several key ideas firmed up in our minds:

1) If it is the Lord’s wish to raise my family as a missionary family, He will not just call me alone. He
will call my family, my spouse, and settle all the concerns we might have. We just need to
patiently wait for his calling.
2) God gave me these helpers in my family, my wife, my daughters, and my son are all Christians
now. I will never walk alone in my ministry to God.

Lesson Two: Being, and not Doing: God answered my query about the value of a missionary,
who struggles so much and can do so little in a foreign country. Is it worth it?
The value of a missionary is in his or her being obedient to God’s commands and giving glory to
God by his living Christ-like testimonies. God does not need us to do great things for Him. Before us,
He planted the churches. After us, He will raise church leaders and pastors to feed the sheep. Our
role as missionary is just to give life testimony and it is our honor to share a piece of His work.

Lesson Three: His Works, His Creation: Despite Myanmar being a Buddhist country, God planted
many churches, and raised my servants for Him in the past two hundred years. God led me to the St
Mary Church, St Andrew Church, Emmanuel Baptist Church of the Chinese, St Augustine Church, as
well as those newly planted local churches, and witness his providence, his works, and his creation.
We should not over-value our work and our sacrifices, as they are not true. Before us, and after us,
God is in control.

Lesson Four: Learn to Live a God-centered Life: The Myanmar mission experience opened my eyes
to what is meant by a God-centered life. We spent hours in prayers, and bible study, sharing,
worship before we start our ministries every day, and after we close our ministries every day.
In Hong Kong, we are so busy living a self-centered life, doing things that are important to us, and
not to God. We only spent couple of minutes in praying, and only worship God on Sunday church
services. But here, we spent hours in praying, in person reflection, in solitude, in worshiping God, in
singing, in bible studies, in sharing every week. Our family seldom pray as a family.
I wish I could keep this habit when I return to Hong Kong, and give God the best of my time, and
give Him the number one priority in life.

Lesson Five: Be guided by the Holy Spirit: I prayed that I would be guided by the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit asked me to take an exercise to pray for 100 Myanmar friends I met, to inquiry about the
needs of the Agape Orphanage and to raise USD2500 for their needs, to write a case study of OM
Myanmar by interviewing the Go Chin’s family. (This later was said by Go Chin as an act of God to
remind them about the grace they had experienced in their lives.)
I learnt how to experience the guidance of the Holy Spirit in preaching, two times in God of Grace
Church, and in telling kids stories, leading kids games.

Lesson Six: Learn Self-Control and a Missionary Life: Each week, OM Myanmar gave me some
money for the apartment expenses, and my personal expenses. We had a budget of K3000
(HK$20) a day for our food, which is barely enough. I learnt how to best use of my pocket in only
my basic needs, and to struggle from my desires. I was over-budgets in the first few weeks, but
learnt to stay within my budget in later weeks. In my last week, the Spirit moved me to buy a
children electronic piano for their kids ministries, and I spent half of my weekly money for that, and
then, I skipped my meals, saved, and controlled my spending and managed to stay within the
budget even with my offering of the piano.

Lesson Seven: Dependent On God, Entirely: I brought 35 kilos of luggage to Myanmar, trying to
prepare for every situation I knew. I brought a backup battery for computer, a mosquito net, lots of
anti-mosquito medicines, many gifts for kids, some English books for the school. None of them was
needed in Myanmar.
I was provided with a large apartment with gas, air-conditioner and a mosquito net, a library in OM
Myanmar with comprehensive bible commentary books. I brought the battery but forgot to bring the
cable, that the battery is not usable during the whole mission.
Instead of relying on my own supplies, I learnt to rely on God for daily supplies and daily living, for
his supplies of electricity, water, wisdom in my ministries, to teach kids a song, lead a game, do some
crafts, I depended on Him. My life became so relaxed and so enjoyable when I depend on Him.

Lesson Eight: He is Wondrous and Humorous: He is not just graceful, but wondrous. He not only
gives, but also surprises you for his providence. I was able to read bible commentaries while I was
studying the bible play. I even had a game of golf in Myanmar on a day off.
He is humorous, too. The Spirit led me to read ACTS 8:1-5 on the first day of my arrival to Yangon.
It is about the martyr of Stephen and every Christian in the early church had to go to Samarian as
missionary. They preach gospel there. He gave me these verses for my first sermon in life.
When I was preparing for the sermon, God led me to an old electronic testimony file on my PC
about Eric Liddell, the Olympic 400M race Gold Medal holder. Immediately after his Olympic
games, he went to China as a missionary in an international school.
That morning when I was on the road to the church, I suddenly realized that the content that I
prepared for my first sermon in life was really the words from God to me, “Go and preach the
gospel, in China, like Eric Liddell.”

Lesson Nine: Pastoral Caring: In Myanmar, I had the opportunities working very closely for the
first time in my life with the pastors and ministers. I began to realize the demand and expectations
of from the church members on their pastors and ministers, and how they had to be always alert and
ready to minister the members in different occasions and for different needs.
I had also closely watched the pastoral caring duties from the leaders of the Emanuel Baptist Church,
and witness the efforts to re-vitalize the 120 years old church. T thanked God for this previous
opportunity.

Lesson Ten: Learning Humility: As requested from my prayers for learning humility, God gave me
many occasions to confront with my desire for recognition, for respects to my suggestion by the team,
for my understanding and interpretation of the bible, and for acknowledgement of my efforts in
ministries. In each of the occasion, the Holy Spirit reminded me that such desires were from the evil.
I must question myself that my eagerness and my initiatives to serve God, did not derive from the
ego to prove my values to God or to my teammates.
God really taught me. From their feedback I collected, I became aware that sometimes I was frank,
impatient and direct to present my views and ideas. To learn to be His humble servant, I must learn
to accept willfully and cheerly the joy of being ignored, rejected, and neglected. I must rule that my
motives and initiatives to minister are my responses to the will and command of my Lord, and not
from own desires for recognition or desires to prove my values.
He humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! (Phi 2:7 NIV)

Lesson Eleven: God Prepares: God opened my eyes to see His provision and His perfection in
Myanmar. I was able to meet with a Pastor Tong who started a Training school for Chinese
Preachers in Myanmar some 27 years ago. The school trained 140 Chinese preachers now working
in Chinese churches all over Myanmar. I visited some of the early Catholic and Baptist churches, and
was able to see His work decades ago, appreciated how He prepared His servants in those churches.
Such vision places the work and the values of missionaries into the right perspectives. For we are
God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for
us to do. (Eph 2:10 NIV).. We are just His workmen and must it is His grace to us that we can co-work
with Him in His plans for Myanmar.

Lesson Twelve: Bear Fruits of the Spirit: I took several pictures in Myanmar and was surprised by
my own portrait. Never Had I looked relaxed, easy-going, peaceful and pleasant with good smiles
on my face. I checked my previous photos, from which I found myself nervous and serious. There
was not any smile on my face.
I asked myself how come I had such relaxed smiling face. I reasoned that in Myanmar, I was totally
rely on God’s provisions, trusting that He would take great care of my daily breads, and the Holly
Spirit was with me all the way. I felt from inside me that my life bear fruits of the Spirit: that my life
was filled with love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and Selfcontrol
(Gal 5:22 NKJ) because the Holy Spirit was dwelling inside me. This was a fulfilling and
pleasant experience.

SUMMARY
I would like to summarize my two month missionary experience in Myanmar in the following two
statements:

(1) His Way Is Perfect: He showed me His wonders, His greatness, power, and majesty in His
kingdom in Myanmar. He showed me that His way is perfect when there seems to be no ways.
He selected me to go to Myanmar. He cleared all obstacles for my whole family to join in this
mission experience. He allowed me to depend on Him. He put tests before me to learn humility
as I prayed for. He showed that He made our weakness strength. He loves Myanmar and He
prepares His workmen. On the last of my family’s ministry, He allowed us to teach biblical
English in classes, and called on the name of Jesus. He even prepared one lady student to
convert to Jesus one day prior to our departure.
On my leaving plane from Yangon to Singapore, He made me read and understand why Jesus
asked Peter three times, “Do you love me? Feed my sheep!” God is love. He knows that I will
be going to the Ark Church for Pastoral Practicum, and that I should humble myself, minister the
handicapped church members there with love from Jesus. His teaching to me during the whole
mission trip was so perfect.

(2) I am Sinful. I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant.
(Gen 32:10 NIB). But God has mercy on me. Despite my repeatedly failing to humble myself in
my ministries, He still loves me. He so loves me and my family that He places Jesus in our hearts,
and the Holy Spirit as our comforter. He renewed my life, pricked my hearts. Lessons I learnt
during the trip will be my life lessons that I will never forget.

 

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Augustine Chow

Sept 2009