EFCMalaysia Conference Reflection 1

It is a privilege for me to attend EFCMalaysia Conference. EFCMalaysia conference is not like EFCMyanmar conference where we discussed administration, money and etc…. But for them it is purely for spiritual purpose. I would say it is “a spiritual conference”. The theme of the Conference is on Reviving the church. The speaker is Rev. Edmund Chan from Covenant EFC, Singapore. God mightily uses Rev. Edmund to revive many lives and many of us made commitments. I did made some commitments.
I could not join the first night; I joined from the second session. He preached on “Leadership Spirituality and Soul Fatigue” where he talks about inner spiritual formation. He says “ministry is an overflow of inner life”. He goes on to say that to build the inner spiritual life and to revive spiritual life there is no direct way. We need to read the Bible and maintain quiet time. I realized and confessed that I failed to do so. Being a Bible College student, there are times I failed to have quiet time. There are times I could not give my time for quiet time- reading the Bible and meditate on it and prayers. There are times I simply could not have quite time due to my spiritual dryness. There are times, my academic readings and writing papers withered my spiritual life. There are times, my struggle of writings and readings make me down, pulls me into the pit and …… I swim in the sea…. I lost the joy of being in the present of God having relationship with Him in quiet time.
I realized and confessed that I failed to see God’s face. I made a commitment to maintain regular quiet times. I pray that He will enable me so……. And I strongly believe lives will be touched and revived as a result of an overflow of my inner spiritual life.

Peter O’Brien’s class Reflection 2

Peter O’Brien’s class on Justification by faith in Pauline Epistles was inspiring, compelling and challenging. All his words are meaningful and all the sentences that he made are coherent and they are all arguments. In every class he begins by the word of prayer. Even in his prayers, his words are so coherent and they all go smoothly.
I could see that he is not only a scholar but also a pastor who inspires and challenges to preach. He says that we are all recipients of the marvelous grace of God because of Jesus works on the cross therefore we are to share the grace that we received. We are justified by the grace of God; we have the assurance of justification. There is nothing we can do to be saved, we are all ungodly but God justified us. Being justified by God, we are created in Christ Jesus to do good works. His teachings in the class compel me to preach and teach about the grace of God/ the justification by faith which I freely received. How he builds his arguements in his teachings are challenging as I am struggling writing papers.

Reflections on Peter T. O'Brien's Class

I have a privilege to sit under the feet of Peter T. O’Brien and learned Justification by faith in Pauline Epistles. He firstly comments and critics on the leading scholars like E. P Sanders, G. D. Dunn, and N T Wright on New Perspective. He concludes that they (the mentioned scholars) look too narrow and don’t aware of the wider scope of the Bible. He points out that justification and covenant of God which Sanders, Dunn, and Wright develop has only a few connections in the Bible. But justification has much more connection with the justice or righteousness of God rather than the covenant of God. According to his statistic only one hundreds (25%) out of eight hundreds has connection with the covenant of God. The rest seven hundreds have connection with justice of God.
Then, he compares the faith of Abraham and the faith of today’s Christians which really strike me a lot. God says it can’t come through any other except Abraham and Sarah only. Humanly speaking it is impossible. God’s promise is something and circumstance is the other. Did Abraham believe in circumstances or promise of God? He believed in the promise of God. Many of the believers today may believe in circumstances not in the promised of God. Abraham did not know how it is going to happen, but just trust in the promise of God. He trusts that God is going to bring something out of nothing. It was like raising out of the death. Abraham believed in God who raised the death and who created something out of nothing. Although it seemingly impossible from human perspective his faith is stronger and stronger. Paul is talking faith in the God who raised the death. God is the one who will raise us in the last day. Paul is saying that Jesus is raised from the death. And we Christians believe and trust in the same God. Abrahams’ faith was credited to him as righteousness and not him alone but also to us who put our trust in the Lord. Our sins are forgiven, God no longer credit sin against us. Past, present and future sin is forgiven.
O'Brien did an exegesis of Romans 4:16-31. Based on v.22-23, all are equally sinful and equally in need of God's righteousness. His teaching is really inspiring and challenging. He made me realized that I am a debtor to my people and others just as the apostle Paul says he is a debtor to the Jews and the Gentiles. His class challenged me to pray and decide to teach God’s word to my people in Kuala Lumpur. My people in KL, though they say they are Christians, they never go to church; their spiritual life is really withered. They really need spiritual nourishment. Truly, I am a debtor to my people.

Mizo Gospel Concert in Malaysia

I was just wondering to see a lady photo at the front page of Mizo Christian Fellowship News (MCF-Palai). Why lady's photo? But later I learned that she is a gospel singer coming to Malaysia.

Mizo Christian Fellowship is looking forward to conduct Mizo Gospel Concert in the coming March 11-13, 2008. Mizoram, India best Gospel singers are invited for this concert but some of them could not make their time. Vanlalsailova, Rebecca Saimawii accompanied by her husband, Mami Varte accompanied by her mother and Margret Malsawmzuali and one representative from Lelte News and the team will be led by Mr. C. Dina. MCF is praying that the church will experience the touch of God and be filled by the Holy Spirit but not by wine.

But I will not be able to attend the concert since I have special classes conducted by Dr Peter O’Brien on "Justification in Paul's Epistle". Dr. Lim Kar Yong my Supervisor says, "This course will explore the development and presentation of the theme of justification in the letters written by the Apostle Paul. In view of recent scholastic studies that offer a “fresh interpretation” of the doctrine of justification, this course will be a timely reminder of the biblical view of how God justifies us while we were still enemies with him".

I hope and pray that I will learn alot and make use of this opportunity to catch from this scholar even as I will have to sacrifice Mizo Gospel Concert.

Talks with Taxi Drivers

My wife and I went to Kuala Lumpur to see our friends and attend Chin church. As we went, we hired a Taxi which driver was a Chinese old man. He loves talking. As we talked about how Christians behave outside world. He mentioned that some Christian’s girls/ boys are dancing and enjoying in the night clubs. They wore very sexy clothing. Even they don’t mind having sex outside marriage/ before marriage. But on Sunday morning they go to church, change their clothes and ask forgiveness from God. “Lord, I have wronged, I have sinned against you, please! please! forgive me”, but they repeat the same kind of sin.
As we came back to STM where we are studying we hired a taxi which driver now is an Indian old man. He is asking me what I am doing. I said I am studying in theological college, studying about God. And he said you must know the Bible quite well. I answered not that much. Then he said there is a god, right? I said, yes, there is God. Then he asked why there are problems, hatred, and chaos, in the world? I said it is because of human sin. But you know he quotes the last temptation of Jesus and 1John 5:19 and said that the world belongs to Satan. The world is under the control of Satan. That is why there are problems, hatred, and chaos, in the world. Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. But can we love our neighbors that much? Why can’t we love our neighbor?
We have a nice talk… but we reached STM….he defeated me….. Taxi drivers are smart too in Bible knowledge as well.

Myanmar Trip Reflection 1

As far as my observation is concerned Yangon city is getting older. The country is getting worse becoming poorer. Buildings, roads and things are old. It seems they never paint for a long period of time. Even the grasses are dry. The present Government does not care Yangon instead they want to build Naypyidaw. The people are getting poorer things are very expensive compared to their income. For example a pastor salary is about Ks. 30000 (RM 100). One bag of rice is about Ks. 25000 nothing is left. If they buy char coal and oil for a month their salary is gone. They have to depend on God. Some how they survive. I don’t know how? They don’t even know how? Public transport fees are getting high. Eg. Before I came to Malaysia it was Ks. 20 - 100 but now Ks. 100- 1000. I asked some changes for Bus fare from my wife. She laughed at me. Private transports are servicing and they charged Ks. 1000. The normal worker can earn only about Ks. 30000 in a month. How can they pay Ks. 1000 for bus fare every day? They have to get public transport. Some of them have to travel more than one hour without seat. The buses are always overloaded. If the bus conductor and driver has seat in the bus they are proud to call passengers saying (thain si luh yah re) “you can sit and travel”. I saw some people bringing their clothes, bicycle, things to the pawn shop and then went to the market to buy 1- 2 Kg of rice and some Vegetable.
Although the church members are also suffering the same difficulties their hearts burning for the lost souls. One of my coworkers Mr. Khuma came back from Philippine and now leading the outreach ministry. They call him as “Mr. Mission” (Pu Mission). He always talks about mission, showing photos and video clips. Whenever he has opportunity he shares the gospel. The students are sent to various places. They give free tuition and teach some Bible stories and songs and also the gospel. Some of them accepted the Lord and came to the church. On our arrival day they had seminar and more than one hundred children and more than 50 adults came. I am excited to see that the Burmese are convinced and are coming to the church. I always have a heart to reach Burmese but could not. I led students and went house to house. But now they could really reach them. Thank God. It could also be the seed that we planted two years ago. If God is willing, I am looking forward to joining them in the middle of 2009. They are praying to reach more and disciple them in the knowledge of God. I just encouraged them to bring them into mature Christians. They are praying that they might able to get some bicycles for this outreach ministry. They are also praying for land/ house for permanent mission based. Some students don’t have hat or umbrella. The sun is hot, and sometimes raining. The church is paying them for their necessaries such as soft pen, pencil, white board etc. Bible College and Minglardon local church are working together in this mission. (This may be worth considering working in partnership with Myanmar church).

Myanmar Trip Reflection

By the help of Hope EFC church members my wife and I were able to go back to Myanmar. We faced a kind of problem in our trip. We did not know that we need Thailand visa for transit. In all other Airlines they don’t require except in Air Asia. Since we didn’t aware of that we could not go on 14th December and lost our Air Tickets. We called the church (Hope EFC) member to pick us at the airport and went back to KL. Thank God the church bought new tickets for us and applied Thailand visa and went back on 20th December 2007. We felt a shame but the church members are so kind and they took care of us very well. They invited us for dinner and comforted us. We came to know deeper how much they love us and care for us. Praise God for such a caring church that stands behind us in our difficulties. We learned God’s care and love through the church members.
Family members and church members are fine there. On our arrival day and the following Sunday many church members and friends came to our place (house church) for worship and to see us. Most of us shed tears because some our loved ones are missing as we gather. They went to be with the Lord. First of all I shared comforting words for family who lost their loved ones, and then proceeded to how much Hope EFC is praying for Myanmar and Minglardon EFC especially who lost their loved ones. I said that there are some love gifts for fulltime workers from Hope EFC they are filled with joy and thankfulness. They thank to me for so many times, I said it is not that I am giving them but Hope EFC. They still thank me. I praise God that Hope EFC is sharing to Yangon EFC fulltime workers.