On Monday we flew to Myanmar’s 2^nd largest city, Mandalay (1,2 million). About 300,000 monks live in this city known as a stronghold of Buddhism. However, our thoughts were anywhere but in tourism. A young pastor from the northeastern corner of Myanmar, Simon, came to meet us. He has already been involved in pioneer work by sending out three short-term pioneers to work amongst the unreached.

Early the next morning we met with 12 key church leaders, having arranged a breakfast gathering and reminding them of the church’s most important calling. After our introductions, I shared with them the vision of the unreached in Asia, emphasizing that it is primarily their churches’ calling. Next Shierley, as a fellow Asian, shared how they have been able to send people out to the unreached from Indonesia.

The presence of the Holy Spirit spoke to the attendees and we saw how the vision began to unite them, despite denominational barriers. There was an Anglican bishop, the Trinity church pastor, Baptists, Pentecostals and others.

During our time in Tanzania we visited several villages in the Zaramo area. It was in one of these villages that we met a sheikh’s daughter, whom we will here call “Rebecca”. She became a follower of Jesus some years ago, as did later her husband too. Here Rebecca shares about her conversion:

“Rebecca” is of the Zaramo tribe

– We lived nearby a small church. Out of curiosity, I observed through a window how they prayed there. One time while watching, I sensed a large darkness surrounding me and I got terrified. After a while, the darkness started to ease off.

– Then some church people came to visit my home and told me about their faith. My heart opened up and I asked Jesus into my life as my Lord.

 – I began attending Bible studies and slowly began to understand God’s way of speaking to me.

– At that point our landlady, who was a witch, cursed me and I began to have nightmares. I was persecuted for my faith, as the news spread of me becoming a Jesus follower. We had to leave our house at a day’s notice. Thankfully, I had a Christian friend who taught me how to pray.

 – Despite being destitute, a devoted Muslim gave us a house rent-free. What happened was that, after a while from moving in, the landlord visited and told us that ever since we came, he had been able to sleep like a baby through the night until the morning.

– Until then he had been tormented by the powers of evil, so that he could not sleep. The landlord inquired of us which witch do we visit that has such a power to affect him so favorably too? We told him our Lord is Jesus Christ.

– For this reason, the Muslim landlord decided to let us stay in his house for free. As we later were about to move elsewhere, he began to grieve for losing his protection. As we prayed with him, he also wanted to become a Christian.

– Now our former landlord is also a grateful follower of Jesus.

During the past three decades, the Bible school in Sumatra has sent out lots of pioneer evangelists – 500 of them – to Indonesian Kalimantan/Borneo. (The size of this huge island is even wider than Texas, USA).

Pioneers at the school graduation

In 1997 five young people were sent to the jungles of central Kalimantan. As they crossed over a flooding, fast-flowing river hand in hand, one of them lost their grip and was never found again.

One of the survivors is Joyce. Later she looked for her intended tribe for hours in the unknown, roadless jungle. She finally heard voices of people, which led her to a village of displaced peoples in the Dayak area. The majority had been brought from the island of Java and were working in the nearby plantations.

Nowadays Kalimantan has “roads”

In her first year there, Joyce met daily with a poor family next door, giving them food, clothes, etc. This transmigrate family wondered why this Christian girl would help them, when even their “own people” didn’t. After a year, the parents returned to their home island while the children remained in the village.

These left-behind children came to Joyce, soon after wanting to become Christians. As a result, the village rejected the kids. Joyce however continued her work prayerfully. She began teaching the village children and it wasn’t long before a large group of kids gathered at her place. Eventually the parents also came to observe her teaching. Gradually Joyce was accepted into their society.

The latest church extension finished on 2017

Since the villagers were transmigrants from other islands, the government built a school for Joyce to teach in. People started becoming Christians and the government donated her a block of land, building a small church on it (6x6m).

Joyce increased her ministry to include the three nearby villages (within 10-20km), helping their inhabitants. Regardless of the heat, rain or darkness, Joyce persistently walked through the jungle to these villages. At times the trip took 8 hours by foot, and she would usually return home after midnight. Nevertheless, the joy of the gospel motivated her to continue.

More people became Christians and the church needed to be extended. As the congregation continued to grow, the church had to be enlarged yet again in 2014 and this third building phase took three years. When finished, the church measured 14x40m and now fits all its more than 200 members.

• Want to support Sumatran pioneers? You can do this at our ’Donate’ page with the reference ’3117 Pioneer support’.