“Now, I see it; I get it” Our host, and national leader, Richard Khun was smiling and talking to me the last day of our Equipping for the Harvest training in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar. As he intertwined his fingers he said, “You really are connecting, linking, the local churches to the harvest fields of the unreached peoples.”

Our AIMS team was concluding a successful February training in Myanmar, the oldest Buddhist country in the world. The 142 Myanmese leaders had come for training had come from all over the country, some traveling four days by bus! They were the most enthusiastic and attentive participants I have worked with in years. As the week progressed I was overwhelmed with how often I could see “the lights going on” as they grasped the priority of taking the gospel to the unreached nations.

On the last day of the training our team led the Myanmese leaders to form their own Unreached People Group Partnerships. I gathered with 16 leaders in a small room to instruct them how to form their own UPG Partnerships. My translator David led them effectively and later we celebrated together as each partnership facilitator called the participants together. The result was the formation of 12 partnerships each dedicated to an unreached ethnic group in Myanmar.

But the formation of these partnerships was not the end of the story. Richard and the other leaders captured the vision for Faith Promise Giving as well and during the last night of worship he called the leaders to come forward and make their faith commitments. They took up over $1,500 in faith promises, a significant amount of money for this impoverished country.

We now have plans to return to Myanmar early next year. We hope to have an Equipping for the Harvest in the city of Mandalay in addition to a large training of over 500 pastors in one of the Christian provinces. Brother Richard was so excited about the response to this training that he wants to take it a larger group. The brothers there have captured the vision to mobilize their churches to take the gospel to the Buddhist peoples of Myanmar.