A report from the Village Ministry of Within Reach Global in Myanmar.
The road to the village is steep, and it takes about 40 minutes by motorbike to climb it. Our team has made this trip many times. The Mlabri people have lived on this mountain for generations, and over many visits, our team has become familiar faces there.
That is why, when two of our team members arrived, they were welcomed. Elderly villagers came out to greet them, and many invited them into their homes. Nobody had to be convinced. The relationships had already been built.
The younger people were away, as they are on most days, working in the fields in the mountains until the sun goes down. What remained was a quiet village of grandparents, most of whom don’t understand Chinese, though a few of the older men understand a little.
Our team was invited into one home. An elderly man sat there alone, his sons out in the fields. He spoke a little Chinese, and the conversation was slow and simple, the way it is when two people are working to understand each other. Somewhere in it, they learned his age. He was 84.
He had lived eighty-four years and never heard the story of Jesus.
A film in a language he knows
The Mlabri have their own language, but most of them understand Thai. So our team opened a video player and showed him the film Jesus in Thai, a language he could follow.
He watched quietly as Jesus was arrested, beaten, and tortured by Roman soldiers, and finally put to death. Then he turned to our team and said something simple:
“Jesus did nothing wrong, yet he was tortured to death.”
He had never heard the story before, and he understood its weight at once. For a man who had waited eighty-four years to hear it, that sentence meant a great deal.
Sowing with tears
When our team told this story to us, they pointed to a verse that has long belonged to people who do slow, patient work:
“Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.” (Psalm 126:5-6)
Nobody knows yet what will grow from that afternoon. But it didn’t begin that afternoon. It began with earlier visits, earlier greetings, and trust built one trip at a time. The seed has been planted, and our team is praying that this man will soon accept Jesus as his Savior and the Lord of his life.
Why we keep climbing
This is the heart of our Village Ministry. We visit villages week after week, sharing the gospel, praying with people, and encouraging local pastors, because there are still people who have never heard. Often the gospel is heard best by people who already know us, and that kind of trust only comes from returning. An open door in a village like this is the result of showing up again and again.
Would you pray with us?
- For this elderly man and his family to receive the Lord.
- For the Mlabri people to come to know Jesus.
