While I was in Prison...

This week's story is the second from Myanmar Vision Ministries and the Eastern School of Graduate Studies (ESGS), where heavy investment is being made in Christian graduate education. Read last week's story here.

Myo Min Thein equally caught my attention. We came to know him while he was serving a term in one of Myanmar's harsh prisons. One of our ESGS-trained evangelists with a heart for prison ministry was invited into the prison system by one of the guards. This kind of invitation is extremely rare and we considered it a milestone. Our evangelist was trusted enough to bring our annual Christmas Outreach Program inside the prison walls. The message of Christ was proclaimed. Among those touched was Myo Min Thein.

To God be the glory for his conversion from Buddhism to Christianity - from darkness to light; from death to life. Later, upon his release from prison, he asked our evangelist if he could attend the teaching programs at ESGS so that he could learn more about Christ, grow as a disciple, and become an evangelist. For the last two years we have been watching his dream come true. He is attending graduate-level training with us and one day wants to serve alongside us, spreading the Gospel.

The stories of San Lu and Myo Min Thein are not unique. We could tell you many such stories of men and women whose lives are changed through our ministry efforts and seminary training. Their experiences at our accredited graduate school is part of a larger strategy of training disciples who will travel near and far to make a significant impact in our country of Myanmar, as well as other countries that share our borders.

Our graduates plant churches, start and lead ministries, run student boarding programs, minister to children in orphanages, evangelize the lost and forgotten in prisons, set captives free in drug rehabilitation programs, teach and lead women's ministries, serve in children ministries, and tend to the harvests in discipleship programs.

All of our graduates take seriously the words of Christ when He commanded His followers to “go.” To go to all the world to people like us and unlike us. We and our graduates seek to save the lost and bring light to a dying, dark world. We invest heavily in our graduate training because it's so central to our nationwide strategy of discipleship. Our training has become the impetus for country-wide ministry, the hub for teaching and preaching. It's our Jerusalem, the place we grow strong and then “go forth” from.