Theology, tourist attractions, friends and alumni in Myanmar

Alumni follow-up is one of the sweetest rewards of teaching at the Lutheran Theological Seminary of Hong Kong. Along with serving Hong Kong and Mainland China, LTS is also instrumental in theological education for the Mekong region.

Wayne and I thoroughly enjoyed a "Moving Theology" event for Hong Kong-educated theological alumni in Myanmar (a.k.a. Burma) in May. Many of the LTS and Chinese University alumni now serve as leaders in their home churches and seminaries, including Baptist, Presbyterian and Anglican. 

Dr. Saw Christopher with his siblings. 

Since we were in a relatively remote part of Myanmar - Wayne and I became something of tourist attraction ourselves. These Buddhist monks were delighted to snap photos of themselves with Wayne... a different kind of inter-faith dialogue!

Lutheran Theological Seminary (Hong Kong) -  Myanmar alumni

Theological Sisters!

LTS alumni, family and friends!

Wayne became the tourist attraction for a group of monks.

Christian theology in a Buddhist context - what can we learn from one another?

Prayer Mountain, Karen State.

Beauty I

Beauty II

8Among the gods there is none like you, Lord;

no deeds can compare with yours.

9All the nations you have made

will come and worship before you, Lord;

they will bring glory to your name.

10For you are great and do marvelous deeds;

you alone are God.

  -- Psalm 86

overdue post: Conference in Yangon, and waiting for 19 visas

This is a way overdue posting about the 2013 MMF JOINT THEOLOGICAL CONSULTATION in June

An annual event sponsored and coordinated by the Mekong Mission Forum (MMF)

 in co-operation with the Association of Theological Education in Myanmar (ATEM)

 and the Judson Research Center of the Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT)  

and which yours truly, that would be me, attempts to plan and coordinate from Hong Kong, together with some fantastic people from Myanmar...

2013 Theme: SUFFERING: Eyes to See, Ears to Hear: Walking with Those Who Suffer

Newly refurbished conference room... 

SO impressed by LTS alumnus Dr. Saw Christopher (Wayne's first doctoral student)
as he gives an insightful lecture on IDP's (internally displaced persons) in Myanmar. 

The chance to visit with the wife of a current LTS HK student - her husband is coming for a home visit this summer.

A total of forty-four  pastors, theologians, and seminary alumni took part in the Consultation, a majority from various regions of Myanmar, but also including international participants from Cambodia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and even as far away as Norway!

Informal fellowship time, meals, and even an excursion to the beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda allowed participants to talk, network, share concerns, and in some cases, clear up misconceptions.

Small group discussion proved enlightening, challenging, sometimes sobering.

We had invited a wonderful speaker, Rabbi Stanton Zamek from the United Jewish Congregation in Hong Kong. It was the first time for many Mekong participants to meet a real live Jew, not to mention a Jewish rabbi! Oops, except of course, for Jesus. Remember? Jesus is a real live Jewish rabbi, too.

Among the attendees at the conference was the woman in the center, who has been accepted at LTS Hong Kong for a one year diakonal ministry program starting in Fall 2013... which begins with orientation at the end of this month. However, we are waiting for approval of her student visa from the Hong Kong Immigration department!

Nineteen international students are awaiting visas. Yours truly has spent hours and hours and weeks and months (since January!!) organizing & filing papers for these 19 students, copying, scanning, faxing, telephoning, even going to the immigration dept. in person.

I am hoping, really hoping these 19 visas will all be approved in the coming two weeks. 

Even youths will faint and be weary,
    and the young will fall exhausted;
31 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,    they shall walk and not faint. -- Isaiah 40:30-31

Back from Burma

More than ever, I'm realizing that life is all about relationships. One of the best things about visiting Myanmar is getting picked up at the airport by an LTS alumnus (and his wife! I finally got to meet his beautiful wife this time) who helps me schedule my time, makes sure I get to my hotel alright, rounds up the prospective students for our seminary in Hong Kong, and scouts out the best little Burmese diners in the world. :)

I got to stay at the Royal White Elephant Hotel
this time.

where they do not go all out on their decor.

but they ever so helpfully equip the bathroom with
plastic sandals, which alas, were too small for my feet.

I was excited about the fact that there was a
hotel hairdryer! Until I plugged it in and...

CRASH, pop, BANG a big explosion, busting the cord in two and
killing all the electricity in the room. But not,
thankfully, me.

THIS, this is why I was here. Four women, four men, hoping to enroll in graduate studies at LTS in Hong Kong, in order to strengthen their Christian churches, schools and seminaries back in Myanmar.  They took English
grammar and essay tests, then a short one-on-one conversation with yours truly, who is also in charge of
international scholarships. We have prospective students in New Testament, Old Testament, Pastoral Care, Diakonia (Service), and Theological Librarianship (yup there is such a thing and it's pretty important!)

Afterwards, a delicious restaurant meal waited us.

This is what heaven is gonna be like, with Lal
taking the role of St. Peter with a big welcome meal.
(The vegetables in Myanmar are like none other, and the
shrimp are gee-normous!)

I had a couple of extra hours in the morning (before the double flight back to HK) and
thoroughly enjoyed a leisurely stroll along Inya Lake and along Pyay Road.
Ads and billboards are sprouting up everywhere in this newly "opened" land,
the gods of commerce are flexing their muscle.

February 28, 2013 along Pyay Road.

"Think of the cliche that nobody ever gets to the end of their life and wishes thy had spent more time at the office. It makes good sense, of course, up to a point. But here's a more interesting perspective: At the end of your life, will you wish that you had plunged more of your time, passion, and skills into work environments and work products that helped people to give and receive more love? Can you see a way to answer 'yes' to this question from your current career trajectory?" -- Timothy Keller in Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work p. 206 (Dutton, 2012)

Heading to Yangon

Leaving for Yangon -- Lutheran Church Women's event - - A Wise Woman's Way: Walking through Seasons of Life with Mother Mary and Other Women of the Bible -- should be great except rumor is I'll have a male translator :( Nothing against males, but really?)

Also, they say there's a keyboard but no keyboardist.

Also, I'm not sure if my carefully prepared keynote slides will work (It's my first time using keynote instead of Powerpoint. Also, electricity is sometimes an issue, as is the quality of the projector.)

Also I think my luggage is overweight because I told the students to go ahead and bring me stuff to bring home for them because I wasn't carrying much. Well, now I am :)

I ask for your prayers. But what better place to spend the first full week of Advent than in this amazing city, where the people are, indeed, waiting for all kinds of new realities -- political, material, developmental, spiritual.

-- Christa

Graduation Week at LTS in Hong Kong

Under a canopy of flowers

Ready for one last Hong Kong hike with Dr. Wayne

Education doesn't only take place in the classroom! A pre-graduation meal at a Thai restaurant, literally a hole in the wall, the food is great!

Getting ready for graduation

Graduation choir

New LTS-Hong Kong Alumni!

Dr. Wayne with Jimmy from Myanmar, who finished an M.Th. helping his church develop a Christian course in sex education

Dr. Wayne with his first doctoral student, Dr.Saw from Myanmar, whose thesis deals with counseling IDP's (internally displaced persons) from among the Karen people in Myanmar.

... with Fotani, who completed an M.A. in Theological Librarianship

...with Sokly from Cambodia, who has a special interest in issues of good church stewardship and ethical entrepreneurship

Heading home to Myanmar for a half dozen LTS graduates - the gorgeous airport in Bangkok, Thailand.

Big smiles! Heading home!

Mommy's now a theological "Doctor"... and she's back home in Myanmar after three years away, ready and equipped for teaching at the local seminary in Yangon.

In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.” 

  -- Isaiah 25:9

Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Yangon, Bangkok, Hong Kong

Yikes!  I'm heading back to Cambodia in the morning (photo from our family visit there in January).  I'm really looking forward to it, and especially to visiting Lutheran Theological Seminary (LTS) alumni and seeing them at their ministries.  But I'm a wee bit nervous, too!

Kirany (one of our graduates) has promised me a ride on her motorbike... and I get to preach at her small church on Sunday!

Another graduate, Joseph, works with orphans and students (Wayne visited him two years ago) and a third set of students, Sarah and Sarin (a Hong Kong-Cambodian couple) also work in Christian outreach and training programs with young adult students. Education is so vital for the future of this nation, I can't wait to see some of the programs, and to share them with you on the blog. 

THEN, I go to Yangon for the annual meeting of the full MMF (Mekong Mission Forum) -- for which I've been slaving over financial reports, current budgets, and projected project expenses.  For all of you in the parish who have church council members and trustees who are accountants and business people who look over your expenses and projections... be thankful, be very thankful.

And then, just to help me remember what some of our projects here CAN be all about, here's an interview with Bill Hybels (at Willow Creek) and Nicholas Kristof.  If the link doesn't work, search for it at the Willow Creek site using the info below.  Okay, see you sometime after May 22 when I get back! Watch for photos and more!!!

We Give

Sunday, May 06, 2012 |  Senior Pastor Bill Hybels

Senior Pastor Bill Hybels concludes Week Three of Celebration of Hope.
Nicholas Kristof, author of Half the Sky, shares insights about turning oppression into opportunity for women across the globe.

Back from Burma

I'm back from beautiful Burma!  Also known as Myanmar, it was my first time visiting this exotic, gorgeous, and deeply troubled country.  But things are changing, and there's intense optimism in the air and lots of building and beautification projects going on in the streets.  The big question is whether it is all just a new facade, or real, true and positive changes which will empower the people of Myanmar to reclaim their rich heritage(s). The word heritage has to be plural in the Myanmar context because of the complicated, lovely, but wounded folds and layers of cultural, religious & lingual diversity in this country. There are at least eight major different cultures/nationalities in this land of about 50 million people, and sub-sets of dialects and cultures number into the hundreds. It's an incredible mosaic, and I was only in one city, Yangon, the former capital. Just a few of the hundreds of photos I took:

The view from my room, The Sweet Hotel

workers busy in the streets

I just can't help but smile at this guy

The incredible Shwedagon Paya... those are real people in the foreground... and real gold on the temple.  Is it sacrilegious to say it reminded me of a gold-foil wrapped giant chocolate kiss?

A magical, mystical experience, walking barefoot on the marble floors. The monks are dressed in reds and oranges, the nuns in passionate pink.

And now for the real treasures of Myanmar - the children..

the beauty of grace in old age...

A Burmese bug!

Lovers in the park...

Pastor Martin, at the Hope Education Center, a ministry of the Lutheran Church of Myanmar. Pastor Martin is hoping to raise funds for more permanent facilities for this education center, serving and empowering the children...

Children at Hope Education Center, shepherded by a dedicated young leader.

Eager to learn and grow and become.

  "Do your best to improve your faith. You can do this by adding goodness, understanding, self-control, patience, devotion to God, concern for others, and love."  - 2 Peter 1:5-7