In Myanmar

Blog 13/10/06

In Myanmar

We arrived safely in Yangon the capital city of Myanmar this evening. We had to go via Bangkok as there are no direct connections from Chennai to Myanmar. The hotel isn't bad at $15 per room per night! There's air-conditioning and Western toilets so I'm not complaining.

We had a lovely fellowship time with Premnath and Priya last night. Before we had gone up to Bhimavaram, they had mentioned that they really want to but their own house, preferably with three bedrooms so they can have a room available for visitors. Michael and I stayed in Anesh's room last night which was fine, but they think it's not really adequate in the long term.

I felt the Lord saying I should give them 3,000 Rupees as a seed investment to their house. That's about $100 and even in India, that's a pitiful offering. I gave it to them and was astonished to have them just about burst into tears. They told me that while we had been away, they had been getting serious about seeking God for the house, and had even gone looking at Real Estate agents. This had been disappointing for them as they basically need about 300,000 rupees to even get a look in. Priya had got very angry with God about it all. But my little gift seemed to just break something and it re-established hope in their hearts that it might just come true. They have believed that God will provide them the ideal home in the location near the church within two years. We prayed with them and made some strong declarations and I am really believing that they will be in their own place in two years- maybe I'll be staying there the next time I return to Chennai.

First impressions of Myanmar is that it is wildly different to India. There is far less traffic for one thing, mainly because the government controls how many cars there are of each model. The taxi we came to the motel in was about thirty years old- something like an old Falcon or Holden. Our hosts told us that you would pay over $20,000 US for one of those. A basic mobile phone would set you back $3,000. It's not that the people have fabulous wealth- it's just the old story of governments wanting to control people's lives and what they can and can't buy.

I was thinking that I would have to not drive for a week or so after I get home until Asian driving was out of my system, but Myanmar drivers are far more polite, civilised and safe than their Indian counterparts, so I might be OK.

We have a busy schedule for the next three days, so this might not make it to the web any time soon. I hope we might get to an internet cafe, if such animals exist here!

Michael is looking to see if we can go home early. The conference will be a day shorter than we planned so we could leave Tuesday afternoon. We spent all our free time at Bangkok trying to see if we could change our flights but without success. Michael will try to see if our travel agent can get us into Australia by another flight than the ones we are booked in on. It is possible that we could get home before next Friday possibly as early as Wednesday, but this would take something of a miracle.

In the meantime we will enjoy Yangon!

Blessings

Keith