Internally Displaced with Sufficient Grace [February 2012 eMagazine]

This may be the last issue of our magazine that we ever have to publish. Why? I've received notification that I'm a finalist in the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. Apparently my chances of becoming an instant millionaire are looking very good. When I win, I'll be able to fund, by myself, everything that Heaven's Family is doing around the world!*

In the remote chance that I lose the sweepstakes, we'll just keep counting on you to help us serve the "least of these" among our world-wide family. That way you can continue to show your love for Jesus by serving the poorest members of His body. Seriously, I'd much rather take my chances on your compassion than on Publisher's Clearinghouse!

Among the 30 nations where Heaven's Family serves, we probably invest more in Myanmar (Burma) than any other. More than a thousand orphans and unwanted children in Myanmar are supported every month by compassionate sponsors. We're equipping and sending missionaries, supplying water to remote villages of believers, establishing micro-banks, caring for widows, and much more there. This month's magazine contains a few snapshots of Burmese lives that are being touched because of your involvement. Feel good as you read, because your reward is great in heaven!

— David

*Just in case you were wondering, this is a joke!

Sweet Sisters

Bawi Tha Par and Ngun Ngen Tial

Neither of them can remember their parents. Bawi was just three months old, and Ngun only two when their mother was killed in an accident. Six months later, their father died of tuberculosis, a disease that still takes lives among Myanmar's rural poor.

Grandparents took both girls in, but they were already of retirement age---when their adult children would be customarily taking care of them. Feeding two more mouths wasn't easy, but they did their best to care for their granddaughters. Read more...

Plan B

Ho Khe Village girls on the road to higher education

"Who is Jesus?" "Is He greater than Buddha? "Why did He die?" Those questions were like music to the ears of the two young missionaries. They were so happy that they didn't give up. Plan B was working.

Lydia and New Hnin Mee are recent graduates of a missionary training center founded by one of Heaven's Family's national missionaries in Myanmar. Upon graduation, the two girls bravely relocated to a small village named Ho Khe, in the heart of a region that is caught in Shan State's long-standing rebel war. With typical new-graduate zeal, Lydia and New Hnin were excited about sharing the gospel with the 40 families of Ho Khe. Read more...

Truly Desperate Housewives

Anna Wandwasi, mother of eight

Does anyone care? ...Does God even care? I imagined those questions racing through the minds of the women whose stories I was hearing---women who lost their husbands and who then found themselves struggling to feed their children as they faced famine and Kenya's soaring food prices. Read more...

Internally Displaced with Sufficient Grace

Htulum Sumlut with her daughter, Jazin Awng Lahpai

To Burma's military leaders who have been trying to suppress Kachin State's independence movement for five decades, she is a woman who hardly exists, a mere speck of dust on their political chessboard. To soldiers in the Kachin Independence Army, she is just one of forty thousand frightened people who have recently fled from their villages to escape fresh fighting. To her husband, a pastor, she is the wife whom he has seen only twice in the past four months, as he, like most other Kachin men in the war zone, has remained behind to protect his crops. To the thirty women and children with whom she sleeps each night on the wooden floor of their common room at Jan Mai Refugee Camp, Htulum Sumlut is a godsend, a light in their darkness. Read more...

Parting Shot

A sobering juxtaposition about laying up treasures on the earth...

Photo by Michael Belk. Used by permission. To view his entire series, Journeys with the Messiah, visit www.thejourneysproject.com