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 Nwe 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 Nwe Hnin were excited about sharing the gospel with the 40 families of Ho Khe.
The young missionaries, however, found Ho Khe to be a difficult field to plow. The village was 100% Buddhist. Moreover, women there are held in low regard. After a month of faithfully sharing the gospel door-to-door, they saw no fruit from their efforts. “Did God really send us here?” they asked themselves. Feeling rejected and somewhat disillusioned, the pair returned home.
Back at the missionary training center, the girls told their former instructors of their failure. They also related, however, that as they had visited door-to-door each day at Ho Khe, the children were always at home, not at school. Parents had told them that schoolteachers avoided Ho Khe because they considered it too dangerous—there were frequent casualties caused by ongoing skirmishes between government and rebel soldiers.
Finally, after much prayer, and with guidance from the Holy Spirit, Lydia and Nwe Hnin journeyed back to Ho Ke Village, but this time as schoolteachers. They rented a small bamboo hut to use for a school. As word of their new school spread throughout the village, the two new schoolteachers found themselves warmly welcomed! Initial enrollment: 46 students. The hut was so small that classes had to be conducted in three shifts. The third shift was held by candlelight, as the village lacks electric power.
Missionaries Lydia and Nwe Hnin Mee
Lydia and Nwe Hnin mixed Bible stories with standard school curriculum, and that is when their curious students began asking questions that they loved to answer. The children started sharing at home what they were learning at school, and parents became as interested as their children. Interest grew so much that the two missionaries have begun holding evening meetings for adults twice a week.
Plan B is succeeding. Recently, Lydia and Nwe Hnin enrolled two children of a poor widow named Ngun Bu Mee, who lost her husband in the war two years ago. The missionaries also freely provided paper, pens and other accessories that parents usually have to provide for their children who attend school, but which Ngun Bu Mee could not afford. As a result, Ngun Bu Mee’s heart was softened, and she made a commitment to Jesus as her Lord and Savior—followed by her entire extended family!
