The Journal: News of the Churches of God

Legacy Institute promotes evangelism in Asia
Anonymous

Just before the Feast of Tabernacles this year, my wife and I visited brethren in Southeast Asia. In Mae Sot, Thailand, we met Karenbrethren seeking refuge in Thailand and other brethren from Thailand, Kachinland (in Myanmar, or Burma), India and the United States.

Sabbath and Feast of Trumpets services and a Christian-leadership training program were organized by Leon and Gloria Sexton of Legacy Institute, whorecently moved to Bangkok from the Dallas, Texas, area. Mr. Sexton was an elder in Worldwide Church of God until 1995.

As reported in The Journal, March 31, 1999 ("17,000 Burmese Attend COGs Through HWA Influence"), many Church of God brethren live in Burma, in Chinstate bordering India, scattered throughout Kachinland in northern Burma and in central Burma, as well as in the Karen and Shan states in the east and in the delta area in thesouth.

The Sextons' Ohio-based Legacy Institute is involved in the work God is doing with people in such remote parts of the world: scattered people whoendure hardship and lack contact with their brethren elsewhere on earth. We can better appreciate their situation by learning more about them.

Burma foments

Burma (officially called Myanmar), slightly smaller than Texas, borders China, Thailand, India, Laos and Bangladesh. SIL International (formerlySummer Institute of Linguistics) lists 107 living languages in Burma. It is a multiethnic nation of some 135 "national races," with ethnic Burmans making up two thirds of thepopulation.

Since 1962 Burma has been ruled by highly authoritarian military regimes. Military abuses declined somewhat in Kachin state after a 1994 cease-fireagreement, but abuse remains a part of day-to-day life for many in areas such as the Shan, Karen and Karenni states on the Thai border in the east, whose opposition forces still resist theBurmese army.

Forced unpaid labor, once widespread throughout Burma, remains a problem for people in the seven ethnic-minority states. The Burmese militarycontinues to seize minorities to work as porters for troops or to work on roads or other infrastructure projects, sometimes only a few days a month but sometimes two weeks amonth.

Most are poor farmers who, with full-time farming, barely stay above the subsistence level; they are certainly hard-pressed when working half themonth for the military.

The elderly and sick are not excluded from the forced-labor program. If they cannot work, they must pay a fine. Mr. Sexton visited an elderly widowwho recently had to sell her house and half her property to pay the fine she incurred because she was too old to work.

Besides forced labor, people in Karen state (and others) are forcibly relocated and face arbitrary taxings, village burnings, torture, rape andextrajudicial executions by the military. Villagers are reportedly forced to walk through minefields in front of the military.

The displacement, or "relocation," programs, which until recently have also been implemented widely in other ethnic states, result in severe hardshipbecause of the sudden loss of crops and farmable ground. Those living in areas where insurgents are allegedly active are compelled to seek safety by hiding in the jungle, where farming ishardly possible and dangers like malaria are hardly avoidable.

Forced below a subsistence level and in peril of their lives, hundreds of thousands of people from ethnic minorities have fled Burma.

Religious persecution

The Burmese government restricts the influence of all religions promoting political freedom and rights. In spite of ostensibly promoting religioustolerance, the government shows favor to and endeavors to associate itself with the popular Theravada Buddhist religion.

Most Burmese are Buddhist, nearly 90 percent. A correlation between ethnicity and religion exists. Virtually all the two-thirds-majority ethnicBurmans are Buddhist. Some ethnic minorities are also Buddhists, but many are Christians, Muslims, Hindus and animists.

Christianity is the principal religion among ethnic Kachins in northern Burma and the ethnic Chins and Nagas in western Burma. In the east, some 30percent of Karen and Karenni peoples are Christian, while many are Buddhist.

In these ethnic states more and more people are found who are readily accepting truths observed by the Churches of God. In these outlying regions,where missionaries began to plant Bibles in the 1800s, God's church is growing.

But those considered Christians, whether "true Christians" or not, undergo religious persecution. This persecution is expressed in a variety ofways.

For example, armed forces have destroyed or looted churches and mosques in ethnic-minority areas. Christians (and Muslims) are discriminated againstwhen seeking permission to build places of worship or to import or print religious materials.

But worse, in some areas, such as the Karen, Chin and Naga states, Christian ethnic minorities are encouraged by coercive means to quit proselytizingand to convert to Buddhism. The means include religiously selective exemptions from forced labor as well as arrest, detainment, interrogation and beatings.

Karen brethren flee

Karen Christians face persecution because of both their ethnic and religious minority statuses.

In 1994 the armed Karen opposition split into largely Christian and Buddhist factions. The new Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) formed aninformal alliance with the Burmese government, which led to the Christian Karen's experience of additional abuse from a new foe.

It was reportedly common practice for the DKBA, after capturing a village, to interrogate and release Buddhist villagers but to torture Christianvillagers and kill those who refused to convert to Buddhism.

In the mid-1980s the Worldwide Church of God had purchased a small tract of land for the Karen brethren to farm. But, after the Karen-armed oppositionsplit, it became too dangerous for them to remain at the farm.

A large exodus of Christian Karen across the border to Thailand accompanied the DKBA's capture of most Karen-opposition-controlled areas in Burma inthe mid- and late 1990s.

Among these desperate refugees are brethren of the Church of God.

Help, not control, from Legacy

It is in this troubled environment that many are coming to understand God's plan for mankind and to accept truths observed by the Churches ofGod.

And it is here, in parts of the world like this, that Legacy Institute reaches out to help.

Mr. Sexton insists that Legacy is not a church.

"We are, instead, a nonprofit charitable foundation," he said. "Our reason for helping [the Karen and other scattered brethren] is not because theyhave left or not left, joined or not joined any particular group. Their organizational affiliation or lack of it should not and does not matter to us. It is, pure and simple, that they arebrethren in trouble and need help."

In Legacy Institute's July newsletter, Mr. Sexton explains:

"Our job is not to control these people. Nor is it to try to bring them under the 'umbrella' of one of our existing Western church organizations. Godhas already given them His Holy Spirit and is working with them . . . Our job is to support what God is already doing! Our goal is to empower them to carry out the Work amongtheir own people. We do this by teaching, encouraging and providing seed money for evangelistic efforts and any immediate physical 'daily bread' needs they might have."

Mr. Sexton said the solution to the problem "is to empower God's local people to develop their own programs to preach the Gospel and feed those calledin the context of their own societies and economic conditions. The idea is to teach them how to fish, not just give them fish. We help them become fishers of men in their own countries. Wewant to encourage them to look to God for leadership, not to humans administering from afar."

On the border

On the Thai-Burmese border, at the Thai wild-west border town of Mae Sot--notorious for black-market trading, drug trafficking, sweatshops,revolutionaries and warlord soldiers--my wife and I met with the Sextons and other brethren from various countries.

There Legacy Institute organized a week-long intensive Christian-leadership-training program to better prepare and motivate men already involved inwhat God is doing in this part of the world.

According to Mr. Sexton, the purpose of the training program was "to educate and empower the men to evangelize their own peoples and take care ofthose called in their own local areas."

Besides participants living in Thailand, Legacy sponsored Lazum Brang from northern Burma and Michael Hubert from Madras province in southern India toattend the program.

Kachin evangelist

For background information on Burmese Lazum Brang, see the March 31, 1999, issue of The Journal.

Mr. Lazum is an energetic and humble man committed to spreading God's truth. He is an evangelist in the true sense of the word: not in title, but indeed.

He travels all over Burma, from the Himalayan-foothill border regions next to Tibet to the delta area in the southwest.

In Burma, where 86 percent of the scarce roads are unpaved, much of his travel is by foot. Mr. Lazum tries to limit travel in the summer monsoonseason. Then roads are sometimes impassable, even by foot, thanks to knee-deep mud.

To attend the Christian-leadership training program, Mr. Lazum had to travel about five days, including long stretches by train.

His trip began as usual with a walk of some distance, but he said he felt blessed to be able to ride the next 15 miles with a logging truck. This partof his journey took four hours on roads impassable for four-wheel drive pickups.

Mr. Lazum evangelizes by whatever means he can, including some unconventional ones. Three years ago he started a pen-friend club, which now extends to39 countries. He doesn't preach the gospel "in the first letter," he says, but he doesn't waste a lot of time either.

"I've seen this guy in action," said Mr. Sexton. "When we get on a bus, it isn't 60 seconds before he's started a conversation withsomeone."

Mr. Lazum speaks 24 languages, including English, Chinese, Hindi, Nepalese, Tibetan and local Burmese tongues such as Karen. As the truth spreadsthroughout the region, more and more people contact him to request he visit them. Recently these included people on the Tibetan border and in Laos.

Having no electricity, Mr. Lazum answers all the 100 or so letters he receives each month with a manual typewriter, or in handwriting if the languagedoes not use the Roman alphabet.

Like the other brethren living in rural Burma, Mr. Lazum and his family are impoverished. He can earn 50 cents a day cutting straw. Legacy Institutehas supported Mr. Lazum so he can spend more time writing booklets and visiting people. Yet he would not accept sturdier leather sandals to replace his plastic flip-flops. He has otherpriorities: buying stamps, printing tracts and giving aid to brethren poorer than he.

More than 350 scattered brethren are members of the Kachinland Church of God, which he pastors, and he visits and writes hundreds more in his part ofBurma who are interested in the truth.

Mr. Lazum works with people wherever they are in their understanding. Some have Seventh-day Adventist backgrounds, while others are Buddhists oranimists who once knew only the worship of spirits.

Stressing the urgency we all should have to reach people with the truth, Mr. Lazum said: "We all should be active . . . We all shouldconsider to harvest, because now is the best time."

Positive participant

One cannot meet Michael Hubert of Chennai, India, without being impressed by his positive manner and way of thinking. Mr. Hubert, from a part of theworld where life is not easy, nevertheless takes a positive let's-go-for-it approach and flashes a warm smile.

Seeing them scattered after many left the WCG, Mr. Hubert was disappointed with the lack of fellowship among the brethren in India. Although he was adeacon in the WCG, he did not want to presume to assume any leadership role. Yet he felt compelled to fulfill a need.

He built a roofed meeting place on top of his house for Sabbath assemblies and has organized a festival meeting there for the past two Feasts ofTabernacles.

Mr. Hubert was an impetus for Legacy's leadership-training program in Thailand. He saw and expressed a need for pastoral and evangelistic training inareas like his where no one is really doing a work. The brethren he meets with are eager to spread God's Word in their region.

Legacy Institute supports Mr. Hubert's plan to translate Church of God literature into Tamil and Tegalu and to distribute literature in southernIndia.

Mr. Hubert is president of a small charitable trust called Shabnam ("early rain") Resources. He helps poor abandoned street children by buying books,paying their school fees and giving vocational training to give them a chance in an otherwise hopeless life.

His organization provides some food (and shelter when possible) for about 150 street children. He seeks support from secular corporations andinstitutions to help fund this work.

Mr. Hubert also helps with book costs and education fees for children of poor brethren in his area.

Karen train for leadership

Because Lazum Brang was able to secure only day passes to enter Thailand, a border location was necessary for the program. This meant, however, thatone Karen man in northern Thailand could not attend because of his high-profile past membership in the Karen army; travel, especially near border areas, poses for him the threat ofdeportation and execution in Burma.

Nevertheless, this man works passionately to prepare booklets in the Karen and Burmese languages.

Two Karen men living in Thailand, Davidson Ley Bey and David Mya Maung, attended the program. Mr. Ley Bey is the son of the late Saw Ley Bey, longtimeelder for the WCG in Burma.

Davidson Ley Bey is a deacon living in Mae Sot. We met for Sabbath services and a Bible study Sunday at his house. Having limited employment for anongovernmental organization (NGO) and an NGO identity card, Mr. Ley Bey can travel within Thailand more easily than many refugees can.

David Mya Maung lives in a refugee camp in the mountains of northern Thailand and had to cross nine checkpoints to reach the training program in MaeSot. Refugees are not legal residents and thus have their movement restricted. Local unscrupulous authorities can take advantage of their refugee status to extort money fromthem.

Mr. Mya Maung and Mr. Ley Bey both translate material about God's feast days, pagan holidays, Babylon, etc., into Karen and Burmese. They also havemade contact with potential brethren in refugee camps to get to know them and share Church of God beliefs with them.

Post-Trumpets program?

We met as a small group of 20 for the Feast of Trumpets in Mae Sot, where Mr. Sexton and other Americans, including Herb Vierra of Monrovia, Calif.,and Vince Szymkowiak of Steelville, Mo., spoke. The leadership program was to begin the Sabbath before the Feast of Trumpets but was postponed to begin the day after Trumpets because ofpost-Sept. 11 plane groundings that delayed the arrival of the American presenters.

The Vierras and the other presenters had spent many hours in airports. On the first day of the program he discussed the "church" as spiritual entity;pagan influences on Christianity; and the need for the church.