mPower Approach Training in Myanmar
Six cities in three days. Five flights that stretched 8,730 miles halfway across the world to Southeast Asia.
Why? Simply because Jesus said to take the Gospel to “the ends of the earth.”
Some might consider this close. The villagers we saw hadn’t seen a westerner for 50 years because the country was closed to outsiders.
It’s open now-a spectacular nation of picturesque cities, beautiful people, riverside villages, mountains, and jungle. Though it is 90% Buddhist, Christians have thrived. Many are from the Lisu tribe, which was reached by missionaries in the 1900s.
We went to teach dental care, oral hygiene instruction, wound care, and vision to pastors who will take these skills to reach their people for Christ.
Sunday: A clinic set in a pasture
The training is set up in a local church where cows graze in the yard near the church and a boarding school for children whose parents live far from schools. There is electricity, well water, firewood for sterilization and a kitchen where members of the church can prepare lunch over wood fires.
Students are anxious. Though many speak four and five languages and have a clear vision of what God wants them to do, the training can seem overwhelming. In just five days, dental students will learn to extract abscessed teeth, dental hygiene students will learn oral health, wound care students will learn how to clean and bandage wounds and vision students will learn how to run a portable vision clinic to provide glasses for people who cannot see.
Monday: Back to school
The dentists condense what they learned in four years of dental school into the must-knows of dental health. They hold up models of a mouth, teach anatomy of the tooth, and show the students how to evaluate oral health and find decay.
Long before the team arrives, manuals have been translated so students can study on their own.
In a nearby room an mPower Approach team member teaches vision care and in a classroom across the field students are learning to clean and bandage wounds.
Tuesday: Clinics begin
Instruction continues in the classroom. By the end of the morning, students will give each other injections. It’s a huge milestone among students.
Throughout the afternoon, dentists teach as they work on patients. The temperature hovers around 95 degrees. Instruments are sterilized over a coal fire just outside the clinic. Patients include children from a local orphanage and monks from a nearby monastery.
Each student shares the Gospel with their patient. They talk of the decay of sin – much like what happens with the tooth. In the vision clinic, they talk of clearly seeing truth and in the wound clinic, they talk of the Jesus, who was “wounded for our transgressions.” Students pray with each patient, the teaching is not so much about teeth or eyes or wounds – it is about eternal healing with Jesus.
Wednesday-Thursday: Clinics continue
Word is spreading through the area and more and more patients come to the clinics. Members of the team go door to door through the village to invite families and answer questions. They also go to a nearby refugee camp where some 200 families live in one-room apartments.
Friday: Leave for home
After a graduation ceremony and a celebration the mission team leaves the clinic in the good hands of the students who will continue to meet needs.
Within a year, the team will return to add another layer of training and check on skills and supplies.
