This trip I’m currently on is shaping up to be quite the adventure. Although I usually travel to Africa, there was a need for me to head the other direction this month. From Seattle I flew West through Seoul, S.Korea to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I spent the night there, then on to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I met with three Lahu pastors who are Pathways graduates, and conducted research interviews with them for my dissertation. I made some fascinating new discoveries from them relating to how Pathways is being used by these rural mountain pastors, such as that their congregations no longer tolerate guest preachers who don’t preach from the Bible like we train in Pathways. The men from the church all gather at the pastor’s house Sunday evening after a guest preacher has come, and sit and evaluate him on how well he preached the Word! This is truly amazing, and so encouraging. Pastor Somwe shared that when he used to preach on various topics, the men from his church would frequently be absent and were not that interested in church. Then he began to use Pathways and began to preach systematically through books of the Bible, and the men returned. Now, they come every Sunday, eager to hear the next section of Scripture taught to them.
I also visited a local Buddhist temple and spent time with other precious pastors and preached in a local church service. Then it was time to take off through Bangkok for Colombo, Sri Lanka. Racing through the airport in Bangkok to make a tight connection, dripping with sweat, and then sitting on a plane for four hours without being allowed to receive any water (extra charge in local currency which I’d run out of) was a stretching experience.
The time here in Sri Lanka has been golden, being blessed by numerous stories from pastors attending our Pathways workshop on Romans.
One pastor (who will remain anonymous for security reasons) was told in 2013 that he needed to close his church, or else militant Buddhists would come and attack the church, hurt or kill the people and destroy the building. Members were kept away for three weeks by blockades on the streets. Even the government wrote a letter telling him to disband the church or there would be consequences. He refused to comply, and continued to meet, and in 2015 the government changed and now he has a 400 person church that enjoys him preaching the Word each Sunday.
Pastor Anton shared an amazing story of what has happened in his church since he began preaching the Word following the Pathways model. His reputation as a biblical preacher began to spread in his community and to surrounding churches. The church began to grow rapidly because people said they wanted to hear the Bible preached, not the shallow popular preaching of many others. This is the BEST way to grow a church, where people come hungry to hear the Word! In addition to many new people coming to Anton’s church, many pastors of nearby churches have changed their service times to the evening so that they can come in the morning to hear Pastor Anton preach God’s Word. They are learning and growing from his exposition of the Word, and then they go back to their churches and have something to feed their people that evening. Amazing!
We still have a couple more days of training, and I’m sure the stories will continue to pour in. From here I fly to Singapore, spend the night, then back through Seoul and finally arrive back in Seattle Sunday afternoon. What a blessing to be able to offer training to these anointed pastors, learning from them and being inspired to continue in the work of equipping pastors globally.
