In May, we received word that the Fellowship of Mennonite Churches in Taiwan had made a generous donation to MCC’s earthquake response in Myanmar. The church in Taiwan is no stranger to earthquakes having experienced their own 7.4 magnitude earthquake in 2024. We decided to extend our home leave layover in Taiwan by a few days so that we could travel to meet them in person, share about the work being done in Myanmar, and learn about the current ministry of the church in Taiwan.

On Sunday Crystal gave the sermon on “God’s work in Myanmar” at Meilun Mennonite Church in Hualien, Taiwan. The service was streamed on youtube, while only Crystal’s sermon is in English the sense of fellowship across languages was beautiful.

Below I’ll share Crystal’s sermon on “God’s Work in Myanmar” as written. The Fellowship of Mennonite Churches in Taiwan is also translating Crystal’s sermon into Traditional Chinese and will publish it in their newsletter so that all 25 congregations can access it.

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Our interpreter, Jessica Lu, shared that Fellowship of Mennonite Churches in Taiwan Committee member, Dr. Harold Lu, introduced Crystal with the following words, “Charles and Crystal are the Mennonite Central Committee Representatives to Myanmar and Cambodia. They serve and live in difficult conditions – especially the earthquake, war, and transnational criminal activity. It’s not easy. I also want to let you know that Crystal’s Grandparents were Rev. Glen and June Graber. Here in Hualien you know very well the legacy of Dr. Roland Brown and Rev. Otto Dirks and Susan Martens Kehler and the others who came here. But before all of them, the first generation Mennonite Missionary was Rev. Glen Graber. He laid the foundation with the MCC mountain clinic teams and other work that let MCH and the other ministries become established. Sometimes he is called the Grandfather of Humanitarian Action in Taiwan.”

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Good morning. Thank you for your warm welcome. My husband and I are the Mennonite Central Committee Representatives to Myanmar and Cambodia. When I heard that the Fellowship of Mennonite Churches in Taiwan had contributed to MCC’s earthquake response in Myanmar I felt that I needed to come, thank you, and share about the work being done in person.

The Church in Taiwan has an important place in my family – my Grandparents Rev. Glen Graber and June Graber had a deep love for this community. My father was born here in Taiwan. You have always been in my family’s prayers – even when I was growing up in Brazil where my parents were serving as Missionaries. I bring greetings from my family. My grandparents are now with the Lord. From my Father Daniel, my Uncle, and my Aunts – who grew up here on this beautiful island. Personally, I have been amazed and inspired by what I have heard and seen these past few days and I am excited to share news of your witness and ministry with my family.

I bring you greetings from Mennonite Central Committee. 105 years ago Mennonite Churches in North America formed this Central Committee to respond to the pleas for help from Mennonite communities in Southern Russia (now Ukraine). Those founders never envisioned that a century later MCC would be working in 45 countries around the world in the sectors of humanitarian relief, community development, and peacebuilding. God’s plans are always greater than the parts any of us have in them.

I also bring you greetings from the Church in Myanmar. Christians there live as a minority among their Buddhist neighbors, sharing the gospel and responding to need in their communities. The Mennonites in Myanmar write, “Thank you so much for your care and your donation!  We often feel forgotten by the outside world and your support brings us encouragement.”

This morning I will share from our work in Myanmar. By the objective data, Myanmar is currently the second most violent country on earth. It has the longest running ongoing civil war in the world. The civil war with the most “sides” or “active groups”, more than Syria, and is surpassed in violence only by Palestine. Despite this, Myanmar receives far less international news or attention than other nations. The people there often tell us that they feel forgotten – in the midst of terrible conflict, natural disaster, and desperate need.

The international politics surrounding Myanmar are complex – with India, the People’s Republic of China, Malaysia, and Thailand all exerting significant influence. We work closely with MCC’s Advocacy office at the United Nations to bring the voices of people in the community to the ears of ambassadors and diplomats. The internal politics of Myanmar are even more complex – it is home to 135 distinct ethnic groups which are further split by a myriad of religious and political lines. There are ethnic armed organizations, warlords, mafia, and – of course – the military junta. It can feel impossible to envision a future without violence.  After all, Myanmar has now suffered from 77 years of ongoing conflict and – just like the people living there – we can feel the weight and discouragement of that history.

Jesus also used this illustration: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”

Matthew 13:33, NLT

In the scripture we read today, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast.  A little bit of yeast added to the flour changes everything – it makes the whole bread rise. Even in an impossible situation – where human hope is hard to find – we have seen that acts of love in the name of Jesus are transformative. In this way, we find what Paul described in Romans as ‘a hope beyond a hope’– confronted with overwhelming challenges our actions may feel small but we know that God can, has, and will work wonders with that yeast.

Yesterday, I was blessed to visit the largest Mennonite Hospital in the world here in Hualien. When you care for human bodies here you are also ministering to their spirits. A little act of healing can give hope and motivation to continue living. We see the same in Myanmar. For instance, one of our programs distributes money to internally displaced people in a region that’s faced famine since the COVID pandemic. One villager told us that he and his wife had been living on the run for months, moving through three different villages, looking for any kind of work to earn a little money for food. Their home village had been burnt by the military junta and the land taken. One of the displaced people we support, Zaram, said: “In recent months, we received $10 a month and it was really helpful during this time of unstable income. During difficulties in physical and mental health, this financial support is more than financial. It makes us feel like we’re not alone and gives us some motivation to live.” Even in Cambodia $10 is a small amount for a month but for Zaram that support gave him the encouragement to keep on going. When we care for human bodies by providing food, medical supplies, shelter, and so on in the name of Christ – we are also ministering to their spirits. Jesus healed the sick while ministering to the spirit, just like your hospital is doing here in Hualien, and though the MCC projects in Myanmar are doing this in a different way, we are also tending to the real human needs in the midst of a terrible, long conflict.

In some ways the situation in Myanmar reminds me of what Jesus experienced in Israel Palestine 2000 years ago. Jesus – God born as a human – came into a long bitter conflict where the people distrusted not only the Roman occupiers, but everyone associated with them, such as the tax collectors, and each other for potentially being compromised. Fortunately, through Jesus, we can see how God wants us to respond to conflict.  Jesus modeled talking with people of all different backgrounds, eating with sinners, preaching to church leaders and healing the bodies and spirits of those who asked. God came to us in the form of Jesus and showed us that it is not enough to love people from a distance.  We also need to follow Jesus’ example and meet directly with people who are in need across human lines of division.

MCC has been working with the Church in Myanmar since the 1980s but, after the disastrous cyclone Nargis, we established a presence inside Myanmar at the invitation of local people. During the last decade and a half, MCC has been supporting and training pastors, teachers, peacebuilders and humanitarian workers toward building the kingdom of heaven in the midst of this suffering. For a time there was reason to feel optimistic – while the conflicts continued, a political solution emerged, and the conflicts began to deescalate for the first time in decades.

The positive change towards a political solution suddenly stopped with the 2021 coup and the violence has escalated to the highest levels ever seen in the country. The infrastructure built during the easing of tensions has been used to access parts of the country that were once sheltered by geography. Following the coup, many pastors, peacebuilders, teachers, and even seminarians reached out to MCC asking about how they could help the people around them – they wanted formal training on providing humanitarian aid in dangerous contexts.  MCC responded by sharing what we have learned over the last century of relief work. Things like: do not only want to give bags of rice to many starving people, but also give dried fish, chickpeas, oil, or salt – nutritionally dense and diverse foods in order to decrease suffering, not only decrease hunger.  We taught partners how to include all people in the village, not only the ones that attend church, in the food distribution. This is a witness to the love of Christ for all people, and also an effective way of ensuring that conflict does not happen between villagers over the food we distribute.  We shared ways to build relationships with the communities who are displaced, so that we can redistribute food over many months in order to build trust and help people feel slightly less in survival mode – if they know we are coming back with more aid, they have one less thing to fear.  

In March of this year – in the midst of terrible fighting and suffering – came the 7.7 magnitude earthquake. It caused buildings to crumble from ancient temples to the shelters of the poor. Some 50,000 buildings collapsed completely, leaving over 4,000 dead and many more injured. In the months since the earthquake, MCC has been have been supporting communities with food, clean water, and meeting other emergency needs.  Now, we are beginning to support the construction of more secure shelters.

One of our partners in Myanmar established Women’s Savings Groups in Mandalay, bringing together women to support one another through small loans and weekly accountability meetings. These savings groups were originally intended to alleviate poverty, have become leaders in their community in responding to the earthquake.  First distributing food and water, they have now conducted a mapping of the hardest hit areas in south Mandalay, identifying people who have not received aid, and assessing the level of damage to their home.  Not all homes are completely destroyed, so some will receive aid to rebuild aspects of their home.  Others will be able to construct secure bamboo shelters to give them and their children security and privacy on the grounds of their totally collapsed homes.  These groups will support each other in finding resources, skilled labor and good prices for the building plans.  Through securing shelter with MCC resources, these people will also build community and trust with each other, standing as a witness to relationships in the face of increased crime and distrust. 

Trust is rare in Myanmar. For generations, the military junta and other groups have used divide and conquer strategies to keep people disunited. The military junta and armed groups pressure local people to report on their neighbors’ activities.  Police are corrupt and anyone can bribe a police officer to arrest someone they do not like.  Conscription is mandatory in all areas of the country with armed groups forcing young men and women into fighting just as often as the military junta does. One of our friends heard from his mother that the military had come to collect his information. She called him and said “do not come home”.  That night, the military came to his house and would have taken him to serve in the military as a human shield – walking on the front lines and through minefields. He is now living at the office where he works with MCC.  Though he himself is displaced and undocumented now, he continues to help send food supplies, clean water, and other humanitarian aid out.  The military leader has publicly stated that they do not need any of the other ethnic people, only the land that the ethnic people live on, terrifying ethnic groups into taking up more weapons.  But at the same time, pay in the military is poor and there are reports of military soldiers selling their own bullets to their enemies, the Ethnic Armed organizations, in exchange for food.  Everyone is a victim of the cycles of violence and trauma.  People are trapped in distrust, seeing no other options and no future for themselves or their families. Pastors who reach across the lines of division, preaching peace and practicing reconciliation, put themselves at great risk of community backlash. 

The Mennonite Church in Myanmar is preaching and living peace in the midst of the violence. After the 2021 coup, Church elders were horrified to discover many of the youth of the church were joining the Ethnic Armed Organizations – taking up guns and getting training to fight against the military. Pastor Amos Chin – who also serves as a leader with Mennonite World Conference – said that he felt like they had failed to teach peace and has redoubled efforts to preach the gospel of peace.  Many people hear his words and say that those are nice ideas, but impossible!  They turn each conversation into a political debate.  His replies are simple – yes, it is impossible with human abilities.  But everything is possible with God.  The God who resurrected Jesus from the dead can indeed resurrect a country that is deeply embroiled in violence.  We do not need to know exactly how or why, but we must hopefully, faithfully proclaim the gospel of peace and refuse to take up weapons against other human beings.  The church there is ridiculed by others, pressured to choose a side, and stands faithfully as ambassadors of the prince of peace.

The seminary we support also struggles to teach peace. Through MCC, they have received over a decade of training in trauma care so that they can equip pastors and church leaders for pastoral care. After the coup, as the military took to the streets to open fire on the population, the seminary reached out to their pastors and alumni, asking what those Christian leaders needed most.  They learned that pastors were asking their congregations to turn to prayer and the Bible during the violence.  These are good places to start ministering to a population who is witnessing people being killed outside their homes, and our partner has more knowledge to share about how trauma impacts the nervous system, giving education and experiential knowledge to the pastors about how to recognize trauma responses.  This is difficult and ongoing work, especially as traumas compound and we are amazed that the seminary perseveres in equipping pastors in the midst of ongoing suffering.

Jesus taught his disciples that the kingdom of God is like yeast.  He also taught his disciples:  “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

Letting our good deeds shine out for all to see is the center of our Christian witness. I think it is important that we – all of us around the world – hear the stories of the faithful Christians of Myanmar. That we listen to their experiences and how God is working.  Without sharing their stories, it is like their light is under a basket! This past year, for the first time, we were able to include Myanmar in the joint MCC/Mennonite World Conference Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network (YAMEN) program.  This program recruits young Christians from around the world to do a year of serving and learning in other countries around the world. As one example, this year we sent a Cambodian to serve in Indonesia while living with a Mennonite host family and attending a Mennonite church.

I want to tell about the first YAMEN participant from Myanmar – Kee. Kee is 25 years old. He was a high school teacher in Myanmar whose school was bombed and whose students fled to avoid the aggressive conscription by the military junta. Kee applied to YAMEN hoping to teach the stories of his community and to learn skills that he could take back home. When he was accepted into the YAMEN program, Kee choose to serve at a local partner in Cambodia focused on helping poor farmer groups. During his year in Cambodia, Kee lived with a Cambodian host family, ate Cambodian food, worshiped at a Cambodian church in a new language, and faced challenges of loneliness. He shared with us his hope and his struggles as he tries to understand what he can do for his community and country. And he shared with us his sorrow when his home in Myanmar was bombed this past February.  He heard about it from his family, who had fled into the jungle for safety, and he shared with great thanksgiving that God had protected the people he loved. Rejoicing that his family was safe, heartbroken that the home he grew up in was forever gone. We learned from him again to cherish people over things and places, to give space to grief and loss, and to praise God in all circumstances.  For Kee, he shares that he has learned so much about himself this year, and that he has learned new skills and ideas that he will take back to Myanmar to strengthen his church, community, and nation. He has been a light to our team in Cambodia and the other participants from around the world, living his faith through his good works and his faithfulness to God’s plan, even when things are uncertain.

I will confess that sometimes I also feel discouraged at the enormity of the suffering in Myanmar.  The complexity of the politics and the continued fracturing of communities feels like falling into outer space – there is no end of difficulties.  This past visit to Myanmar was particularly heartbreaking as I met with two upcoming YAMEN participants who have been selected for service with MCC next year.  They shared the raw fear of living through the earthquake.  One of them told me that her mom was in Mandalay, alone, when the house began to fall around her.  It was 4 days before she was able to hear that her mom was ok. The trauma of the event has impacted their habits and both YAMEN participants insisted we eat every bite of our dinner together, telling us that we do not know for sure when we will eat again.  Nothing is certain and these young people live at the intersections of fear – fear of forced conscription, fear of armed violence, fear of earthquakes, fear of famine, fear for their family. Yet they also constantly turned the conversation to sharing about the beauty of their country, the color of the trees in bloom, the delicious flavors of food and the unique cultural dances. One of them looked at us and said “we do not want to burden you with our sadness, so let us tell you about the good things.” We were there to care for their wellbeing and encourage them as they prepare for a year of service outside Myanmar and they wanted to be sure that we saw the good in their life, the joys, and not just the sorrows and fear.

Galatians 6 tells us that those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.

As for us, we will persevere in working for God in Myanmar.  We know that God loves the people there, even those who are participating in the violence.  We know that we are not responsible to save everyone or to solve all the problems. But we are responsible to be light and yeast. To love in the name of Christ.  We are responsible to witness to the goodness of God and help those around us rise to be their best selves.  With your support and the prayers and love of many others, we commit to faithfully going to the vulnerable people and caring for their bodies and spirits.  And we pray for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done in Myanmar as it is in Heaven.