Bagan Ministries - The Boarding School

As many of you know Dave and I went up to Bagan over Christmas break. One of the teachers was so kind and invited us to go with her and her church. Bagan is about 8 hours from where we live and it is known for the thousands of ancient temples in the area. 

The main purpose of the trip was to visit a Christian boarding school in the area. The Myanmar people from the church taught Bible lessons and songs while Dave and I ran a medical clinic for the students there. 

Gospel tracts were also given out at various locations and I was actually surprised that this was happening. I don’t know if there is more religious freedom now or if the believers were just really bold. Either way the gospel was shared and I’m praying that God will grow those seeds. I would love it if you prayed for God to save those who received the gospel! 

To get to Bagan we rode on an overnight bus. The bus was really nice but the road was for sure bumpy. The only thing I can compare the road to was that it was worse than the bumpy country roads from Woodward where we lived. We arrived at Bagan around 5am and then our friends had to arrange a hotel for us.

Our friends looked for a hotel for about 45 minutes as hotels must be licensed to have foreigners. One hotel said they would accept us but then when they saw us and that we weren’t local people they changed their minds. We ended up at a nice hotel and slept for 1 hour. 

We then arrived at the boarding school where we walked into a major chicken party. They were plucking the feathers and then during the Bible class I could hear some major butchering going on. I told Dave that was either our lunch or dinner and sure enough it was lunch! It was pretty good and I can honestly say people here don’t waste any part of the chicken.

This was the kitchen at the boarding school. It was really interesting to see how they ran their outdoor kitchen.

Teaching songs to the kids.

After lunch Dave and I ran a quick medical clinic for all the students there. As soon as we opened up our supplies those kids swarmed! HIPPA isn’t even a word in anyone’s vocabulary here neither is privacy. They all stood around while their friends had a physical. If something was wrong they all heard. 

I eventually showed the kids the pictures on my phone and they were super entertained. It was neat to show them people from America as well as different sights. They were especially entertained by baby Isaac who I babysat last year. I never realized how many pictures I had of him but I sure do have a lot.

One of the patients we saw was a 55 year old man. He told us that he was healthy, had good blood pressure, did not have diabetes and then … he told us that he had never been to a doctor in his life and this would be his first check up! My jaw dropped! It even dropped again as I wrote that out. I was just shocked! He sure was healthy though just like he said.

We also visited a local missionary in the area. He runs a Bible study for Christians and Buddhists. We couldn’t communicate a whole lot but he did tell us that there aren’t many Christians in that area. I really admire his work for the Lord and for his people. 

And here are some more pictures of Bagan. It was a lovely city and I'm so glad we got to visit. 

I told Dave that this picture in black and white (other than the motor bikes) really does look 100 years old. Bagan just felt like an old city. I liked it. 

 

I'm not even sure what to say. Maybe clever is a good word. I was told they sell cooking oil from this barrel.

Transportation around the city was in the back of a truck. It was dusty and smoky so we wore masks. =)

These kids are around the temple areas. You can pay them about $.20 to give you a tour and tell you the history of the area. It was kind of sad to me that they were there and not in school. I will say that many of these kids received Christmas tracts so I hope God will use them in their life.

Stay tuned because I still have two more posts on Bagan to share with you all!