'On the Road with Steve' Coming to Midland

Steve Gumaer talks with Mission Team members during a meeting in Chiang Mai,Thailand

The following arrived in the e-mail this week, sent to us by Steve Gumaer, one of many, many friends that we met while on mission in Thailand (to the right, Steve talks with Mission Team members during a meeting in Chiang Mai) . Steve and his wife, Oddny, started Partners Relief & Development in response to the needs of refugees and displaced people from Burma.

This email is to invite you to visit one of the churches I'll be speaking at over the next six weeks. The internally displaced people of Burma, numbering over a million, are some of the most dignified, tenacious, brave, and good hearted people I have ever met. One of my favorite stories you may remember from a previous update, summarizes what I mean. It was sent to me by a Free Burma Rangers relief team leader last year. They were assisting a community whose villages were attacked in Nangblyn district, Karen State, Burma. Pastor Ner Payaw led a service in the rain for the 300 people who were fleeing the Burma Army. They all arrived at the river in a downpour and had to huddle under pieces of plastic or banana leaves as the rain came down.

On the second day at this hide site, the pastor organized a prayer service. The next day a powerful wind storm (from a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal) caused many trees to fall. He got his family and two other families out of three shelters just before a giant tree snapped and crashed down on his and the other two families' shelters. He had painstakingly built his shelter out of bamboo and had just finished the thatch roof, which took two days to construct. Now the hut and all his families' possessions lay under the fallen tree. What was his reaction to this new calamity? He looked at the mess as he stood in the wind and rain, then he turned to the team and laughed and said, "Look, God just sent me firewood!" He then set about making another shelter for his family. "Look, God just sent me firewood!" I wouldn't be making a joke at that point. I doubt I would be thanking God either. But he did, and so often in my experience, the people of Burma who are beat up, oppressed, displaced, and in hiding act with tremendous character. They go about the joyful business of life in the midst of terrible tragedy and conflict.

As I visit churches over the next six weeks I'll be speaking about people like Pastor Ner Payaw. I'll do my best to paint a picture of the people we work with who are vulnerable and abused, yet a powerful symbol of faith, real freedom, and a willingness to live out the words of Christ, not just talk about them. If you want to hear more, grab a seat up front in the middle row. On The Road, Steve Gumaer, Director Partners Relief & Development Where to Get The Best Seat... Sunday, April 3, Harvest Bible Church, Elizabeth, CO Sunday, April 20, Life Church Reno, Reno, NV Sunday, April 27, Calvary Chapel Lone Mountain, Las Vegas, NV Wednesday, April 30, Calvary Chapel St. George, St. George, UT Sunday, May 4, First Presbyterian Church, Midland, TX Sunday, May 11, Good Church, Kansas City, MO