Hello Friends! In the last episode, Tam Ki and his team members had successfully spread the seeds of the Good News to Baung after much threat and attack. In this episode, find out how the believers steered themselves into another level of intimacy and new adventures with the Holy Spirit.

In the early days of their humble church, they had little exposure to the teachings of the Good News. It was only after Tam Ki had bought his first New Testament in 1978 that the believers and he began to learn more. When Saya Mang Ling, a 30-year-old evangelist from Northern Chin State, visited Machung in 1982, he held nightly meetings, preaching about the gifts and the works of the Holy Spirit. Tam Ki realised then that he had been ‘speaking in tongues’ – that is, using the gift of a supernatural prayer language – whenever he was deep in prayer, long before Saya Mang Ling visited them.

For three years, Saya Mang Ling visited the church, spending a few months each time teaching the believers. Between his visits, Tam Ki would hold nightly Bible study meetings. Their members – mainly farmers and young people – were illiterate or had little education. Despite a hard day’s backbreaking farm work on the hill slopes, many would turn up faithfully in the evenings. They all had an unquenchable thirst for God’s Word.

It was during Saya Mang Ling’s teaching sessions that Thang Shwe finally experienced a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, nine years after Tam Ki’s own conversion.

During all those years, she had been a supportive wife even though she was not a believer. She accepted that her husband had been called by the Lord. During Tam Ki’s long evangelistic trips away from home, she diligently tended the hill slopes and looked after the children and Tam Ki’s elderly mother. While neighbours criticized Tam Ki’s frequent absences, his conscientious wife was content with her share of hardship, accepting that her husband must respond to his calling.

The thought of her tending to all the domestic matters comforted Tam Ki during travels. He saw the truth of Proverbs 31:10-12, “An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.”

In April 1983, the church began to experience revival. Believers, mainly young people and children, were gripped with a passionate urgency to seek God. Nightly prayer and worship meetings were the norm. The hunger to spend time with the Lord was so intense after the evening meetings that, many stayed behind to pray till dawn. Night after night, the theme of the prayers was often a deep desire to reach others in the mountains who had not heard the Good News. “Please open a way to reach out to these people. Send us to share Jesus Christ with them!” In their zeal, the believers were filled with the conviction that every soul, no matter how isolated, should receive the free gift of salvation and no longer serve the spirits as their forefathers did.

One Saturday evening, while the believers were singing, out of nowhere a flock of birds flew into the church and perched on the ceiling beams. These blue birds were not indigenous to Machung. The believers felt a strange sense of warmth. That night, the worship service was very powerful. Despite the loud singing, clapping of hands and shouts of “Hallelujah”, the birds were not frightened but stayed throughout the entire service. It was almost as if these creatures had come to worship the eternal God.

The following Sunday morning, some of the blue birds were still there, attracting a certain amount of attention. One young man, Hung Mana, suddenly started to speak in an unknown heavenly language at a prayer meeting soon after the visit of the birds. As this was completely new to the young believers, some were suspicious that this strange manifestation might be the work of evil spirits. One believer blurted out, “In Jesus’ name, evil spirit be gone!” Suddenly Mana Yawng, a 12-year-old girl said, “This is speaking in tongues!” To everyone’s amazement Mana Yawng was speaking in Burmese – a language she didn’t know – and this was an example of the ‘other tongues’ that the Bible describes.

From that day, many of the young believers started receiving the gift of tongues. And, as they spent time praying and fasting, members of their congregation started prophesying and having visions. When these amazing things happened, rumours started spreading that the Machung believers had gone astray. But the believers persisted in trusting that the Lord was leading them into new experiences in the Holy Spirit.

A few days later, Ki Ti, Tam Ki’s eldest daughter, then 11 years old, saw a vision during a prayer time at the church. It was of a ray of bright light coming from Heaven towards the front of the church. As soon as the light landed, the ground was covered with white doves fluttering around. Saya Mang Ling announced, “The Lord says that He has revealed something to one of you. Please speak it out.” There was complete silence. Ki Ti, shy in nature, was afraid to speak up. Saya Mang Ling repeated, “Now, don’t be afraid. If the Lord has revealed something to you, you must not be afraid to share it.”

Ki Ti obediently shared her vision. All understood that the Lord’s favour was on the church and believed He would open a way for the Good News to be preached to the remote regions of the country. There were excited shouts of “Hallelujah” and “Thank you, Lord”.

Not long after, Mana Yawng, deep in prayer, saw a vision of a lighted oil lamp moving across the communion table. As it came to the edge of the table, it continued to move horizontally in mid air towards and then through one of the windows before vanishing.

Saya Mang Ling explained, “The lighted oil lamp represents the fire of the Holy Spirit. It will move from this church in that direction!” ‘That direction’ was towards Mindat.

With the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the believers, manifested through visions, prophesies and tongues, also came deep conviction and confession of sin. Several children received the gift of prophecy, through which the Lord revealed to them the sins in people’s lives. Every Sunday, just before worship service, without prior arrangement, two children would stand at the entrance to the church, two in the middle of the pews and two by the pulpit. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, they were able to reveal the sins of those who came in. For example, when a husband and wife had been arguing before coming to church, the children stationed at the entrance would boldly speak it out and encourage them to get right with God and with each other before entering.

Confronted in this way by the Holy Spirit, many came forward to the pulpit and threw themselves to the ground weeping in repentance.

Prayer grew more passionate under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Some evenings, believers would venture into the jungle to pray, to a certain cemetery where no one dared venture even in the day. They believed that this place was a stronghold of the evil spirits that had bound people in blind superstition for generations. They prayed that the spiritual bondage be broken in Jesus’ name.

Often, when believers reached their target place in the jungle, they smelled bad odours and heard clucking sounds, as if to warn that they were intruding into evil spirit territory. Braving the eerie environment, they sat in a circle in prayer. They asked God to remove the spiritual blindness from their village, the neighbouring villages and towns, their country and even from the whole world. As they prayed, peace and stillness of the Lord would descend. Sometimes, as they prayed intensely, some would see fire appearing, as if their prayers had ignited flames, yet the surrounding shrubs and trees were not burned.

They found that praying in tongues gave them direct communication with the Lord which could not be hindered by evil spirits. It was also an effective weapon in spiritual warfare.

Chauk Yo, 20 miles north east of Mindat, was a village of just 16 families, out of whom eight families were Christians. When they started to have regular worship services, the Holy Spirit began to move in their midst.

In April 1987, Tam Ki was at the opening ceremony of their church, Chauk Yo Assembly of God Church, when a spirit worshipper, Hung Ki, apparently possessed by a demon, came in with a sword. Shouting and wielding the sword violently, he made his way to the pulpit. The congregation tried to stop him but the man had extraordinary strength. When the believers tried to cast out the evil spirit from him in their own dialect, Hung Ki was furious.

He roared, “I am not an evil spirit or the devil!” He became even more violent. The believers were afraid that he might kill someone. But the Lord spoke to Tam Ki not be afraid for He was on Tam Ki’s side. With this assurance, Tam Ki was filled with courage and strength.

He boldly pointed his finger at the man, intending to command the evil spirit to leave him. Instead, tongues came pouring out of his mouth. At the same time, the ministers around Tam Ki and the congregation also began to pray in tongues.

The man stopped what he was doing and stood there, dazed. He asked what language were they all speaking. Without warning, he lost his strength and collapsed to the floor. The demon left him. When he regained consciousness and realized what he had done, Hung Ki begged the believers for forgiveness and confessed that the God they worshipped was indeed the true and living God. He surrendered his life to the Lord. Today, Hung Ki is serving as a deacon in the Blessing Assembly of God Church in Mindat.

Many other times of Holy Spirit adventures came vividly to mind. One summer evening in Machung, the church was packed with believers worshipping in tongues. Many were crying without inhibition when they saw visions of Heaven and felt their unworthiness

in the presence of a holy God.

Suddenly, there were shouts of “Fire! Fire!” Non-believers came rushing to the church with buckets of water carried in baskets on their backs. They had seen huge flames blazing around the church from afar. When they arrived, they found no trace of fire, not even the smell of smoke. The believers, still caught up in praising God, were surprised to see them arriving carrying water! The Holy Spirit of their powerful God was manifesting Himself so mightily that their little church building seemed to be engulfed in fire.

During this period, it was also prophesied that Machung would send missionaries not only to Mindat, but also to other parts of Chin State; and that the Good News of Jesus Christ that began in this obscure and remote jungle village would travel around the whole of Myanmar and also reach out to the nations of the world!

“Looking back, I am truly amazed at how the Lord fulfilled these prophecies. Over the 37 years of my ministry, I have travelled around almost the whole of Myanmar spreading the Good News. As I write this book, my co-workers and I have planted 61 churches around

Southern Chin State and set up many mission centres in various parts of the country. Our first overseas church in Kuala Lumpur, West Malaysia, was commissioned in 2007, a church which has been led since then by a couple of pastors from Machung. A number of

our young prophets, now in their thirties and forties, are currently serving in mission fields around the country.”

Believers had experienced the Holy Spirit first-hand and learnt more about God and their faith deepened as the Lord revealed Himself mightily to them. How would they grow in deeper intimacy and fellowship with the Lord? Find out in our new episode on next Thursday. Stay tune and good bye!

With Courtesy –

Song: Welcome Holy Spirit