In a country where a U.S. $80 airmail subscription to a church magazine costs a pastor two months' salary, getting the Seventh-day Adventist Church's regional office directly connected to the Internet -- a U.S. $3,000 expense -- might seem an unrealizable
In a country where a U.S. $80 airmail subscription to a church magazine costs a pastor two months’ salary, getting the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s regional office directly connected to the Internet—a U.S. $3,000 expense—might seem an unrealizable dream.
But thanks to the generosity of technologists who attended the recent Global Internet Evangelism Forum at the church’s world headquarters, Pastor Kenneth Htang Suanzanang will return to Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma, with the funds to accomplish that task.
As a result, Myanmar’s 52 million people—a nation whose population is 89 percent Buddhist—will soon be able to view Bible lessons and other information online, in their own language. Today, the Myanmar government estimates that 20,000 people have Internet connections, the pastor said. Within two years, Suanzanang told ANN, that number will increase to 200,000.
“I am very happy about this,” Pastor Suanzanang told the delegates. “Thank you very much.”
The collection to help fellow Christians in a distant land was a pleasant surprise, the pastor said.
“When [world church vice president] Ted Wilson mentioned Myanmar’s need, I was surprised,” Suanzanang said. “You see, he had been sending us the ‘Adventist Review’ for free for the past five years; and he told us that we could get it on the Internet. But we didn’t have an Internet connection—it would cost us U.S. $3,000.”
Adventists in Myanmar already have a sense of what technology can bring in reaching people. Programs in the Burmese language were heard by Myanmarese held in Thai prisons and recently, 50 of these inmates were baptized.
“By using the Internet, I believe higher classes of people can be reached,” Suanzanang said.
Already, he noted, part of an Adventist book dealing with the subject of hell is online with a commercial Web site in the country. That site’s publishers asked permission to post the material.
When Myanmar Adventists are able to create their own Internet presence, Discovery Bible lessons, already translated into Burmese, will be available, and Suanzanang hopes to add those from Amazing Facts, as well as other materials.
There are 189 Adventist congregations in Myanmar, where Suanzanang said there are 25,000 church members.
