January 2003

Dear brothers and sisters, Greetings to you again in the name of Jesus Christ. We apologize to you for the delay with our report. There were a great deal of things going on in December. The Christmas season is a time for us to show the love of Christ to the people. I personally visited important government officers who hold higher positions and presented Christmas gifts to them. They all gladly accepted our gifts and gave us words of appreciation. Our Yangon Christian Church hosted a Christmas dinner party at a nearby hotel on December 21st. (We chose a hotel for the Christmas party because the authorities would not come if we hosted the gathering at a church.) We celebrated the Christmas party not only to tell about Jesus but also to get to know government authorities as well as leaders from different denominations. About 100 persons joined the Christmas program. This includes Major General Myu Myit, Brigadier General Saw Myit (a deputy minister of the Forest Ministry), Colonel U Tin Win, (the Chief of the police department), presidents and executive members of the community and other township level authorities. Almost all of the ministers from the churches of Christ in Yangon were present at the occasion. Besides, the presidents of the Myanmar Baptist Convention, the Assemblies of God, the Methodist, the Wesley church; those of some other denominations were also present. I spoke a few words of thanks to the audience and explained the purpose of YCCS and other ministries. Within these four months, news about the YCCS and other ministries of the MACM has spread quickly throughout the country. Christians in Myanmar haven't experienced a full freedom of religion. There are still restrictions on them. For example, no Bible colleges and sem inaries are recognized by the government. However, to my surprise, I found that there are more than 40 Bible colleges in Yangon alone. Seminaries are very few. Those colleges found working closely with the community and township level authorities appear they have developed relationships with them and are being protected, and their works are also safe. That's why I am seeking ways to connect with our community leaders. We have strategically been working up to this point, to become acquainted with local authorities in the area where our ministries and family reside. I was also privileged to get to meet some individuals in higher positions from the State and Central government. During these past four months, we have spent time and energy establishing these relationships. Roger Bossingham, who along with his wife, Sandy, are our forwarding agents, arrived in Yangon on December 26 and left on January 5. He participated with us in different occasions, such as the school opening ceremony, the sound studio opening ceremony, a school picnic program, etc. He was our only special guest from the USA. He also joined us at two worship services and gave us words of encouragement. We had a wonderful time with him and his presence encouraged us tremendously. He opened our studio by cutting the ribbon and led us to the studio room. We recorded one song before the audience as a demonstration of our studio. I hope you will hear more about his time among us in his own words. We also spent a couple of hours together looking through the MACMs expenditures. [Lazarus had prepared an exemplary & well-documented report./Roger] During these past four months, we made

a lot of purchases. The purchases were made for items for the ministries, such as furniture, and equipment that will last for many years. It is an unbelievable amount of money spent, from my perspective, but we believe that we did the right things to be able to establish a strong foundation for the ministry for many years to come. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us and we will respond to you as soon as possible. YCCS has 20 students in the graduate program and 35 in the undergraduate program. Seven part-time professors teach at the undergraduate program and another five, including me, at the graduate program. Constructing the right team cannot happen right away, as it is a process which needs time and patience, and will take at least one year or more. For the sake of unity, we need to have co-workers who have the same vision in the service of the Lord. Our recording studio has now been set up and works well. Currently, our musicians are working on the first gospel album. With this first gospel album, we will dedicate our studio to Gods service. The album will be sung by many Lisu Christian popular singers from different denominations. About 14 singers will be recorded on the album. After the studio is initiated with this first album, it will be busy every day recording. Our radio programming system is not yet set up. We have been going step by step and the radio ministry will soon be established. As you know, we started paying the $300 per month charge for the 15-minute daily Lisu language radio program in December. The program, which has an audience of one million, was funded thru February from one-time gifts. Then in December we received another one-time gift of $1200 for the program. These wonderful gifts fund the program thru June 2003. While that is good, we obviously still need funding for July thru December. We are expecting to hear from churches where we have spoken. Pray for this. Our contemporary music works wonderfully. Within this short period, our gospel music ministry is known in the city of Yangon. We are privileged to present Christmas music at different occasions. When I was invited to the Shwebita Christian Church for preaching at the Christmas service, I took the YCCS music group with me. The regular attendance at that church is 70. But at that particular service, the attendance reached 500 persons. Just imagine how many Buddhists were there. Obviously, 70-76 were Christians and the rest present were Buddhists. I was greatly privileged to tell them about Jesus Christ. We did this in other places as well. How powerful music is. Our music ministry (properly called, a gospel music band) offers many ministry opportunities for us. Also our gospel music group has been invited by the Lisu government in China. They invited us to China to perform Christian music there. Isaiah Fish will leave for China in February to see how this can be implemented. On the way, he will stop at Panwa where a Bible training center is located and teach at a Bible Seminar designed for church elders in that region. Then he will continue to China to meet Lisu leaders and possibly go up to the Tibetan region. Pray for him. I have a lot of good people hopeful of being future full-time workers in our ministry. Many of our full-time workers will come out of th e YCCS. We plan to train them the best we can. Parents and church leaders are very thankful to us for accepting their young people at our school in the city. By the time they finish their study at YCCS, they will be ready either to return back to their respective places or carry out an urban ministry. Some Americans are concerned that students trained in an urban setting will not be likely to return back to their own people. That is not true. I will explain it to you more later. I just want to let you know that this is not something to worry about. Graduates from colleges in urban setting are better than those graduated from traditional Bible schools in rural area, in terms of a training, preparation, qualification, experiences, theological education and outside knowledge. We have faith that we will be producing capable church leaders, missionaries, evangelists, and youth ministers who are ready to go wherever God wants them to go. Dear brothers and sisters, our deep heart-felt thanks to all of you for being such a wonderful blessing to MACM and its extensive ministry. We appreciate your faithfulness and kindness in His service. May the Lord our God continue to bless you. Thanks. We love you. In His service,

Lazarus Fish