Mission Trip Day 2: First Visit To Peniel Bible College

The day started early. I was supposed to wake up at 5:45 to prepare devotion for sharing with the seminary students. However, when I finally awoke, it was already 6:15 much to Pastor's astonishment, which I clearly detected through his follow up call. Up I got and caught myself a hot shower to wash away the sleepiness. Before I could get started with the text fom Mark 4:35-6:6, it was already time for breakfast.

Breakfast was a generous spread with Western, Japanese, local (Burmese), Chinese and Indian choices. As usual, I had my cereal with milk, toast and omelette. Nature's call beckoned me back to my hotel room before I could binge more on the rich breakfast spread.

I barely had the chance to read through my devotion material when I was informed of Pastor Abraham's arrival to fetch us all to the seminary where the session was meant to be held. Along the way, we detoured off to Pastor Abraham's residence to pick his daughter, Lydia up. Lydia worked in the hotel industry in the Finance department and was very supportive of Pastor Abraham's ministry financially.

Amidst the hums and bumps of the van-liked taxi, I thanked God that I finally managed to finish reading the materials I intended to share. The rest of the journey to the seminary was pretty interesting as I shared Pastor Benny Ho's messages with Pastor Abraham through my cheapo 128MB MP3 player with one earphone in his ear and the other in mine.

The seminary was a little more than an attap hut packed side-by-side with seminary student young and old. Immediately after their lively praise and worship, I was ushered up to the rostum to do the sharing. To my horror the interpreter himself had problems understanding me ?! Anyway, I did not do the "paired-share" technique which I originally intended because of the language and interpretation challenge, but instead, gave them the series of questions drawn from Intervarsity Press.

Pastor's series of springboards also did not arrive at the intended impact that it was being meant, my suspicion of the interpreter's accuracy nudged in, but since God was in control, my prayer then was for the participants to be completely blessed anyway.

The day went by painfully slow with various moments that I was on the verge of dosing off, but God sustained me (*Thank You, Lord*).

After the long day, we headed back to pastor Abraham's abode where I downloaded all the series of Pastor Benny Ho's MP3 sermons into his computer.

While chit-chatting with U Maung Maung Oo and his filial son Chor Min Thu, I managed to learn yet some more Burmese langugage

"Per Lao Leh ?" [How much is this ?]
"Szay Jeeh They !" [That's too expensive !]
"Mui You Voo !!" [I don't want it anymore !!]

It was either my poor pronounciation or my comic manner of enacting the language through a dramatised imaginary scenario, but it sure brought them into bouts of loud laughter.

After yet another sumptuous dinner, we headed back to the hotel where we took turns to have our hot shower (having shared my room with Hong Jing). Pastor gave a brief debriefing session and we turned in early in preparation to shift out of this nice hotel, and also to face another long day.