Myanmar mission

Blessing Nations

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:19

It has long been the desire of Grace Church to follow Jesus’ command in Matthew 28 to ‘Go and make disciples’ among an unreached people group in the world. As a church we have asked God to lead the Flanders to an unreached/least reached people group within Myanmar. There are 49 such people groups in Myanmar.

Over the last several years we have been able to place an ongoing team in Myanmar for 70-day stays to effectively facilitate the learning of the Burmese language and culture, to pursue a sustainable way to serve in the country in order to be a blessing to the nation of Myanmar, and to extend the worship of God to places and people that have not yet experienced Him.

Everything began in November 2011, when the Flanders traveled for two weeks with Calvary Church of State College, PA in order to get an understanding of their ministry in Myanmar. The trip took them to several orphanages and a Seminary near Yangon, giving them many opportunities to speak and minister as they learned the inner workings of Calvary’s effective ministry.

In 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2017 the Flanders family has returned to Myanmar for longer-term stays, establishing a place to live and maintain an incredibly rewarding ministry with 60-plus children at an orphanage. To date upwards of 50 individuals from Grace Church, including many volunteer baristas from Grace Church’s Twelve17 Coffee Roasters ministry, have ministered in Myanmar. They have done so largely at their own expense, coming away with a deeper burden for the Myanmar people and understanding of what it will take to effectively bless these precious people who have endured so much hardship.

2017 was an incredibly blessed time as we trusted the Lord to both deepen the Flanders’ understanding of what the Lord is already doing in Myanmar, AND sent two additional Grace Church ministry teams to assist the work!

Within the Flanders family is a heartbeat for leading worship, so once again they had many opportunities for ministering musically at the orphanage. It goes without saying that there was a fair amount of soccer played and, with the help of our visiting ministry teams, opportunities for various other competitions and activities. This past year, we had the further opportunity to assist with our coffee roasting expertise by upgrading our coffee roasting partner’s equipment for more precise roasting.

Even though Twelve17 Coffee Roasters is primarily an ‘inreach’ ministry of Grace Church designed to bless our church Body, it has allowed our church to also have the amazing privilege of supplying some of the needs of the orphanage in Myanmar.

Furthermore, with Twelve17’s help and our church body’s gifts/donations we have distributed money to individuals in difficult or tragic situations in order to assist them temporarily with food and, in one case, recovery funds for a Burmese man who was undergoing extended medical recovery. Each year, we have had the joy of helping our Myanmar coffee roasting partner repair and upgrade his home-aid roasting machine which he uses for his small, family-run coffee roasting operation. All in all, the most rewarding part of all this is our ongoing relationship with kids and all those involved with the orphanage.