Follow the team during our March trip!
By Chuck Cherry
Our new site allows us to have blog posts, so I thought it would be fun to try it out by posting regular updates about our March trip to Yangon, Kalay, and Tamu. If you want to follow our progress and watch how God is working among the people, this is the site for you!
Since this is the first post in the series, I should introduce the March team and share some of what we plan to do during this trip. We are blessed to be joined on this trip by Adam and Annie Hamerlinck, Katy Palmer, Sunny Dahlquist, and Thad Kaylor!
Team Members
Adam & Annie Hamerlinck
Annie visited Myanmar in 2014 with her father, Robin Pickett, and sister, Maggie (Pickett) Wiant. At that time Annie was a single young lady, but now she is married to Adam. One of our fondest memories of Annie from the 2014 trip was how much she loved all the children she interacted with in Myanmar, and how she loved to hand out candy! And none of us can forget when she danced the traditional Kuki dance with Jang Boi at the convention that year. Adam & Annie currently sponsor a student at Hope Boarding School, Miss La Lam. We are all excited for them to meet their sponsored student, and we know that La Lam is looking forward to meeting them as well.
We don’t really know Adam yet, so we are looking forward to getting better acquainted! But Annie vouches for him, and that’s good enough for us. :-) We met Adam once when he and Annie were dating and they visited us in our home in Chatham, Illinois. They then married and moved to Florida, where Adam served as a youth pastor. Later they moved back to central Illinois, and now he is the Executive Pastor at Mason City Christian Church. We have also heard a rumor that Adam is gifted in performing sleight-of-hand tricks and illusions, and we hope to see some of his craftiness on display at our convention! We look forward to getting to know Adam better, and we know our friends in Myanmar will love him.
Chuck and MaryAnn Cherry
My wife, MaryAnn, and I will be leading the team. This is MaryAnn’s thirteenth visit and my eleventh visit. She’s lucky because she gets to go more often than I do! I work a full-time job in addition to my work with MyHope, so sometimes when she goes I have to stay home and pay bills (yuck). Seriously, though, I am very blessed to have a good paying job so that we can do what we do with MyHope.
Katy Palmer, ARNP
Katy is our lovely daughter-in-love, married to our son, Luke Palmer. Katy and Luke live in Orting, Washington. Katy is a Nurse Practitioner working at Sound Family Medicine in Puyallup, Washington. She is a beautiful person in every way, and we are so happy she is joining us on this trip! You can read more about Katy’s background in nursing at the Sound Family Medicine website.
Sunny Dahlquist
Sunny is a great friend of ours from Springfield, Illinois, and this is her second time to travel to Myanmar with us. We are so happy and thankful she can come with us again! We met Sunny when she and her late, great husband Carl were camp administrators at Lake Springfield Christian Assembly Camp, and they hosted Palal, Kikim, and Solomon Khongsai as camp missionaries in 2009. Carl and Sunny fell in love with the Khongsais, and we fell in love with the Dahlquists! Carl has since gone on to be with the Lord, and Sunny, a retired nurse and missionary in her own right, is now the Missions Coordinator at Lakeside Christian Church in Springfield, Illinois.
Thad Kaylor
What can I say about Thad? Well, he is a long-time friend, a great Christian brother, an over-the-road long-haul trucker and business owner (Mid America Transport, LLC), an old farm boy from central Illinois, and he has a heart of gold! Thad is married to an exceptional woman, Sergeant First Class Kathy Kaylor (retired). Thad and Kathy live in Chatham, Illinois. This will be Thad’s first time in Myanmar, and we are really excited that he is coming with us. We know he will be a great blessing to all the folks, and we think he’s going to be blessed in return. He’s been a great supporter of our East/West Garden Farm, and we know he’s really looking forward to visiting there.
The Purpose of our Trip
One of the main items on our agenda in March will be the 8th Kuki Christian Convention, which will be held at Namihan Christian Church, Tamu District, Myanmar. Of course, before and after the convention we will be spending time with the kids at Hope Boarding School in Yangon. On the way up to Tamu we will be stopping for visits at the New Hope Prison Outreach, the East/West Garden Farm, and probably a few of our local churches.
Once in Tamu we will spend some time with the beautiful ladies at the New Pathway Home and have a look at the new construction of the second floor. If the second floor is close enough to being finished, we might even be able to hold the dedication ceremony. We will also visit the kids and teachers at Hope Preschool, and maybe have a chance to speak with the students at Hope Theological Seminary.
It will be a busy time, for sure!
2020 Kuki Christian Convention
In early March, hundreds of Christians from many different denominations will come together for their bi-annual Kuki Christian Conference. It will again be held at Namihan Christian Church this year. We hope that around 2,000 Christians will be able to attend the weekend conference this year, which will be our greatest attendance yet.
When we began holding these conferences in 2010, it was the first time in many decades that Christians in that area of the country were able to gather in groups larger than a dozen or so. Legally, the limit had been five people at one time, but in many of the more rural areas some groups held secret meetings that were larger. But these were rare, as the military dictatorship harshly enforced their anti-Christian rules.
1st Kuki Christian Convention in 2010
So in 2010, when we held the First Kuki Christian Convention in Kalaymyo, on the grounds of the Tahan Theological Seminary, and over 250 people attended from several different denominations (about thirteen if I remember correctly), it was such a wonderful blessing and a truly historic event for the Kuki people! Each year after that we held another convention, and each time more and more people were able to attend. Finally, the conventions were getting large enough that the leadership decided to hold them every other year, as they take so much time for planning and cost so much money to hold.
People come from all over the area, some traveling for several days to arrive. Food is provided for all, since most of the people attending are very poor and could not afford to come if we charged for attendance. That means dinner Friday evening, three meals on Saturday, and three meals on Sunday. Plus, we have to feed the many people who arrive a week or two early to get everything arranged, the outdoor structure set up, the choirs to practice, and so forth.
Needless to say, it costs a lot of money to feed that many people! We are so thankful for the support we have received from individual donors and some supporting churches in America who have largely underwritten the costs for this very important gathering.
This convention is so important for so many reasons. First, it is one of the only times that Christians from many different denominations can come together for worship and fellowship as simply Christians. They sing their own songs in the their own language, they dance their traditional dances, they enjoy special music, biblical teaching and preaching, and more. It is an important time of Christian unity, something which is not common in Myanmar.
Stay tuned…
Stay tuned to this blog for more updates. I can’t guarantee that there will be a new post every day, but I will try to keep it updated regularly, at least once we get going on the trip.
We really covet your prayers, they mean so much to us. If you would like a downloadable prayer calendar to help guide your prayers for our team, you can get it on this page: Documents
Thank you and God bless you!