Ten-year-old Mya did not wish to embarrass her parents at a funeral, but she would not bow to the idols. She felt she could not. Even when her mother beat her with a cane to force her to bow, Mya stood firm.
“Why? Why would she not bow down? Mya obeys me in everything, except this one thing,” Mya’s mother, Yon, lamented weeks later during a luncheon visit with her friend Susan Galvin.
Galvin, an International Mission Board (IMB) missionary to Bangladesh, knew why Mya would not bow. Mya and Galvin’s son David attend school together. Young David accepted Jesus as his Savior on Good Friday four years ago, and he immediately began sharing the gospel with Mya and other friends.
“I was dumbstruck as to what to say. If I told Yon about Mya’s decision and change of heart, then I would be bringing great risk to a tender 10-year-old girl,” Susan Galvin said. “But if I said nothing, I would lose a great opportunity to witness. So I kept quiet and let Yon go on and on about her daughter’s stubbornness and refusal to submit to their Buddhist ways.”
Bangladesh, a country slightly smaller than Iowa in land mass, rests between India and Myanmar and borders the Bay of Bengal. About 86 percent of its 146 million population is Muslim.
About 700,000 Buddhists call Bangladesh home. Many are tribal people. Some are immigrants from nearby countries. Nearly all practice a mix of Buddhism and animism or ancestral worship. Buddhism and Christianity together make up less than 1 percent of the country’s population, according to government census data.
Numbers mean little to David, but friends he values.
The day after David prayed in 2002 to receive Jesus as Savior, he helped his parents host an Easter party for his friends, including Mya and her brother. Six months later, David remained enthusiastic about making sure every one of his friends had an opportunity to hear about Jesus.
“He said he had been thinking about telling his friends about God since he was in preschool,” Galvin said. “Now that he was in first grade, he decided it was time to tell them. I said I would commit to pray for him in my morning devotions, that God would give him the right words at the right time for his friends. I began asking family and friends to pray with us about this.
“David shared with his Muslim and Buddhist friends their need to be Christians, so they could go to heaven.”
The IMB has about 360 adults serving in the seven countries that make up South Asia, but its missionary force is much larger when including their missionary kids (MKs) — about 80 in elementary grades and 50 youths.
“That’s what we want to see — MKs sharing what they believe with others around them, missionary kids becoming kid missionaries. How exciting!” said Gillian Laswell, MK education consultant for the IMB’s South Asia region.
The first year David made his commitment to share about Jesus with his friends, as a result of his influence and others, Mya asked Jesus into her heart.
“She was a bit secretive with it, however, since her parents are Buddhists,” Galvin said.
“There were times her brother, Min, would laugh at her for reading her Bible, but this didn’t seem to deter the shy, quiet Mya. The mother allowed Mya to go with us to church and AWANA. Since there are few other activities for children, Yon didn’t mind her children doing some of the Christian activities and coming to our Christian holiday parties. Mya was always happy to go.”
Four years later, Mya’s faith in God has been tested and proved true.
As Yon continued expressing her concerns during her luncheon visit with Galvin, she said: “My husband blames me because I have allowed Mya and Min to go to church and to AWANA, but they are too young to understand. They are too young to make a decision to become a Christian. Min is no problem; he has not been affected. But Mya is different. She is even acting like a Christian! What do you think?”
Now, because of her son’s witness to Mya, Galvin has had even greater opportunity to share about Jesus with Mya’s mother.
“At this point Yon became very quiet and thoughtful,” Galvin said. “It seemed that Yon had finally come to believe that Mya had made a change in her heart.”
Yon has not yet made a decision to follow Jesus as Savior, but her friendship with Galvin continues.
“Yon even calls to make sure we take the children to church with us, and we are carpooling for AWANA, too,” Galvin said. “I’m grateful they haven’t forbidden Mya to go but even seem to encourage it.”
Meanwhile David continues to live as a missionary kid whose life emphasizes “missionary” more than kid. “Who knows? Maybe the reason my husband, Burt, and I are here is so David can tell his friends about God,” Galvin said.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Names changed for security reasons. (BP)
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