Ministry Happenings:
* Supervising a Bible college.
* Supervising a Missionary Training Institute.
* Supervising Bible translation. The whole Bible was translated into Falam Chin Language, and Timothy is now supervising the translation work into seven different languages.
* Biblical Literature Ministry: Writing books in Burmese and Chin language and translating books into Burmese and Chin language.
* Hope Children’s Home
* Initiating a private English medium school since August 2022.
* Supervising church planting movements.
* Leading soul-winning outreach.
* Leading missionary conferences and discipleship trainings.
* Supervising relief aid work for the persecuted Christians who are in the wilderness due to the civil war.
Projects:
* 6250-912-Children of Promise Project
* 6250-913-Hope International School of Myanmar
* 6250-940-Myanmar Children of Promise Home
* 6250-950-Children of Promise Operating Account
* 6250-969-Children of Promise Building and Training Fund
* 6471-902-Church Planters’ Development Fund
Who Is Timothy?
Timothy Lian Sui was born on May 8, 1964 at a small village called Ngan Zawl which had about 50 families.
All of them did go to the church on Sunday as Sunday was traditionally considered as Sabbath. His parents recognized themselves as Christians. His mother used to tell him Bible stories from Genesis to Revelation, and taught him that the way to heaven was to please God by keeping the Ten Commandments strictly. He must be a good person!
Timothy used to attend Sunday school where he was also taught about Bible stories and that salvation could only be attained by good deeds. They had a pastor and twelve church deacons, all of whom preached and taught the same thing. Although the whole villagers considered themselves Christian, they did not have assurance of salvation in their lives. They were nominal Christians.
Timothy Lian Sui did not have assurance of salvation either as we thought that the way to heaven was by doing good deeds. When he was 11 years old, his mother passed away unexpectedly. His two younger brothers were 4 years old and 2 years old. Life then was extremely challenging.
In 1975, a small revival broke out among nominal Falam Chin Christians. Some young people were saved. One of them, called Paul, went to India and joined a good Biblical Baptist College. After four years, he returned to his homeland and started preaching the true gospel. In May 1979, he came to Timothy’s village and conducted an evangelistic meeting for two days. Timothy listened to his preaching and teachings attentively since he was desperate for salvation. He heard from the preacher that in order to get salvation, all he had to do was to believe that Jesus Christ has already paid the penalty of my sin and accept Him as his personal Savior. The Holy Spirit opened Timothy’s spiritual eyes as he came to see the truth and trusted on the finished work of Jesus Christ for his salvation. What a day! He had assurance of salvation in his inner life. He was overjoyed for the great salvation that he received freely. Tears came down on his face with an unspeakable joy.
Timothy’s Education
Timothy studied from Bachelor degrees to Doctorate degrees at 11 different Bible Schools such as Fundamental Baptist College, Bharat Bible College – India, Northwest Baptist Seminary India Extension, Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary Asia Extension, Haggai Institute –Singapore, Gulf Coast Bible Institute and Seminary, Great Plains Baptist Divinity School, Belfast Bible College, Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary, Anchor Theological Seminary, and Bethany Bible College and Seminary.
Myanmar Church History
The churches of America sent lots of missionaries to different parts of the world. An American young man, called Adoniram Judson, accepted the gospel and received a calling from God to shed the light of the gospel in Southeast Asia. He became the first overseas American missionary with his dear wife, Ann Hasseltine. They left their luxurious home country and arrived in Myanmar with the gospel of Jesus Christ on July 13, 1813.
They had made a firm decision to serve Christ as elucidated by his words,“I will not leave Myanmar until the cross is planted here forever.”
Judson and Ann immediately learned the Myanmar language. Initially, they focused on the Myanmar people who were the majority of the country. After seven years, one person accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ. After seven years, he also turned to Karen tribe who were receptive and they became born again believers.
Judson baptized many Karen believers. Later on, more American Baptist missionaries came and helped him to plant and nurture Myanmar churches. Judson translated the Holy Bible from the original languages into Myanmar, and new believers could read the Bible! Moreover, he wrote gospel tracts which were a useful tool in sharing the Gospel. During his time, the churches in Myanmar were conservative and biblical which lasted about five decades.
However, after the American Baptist Union was split as Northern Baptist Convention and Southern Baptist Convention, Myanmar mission was taken by the Northern Baptist Convention. More Baptist missionaries from Northern Baptist Convention came to Myanmar and introduced the idea of liberalism. The Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT) which was started by the American Baptist became the main teaching center of liberal theology. Students from different parts of Myanmar and different denominations went to MIT. In that way, Myanmar churches were influenced by liberalism. The biggest denomination in Myanmar has been the Myanmar Baptist Convention. Under this nationwide convention, there are smaller Baptist conventions based on ethnic groups. Each convention has a Bible College, operated under Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT), which is associated with Myanmar Baptist Convention. Even Methodist churches and Presbyterian churches were influenced by MIT and Myanmar Baptist Convention. It is believed that most of the professors and lecturers themselves in Bible Schools were not born again, so are their students, which was the consequence of the teaching of liberal theology.
The churches in Myanmar were progressively beginning to die owing to the lack of gospel preaching.
There was lack of gospel message in Myanmar churches. Even the pastors were not born again, but still taught their congregation to live by the Ten Commandments to go to heaven. There were many churches among the tribal people such as Kachin, Karen, Mon, Kaya and Chin, but those churches had no gospel message.
Chin State has been known as a Christian state. Missionaries from Northern Baptist Convention came to Chin state, some of whom died and were buried there. The Chin people were animism and headhunters before the gospel was brought to them. The first converts were true born-again Christians. However, shortly afterwards, most of the Chin people became nominal Christians.
Ministry Experience
After his new life in Christ, he started praying for his two younger brothers and his father and step mother wholeheartedly for their salvation.
God answered his prayers. All of them became born-again Christians. Ever since his assurance of salvation, the only thing that he wanted to do was to serve the Lord for the rest of his life. Whenever he prayed, he asked God to use him. During that time, there was no Bible or Christian books to read in his own language. He used to pray, “Lord, help me to read Myanmar Bible and English Bible so that I might know you more, and I might preach your Words.” Immediately, after finishing his high school in May 1981, he joined the evangelistic team of the Fundamental Baptist Churches of Myanmar.
They visited village to village and preached the gospel.
Many people rejected true gospel preachers as they were perceived as false prophets. When one village rejected them, they moved to another village, which was how Timothy spent his time two and half years as an itinerant evangelist. He visited 153 villages on foot within two and half years. As he did not have proper Bible training, his Bible knowledge was incompetent. Nonetheless, he was certain about the way to get salvation, and thus, persistently he shared the gospel to people. When he witnessed and people accepted the true gospel through his preaching and teaching, He was filled with tremendous joy. Initially, he was unsure of how people could get saved through his imperfect preaching ability. He thanks God that He still used his messages for His kingdom, motivating him to serve more.
In 1983, Timothy was appointed to be a pastor for a small Baptist church at Sekan village. He had to preach every meeting and felt that his Bible knowledge was not enough for pastoral ministry. Timothy prayed to God for an opportunity to go to a Bible College. After four years in the ministry, he joined the Fundamental Baptist Bible College and studied there for two years. In1986, with a few friends, they started the Revival Baptist Churches of Myanmar.
After two years of involvement in this church planting movement in Chin State, Timothy went to India to study Bible and theology at Bharat Bible College and Northwest Baptist Seminary India Extension, and received his Bachelor and Master degrees there.
Timothy returned his home country and continued his ministry as a pastor in the Revival Baptist Churches of Myanmar. While working as a pastor, he started Mobile Missionary Training Institute in vernacular for six years. There were 89 students in total who graduated. However, he realized that there was no way for the graduated students to grow afterwards since there was no Bible or Christian books in Falam Chin language. People who can read Myanmar read Judson’s Myanmar Bible, while Mizo people have the Mizo Bible. Therefore, he thought that it was about time to start a Bible College in English because of good theology books, commentaries and devotional books that are mostly available in English. He started Biblical School of Theology (BST) on July 4,1996 with his two brothers and two other friends. In the first year, they had 36 students. They enjoyed teaching the Bible and theology to young people and had more students enrolling year by year. The Revival Baptist Churches of Myanmar also started to grow. More than 90 churches in Chin State exist today.
With the hope that their students might have a burden and vision for unreached people groups, they relocated their Bible College to Pyin-O-Lwin town, a central part of Myanmar. In September 2000, their Bible College was shut down by the military dictatorship, who was Anti-Christian. After much prayers, they left Pyin-O-Lwin for Aye Thar Yar town in Shan State and rented two houses. Just after one month, the military dictatorship of Shan State also forced them to shut down their classes again. Similarly, they had to let their students go home. Timothy did not give up, and he brought the Bible College to a local city in November 2002.
In a local city, the military dictatorship attempted to close down their meeting place eight times. Whenever they closed down one place, they moved to another place. They preached and taught the Word secretly and persistently. They were, in fact, running an underground Bible School and churches in a local city because of these circumstances. The Lord allowed them to go through all sort of difficulties and persecutions. The more they face persecutions and difficulties, the more they prayed, and the outcome was God’s mighty works. Finally, the Lord provided them a property where they could have a proper building to teach and preach the Word freely (though this is still unofficial).
By God’s grace, this Academic year 2022-2023, they have students from 27 ethnic groups. The total number of students are 157. Their vision is to bring young people from different ethnic backgrounds, train them to have sound doctrine and mission mindedness, and send them back to their places to do ministry. There are a total of 734 alumni who are now in different districts, 96% of whom are currently involved in the ministry. Other than Bible College, they also formed a Biblical Faith Mission which became Myanmar Venture under which there are 64 church planters, plus 30 Christian workers. They have planted 79 mission churches among the unreached people groups in 13 States.
