Myanmar Young Crusaders, a ministry partner with ANM, celebrated their 50th Anniversary in July. The ministry was started by David Yone Mo, a former drug addict and gang leader, after he was healed of hepatitis and saved in his hospital room.
When mainline churches refused to baptize and accept former drug addicts, motorcycle gang members, and alcoholics that David led to Jesus, he decided to start a new “Christian gang” in place of the Road Devils he had led before being saved. He called them the Myanmar Young Crusaders, MYC for short. They began meeting at his family’s compound to worship since they were not welcome in the churches in Rangoon.
Fifty years later, MYC is flourishing under the leadership of Sharon, David’s daughter, who took over the ministry when he died. David started six ministries under MYC, including a drug rehab program, a church planting ministry, a MYC band, a Bible School, a ministry to lepers, and an orphanage to help the lepers’ children. Sharon helped each of these six ministries flourish and added a seventh, helping the elderly in Myanmar.
I interviewed Oliver Asher, the President of Advancing Native Missions, about the Myanmar Young Crusaders 50th Anniversary celebration he attended. This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.
Sue: Why did you go to the celebration?
Oliver: In December of last year, I got a message from Sharon telling me about the 50th Golden Jubilee. She said she would love for me to come. It hit me in my heart right away, and I told Sharon, “I will seriously pray about that.” Sometimes, I get invitations that don’t resonate, but this one resonated right away. Early in 2024, I got back to her, saying, “I want to come to this celebration.”
It was such a special occasion celebrating fifty years of ministry in Myanmar. Myanmar is a hard place to do ministry; they have a military dictatorship, COVID has wiped out the country, and they have constant civil war. They’ve had all this opposition for a long time, yet we have this ministry going on all over the country. I mostly travel in the U.S. and try to really be strategic with international travel about once or twice a year.
Sue: You thought this was an important trip overseas?
Oliver: I thought this was a very strategic trip. It was because of love and respect for David, Sharon, and MYC, knowing that it was special for them to celebrate 50 years of ministry in a country where missionaries were kicked out in 1966. If the country was going to be reached, it would be reached by the indigenous Christians.
We wanted to go there and show them our support and say, “We’re with you in love, spirit, and prayer. You’re doing a great work.” All of us had the same heart to go there. We all were very excited and very enthusiastic about going.
Sue: Who went with you to the celebration in Myanmar?
Oliver: The team was led by Anju Misra, our Southeast Asia Regional Director( Myanmar is one of the countries that she oversees); Krista Darcus, our VP for International, and Eric Vess. He’s been to MYC 30-plus times. They call him Uncle. He’s part of the MYC family. It was a good team. Anju did an excellent job at leading us. Everything was well organized, and we had no problems along the way.
Sue: Why was MYC celebrating its anniversary?
Oliver: It was all about God’s faithfulness. There was a spirit of joy, love, peace, and celebration of all God has done. They [MYC] have planted hundreds of churches around the nation. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of drug addicts who went through the rehab program. Hundreds and thousands of orphans were raised. That’s why we were there to celebrate all that God had done during these 50 years. That’s why they were celebrating.
Sue: Can you share how they celebrated the event?
Oliver: It was in a huge hotel conference room. There were seats for a thousand people filled up and packed out. We arrived at nine in the morning and didn’t leave until eight at night. We took one break for lunch and, at the end, had dinner. Otherwise, we were in the conference room. It was all decked out with beautiful colors, and everyone from Myanmar was wearing their national attire.
Everybody in their ministry sings, plays instruments, or dances. It was just one musical number after number from preschool up through high school, and adults the whole day singing and praising the Lord.
In between, they would have speakers, and all of us [from ANM] spoke at one point or another. We were all part of the program. It was a huge, beautiful family affair. It was spectacular.
We were shocked as it was in Yangon. How did they pull this off without the government coming in and closing it down? To have a whole day glorifying God and Jesus and proclaiming the Gospel was beautiful. I’ve never been to anything like it in all my years of ministry. They know how to celebrate.
Sue: What was the highlight of the celebration?
Oliver: The highlight was David Yone Moe sharing via AI. [David has been dead since 2004.] That was kind of weird, surreal, crazy. I had known David for several years, and it sounded like his actual voice. Kathleen, Sharon’s daughter and David’s granddaughter, is the one who produced that. Everybody said, “Wow, we just got a visit from David.”
Sue: What impacted you about the celebration?
Oliver: What impacted me about the celebration was the exuberance, the joy, the size, being much joy, and be talking about the faithfulness of God, the whole time. That impacted all of us. We were singing, clapping, and praising God the entire day. That’s what made it really special.
Sue: How did you feel during the celebration?
Oliver: I felt very joyful, and I entered into the spirit of it. It was a blessed day. We were mostly sitting, standing, watching, and praising the Lord. You could tell everybody who got up was just so filled with the spirit of God. Every one of them was giving glory to God.
Sue: What did you see God do during the celebration?
Oliver: Obviously, seeing the work validated what we [ANM] do as well. MYC is one of the 250-plus ministries that we serve. Seeing the kingdom success they’ve had in Myanmar was a joy to my heart. It makes what we’re doing here at ANM worth it.
This is the fruit of our labor, and that was very important. It kindles that fire in you to continue to do what you do and do it with even more passion. When you see the fruit, you realize all
these people who know Jesus, love Jesus, and are following Jesus, we’ve helped them. That was huge and had a big impact.
Sue: What is next for MYC?
Oliver: It’s kind of interesting. Sharon came to us the day we left and asked us to pray. She said some authorities had come by and said they were going to close down the Bible school and the drug rehab center, which are very connected because one leads to the other. They had this huge celebration of God’s faithfulness over 50 years, and then the enemy attacked within several days.
The authorities said that some students were from Kachin State, which is at odds with the government. They were concerned that MYC was bringing in these “rebels” to cause trouble. But praise God, from what we’ve heard, MYC has been able to work it out with the government to keep both of them open.
Sue: Are you hopeful about Myanmar Young Crusaders in a country where Christians are persecuted and there is constant war and violence?
Oliver: I felt like there was such momentum coming out of the celebration. I feel like that’s part of the reason that Satan attacked them so quickly: because they had this huge celebration.
God has blessed MYC in just miraculous ways. All these miracles He’s done all these years, blessing orphans, widows, lepers, and all the least of these. I just felt like the momentum coming out of the celebration was going to take them (MYC) to the next level, whatever that is. I think they will continue to expand and grow even beyond where they are now.
Sue: Thank you, Oliver, for giving us a beautiful picture of the 50th Anniversary Celebration. Hearing what God has done through MYC over the past 50 years is exciting. We look forward to hearing what MYC will accomplish for the Lord in the next 50 years as they partner with Advancing Native Missions.
