I learnt many lessons in Sri Lanka last week. It was the first time Nancy and I had visited the country. What wonderful Christians we met there; generous, warm and incredibly sacrificial. We ministered to pastors, both Tamils and Singhalese, who had gathered for a retreat from all over the country. As we drove into the retreat centre a short distance from the airport, a brass band from the orphanage greeted us! What a joy it was. The people were spiritually hungry and the pastors responsive, but we came away deeply moved that many of them had worked very hard in the harvest field in a land that had seen decades of civil war. Most of their churches were not large nor were they well off, but God was at work through miracles and conversions.

The recent general election in January had brought about an unexpected change in government. The old government that had ended the war six years ago had become ministers broke rank and became the rallying person for the fragmented opposition over time, corrupt, brash and increasingly intolerant. Then last year, one of its was clear that he had won by a majority, there were whispers of an attempt to grab power by the old president which would have sent the country back to unrest again. The Christians prayed and chaos was averted at the last minute.

I learnt from my host Dr. Lalith Mendis, a top medical doctor turned pastor, and his lawyer-turned-pastor wife, Hiranthi, that the key to redemption of the nations is governing prayer that takes spiritual authority over the land. He and his wife have such servant hearts for those in high places and to the poor. They have prayed and long ago. In Colombo, as we navigated the crazy traffic each day, through narrow sown their lives in Sri Lanka when they could have migrated to America or Europe streets with smelly drains and rundown buildings, I became aware this was a nation in transition. It was being redeemed after years of violence, corruption and oppression. My hopes for Malaysia rose again. Despite what is happening, let us not despair. We are called to redeem the nation, to return to governing the prayer and to serve the high and the low.

2015 YEAR OF ABUNDANT GRACE
Ps Dr Philip Lyn