FOCUS: The Window to Myanmar

The time is now. The country is Myanmar. The “you” is Asia Pacific Media. And the general consensus of Burmese local church pastors is that their nation is open for the positive effect media can have on their culture. “It is an unusual moment for us in that we’re basically starting at square one,” says Bill. “The secular media in Myanmar is of poor quality. What we’re producing at this point will be as good as anything that is in the country. That’s an amazing position for the church to be in.”But this openness is a new openness. “Primarily, what we are doing with the church, is helping them understand what media can do for them. It’s starting from very little understanding because they never could do it before,” Bill says. From the early 1960s until 2012, Myanmar was under a military dictatorship that controlled every aspect of the people’s lives.  In 2012, Myanmar changed and opportunity expanded when a new a new leader was put in position, and he began to open the country to some forms of democracy. “During my first visit to Myanmar, in the mid-1990s, I discovered that there was one television station for the whole nation, government controlled, and there were two radio stations for the whole nation, government controlled. The communications media center was behind high walls with barbed wire fences, and military was positioned at the gates to the communications center,” Bill Snider, director of APMedia, says. Phone calls—if a person could even use the phone—would cost as much as $8 per minute. “When I arrived again in Myanmar, in early 2013, I was shocked to see that the television in my hotel room had cable,” Bill says. And in this country where, just recently, using the word internet would have put a person under the scrutiny of public security, internet cafes were up and running. Responding to the need, APMedia is laying a foundation for people to be reached in Myanmar through media, and Bill says it begins with multiplication through training. Click here to partner with us. This month we are focusing on Myanmar to raise $4,800 to help launch a media team associated with our national church. This will allow us to assist in funding basic equipment and a staff person we will train and mentor in video for the balance of 2014.   Click here to journey with us. If you would like to contribute to this fill in project number (#63) or you can simply say, "for the ministry costs of APMedia" (#40) For the full article go to p. 4 of the current May/June issue of Mission magazine at  http://www.apmedia.org/new/impact/#stories WATCH Focus: Myanmar IMPACT VIDEO —HEATHER VAN ALLEN, APMEDIA