The Kachin Post

November 21, 2003— Kachin Baptist community in Burma is going to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Rangoon Kachin Baptist Church on Sunday, marking the creation of the church in last 25 years ago, said a pastor form the church.

Rev. Zau Seng, deputy secretary general of the Rangoon Kachin Baptist Church division, said the Jubilee will take place day long celebration and over 2,500 people including 50 executive members and 500 delegates from Kachin Baptist churches form the whole Burma will join the day. “We reached a historic mark,” he said.

Less than a dozen of Kachin founded the Rangoon Kachin Baptist Church in a quarter century ago and today thousands members are here, said Rev. Zau Seng. Rangoon church division is one of 13 divisions under the Kachin Baptist Church (KBC) in Burma.

In the past days, Sunday service for the Kachin Baptist held at the Judson Church in Rangoon university campus before the new church building was not built. The new church building, situated in Rangoon’s Sanchaung Township, was commemorated by the KBC leaders and country’s secretary one Lt. General Khin Nyunt in 1998.

Rangoon Church authority said that the celebration doesn’t need to get permission from authority because it won’t draw too much public attention like KBC’s 34th convention in April 2002. The convening was expected to draw over one hundred thousand people. The military government banned to convene that convention and 125th anniversary of the arrival of the Baptist missionary, Ola Hansen, to the Kachin State.

Jubilee committee also invited several government officials for dinner service on Saturday night for this celebration.

According to the Rangoon church, over 1,200 Kachin Baptist in the capital come to Sunday service. There are over 300,000 Kachin Baptist in Burma.