Ee and her sister, Kay Kay, live in Myanmar [MEE-ehn-mahr], also called Burma. [Locate Myanmar on a map.] Ee was only 4 when her father left the family. Mother couldn’t find work to support Ee and Kay Kay, so she had to travel to a far country to work.

Ee and Kay Kay cried when their mother left, but they knew that it had to be. Ee went to live with one of her aunts, and Kay Kay went to live with a pastor so she could study at the Adventist school in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar.

The Sad Sisters

Ee loved her aunt, but she missed her sister and cried often for her. The girls saw each other just once a month. During their short visits they would hug and cry and talk and talk and talk! Ee wished she could live with her sister. She wished she could attend Sabbath School with her and learn more about the living God.

When Ee finished preschool, the pastor who cared for Kay Kay invited Ee to live with his family so she could attend the Adventist school with her sister. Ee’s aunt loved her, but she knew that the sisters needed to be together. So she allowed Ee to go live with the pastor.

“I was so happy!” Ee said. “I quickly packed my few clothes and hurried to meet Kay Kay.”

Noisy New Home

Ee’s aunt didn’t have any children, and the house was quiet. But the pastor and his wife had lots of children! Some were their own, and others were like Ee and her sister—children who stayed with the pastor’s family because they wanted to go the Adventist school.

Having that many children in one home can get mighty noisy, especially when everyone is playing. But when it is time for worship, the children gather quickly to pray and sing songs about Jesus. The boys sometimes tease Ee because she’s the youngest child, but the grown-ups step in and make the teasing stop, and then everyone is friends again.

The Crowded School

When school started that year, Ee joined her sister at the Adventist seminary.

“I love my school!” Ee says. “The teachers are kind to us, and they help us with our studies. Half our classes are in English, and half are in Burmese. It’s hard learning a new language, but the teachers want us to succeed, and they help us learn. And when we get it right, they praise us.

“I like Bible class the best! We learn to sing songs about Jesus, and the teacher tells us Bible stories. These stories teach me how to be an obedient girl and a good example to others.”

Ee’s school is very crowded. Some classes have 40 or even 50 students each. They can’t divide the classes, because there aren’t any more classrooms in the school. But the children behave well because they want to please their teachers. And if someone misbehaves when the teacher is out of the room, the class monitor writes their name down. When the teacher comes back into the room, she talks to those children.

Learning to Share God’s Love

“I’ve been studying at the Adventist school for three years, and I’m still learning about Jesus. I want to know more so I can tell others about God’s love,” Ee says. “Sometimes I sing a song about Jesus to my friends who live nearby. But they don’t know who Jesus is. That makes me sad.”

Many of the 450 children at Yangon Adventist Seminary come from homes that don’t know Jesus. The school is a wonderful place to teach them about God’s love for them. Every year many children studying at the Adventist school in Yangon give their hearts to Jesus. Children tell their parents what they’re learning, and sometimes the parents give their hearts to God, too.

Part of our Thirteenth Sabbath Offering this quarter will help to enlarge the school so that teachers can teach smaller classes and more children can have a chance to learn about God’s love.