Naing Naing Kyow (pronounced ‘Nigh Nigh Joe’) is a groundbreaker. A pioneer. The future. He is the first Deaf man in Myanmar to ever study theology and graduate as a Christian pastor.
I first meet Kyow at DMI’s church for the Deaf in Yangon where he leads a congregation of 50 or so who have gathered. The church has worship leaders, Bible readers, communion servers and a preacher. It is just like any other Christian church – only everything is signed.
The church is alive. The members worship passionately, they watch hands attentively, pray diligently, fellowship joyfully and share a meal enthusiastically. About a fifth of the church are Buddhists. They are welcome here as the church serves as a cultural centre for the Deaf in Yangon. Every week they come to meet with other Deaf, to embrace community and to ‘hear’ the Word of God preached without compromise. Kyow knows how to preach to Buddhists. He was once one of them.
Kyow’s success belies a harsh past. He was the eldest of four children, the only one deaf. He remembers his family members and neighbours and friends all talking and him never knowing what was going on. He felt ostracised. This feeling was not eased by his parents’ profound disappointment with his deafness, or by sitting at home all alone and watching the other kids all go off to school. He simply couldn’t understand why he wasn’t able to go with them.
When he was 5, his parents were pleased to find a school for the Deaf and this enabled him to start communicating with the other Deaf at the school. It didn’t, however, do much for his communication with his siblings and neighbours who began to mercilessly tease him for making funny noises. The school tried to help with this by emphasising an oral approach to communication, but Kyow found this unhelpful for communication and intimidating. The teachers would pull his hair whenever he mispronounced a word. They’d put onto paper butterfly wings which would blow off if he got the fricatives right, but lead to a scolding if they remained in place. At the age of 10, Kyow chose to give up on speech. He excelled in sign and with it, felt much more comfortable with who he was.
Kyow is very smart. His name – Kyow – actually means ‘smart’. Upon graduation, he found work at the school as a secretary and, being a Christian school, he began to attend church. Though he became active in church life, he wasn’t interested in converting to Christianity because he wasn’t convinced it was any better than Buddhism, Islam or Hinduism.
He studied.
He looked intently into the major religions. The Buddhist statues were clearly lifeless and Islam and Hinduism held nothing for him. Gradually, by reading the Bible he became convinced that Jesus was the only way. Christian preaching led him to decide to follow Jesus but there remained a final obstacle: he was terrified that his Buddhist family would excommunicate him.
That’s when he met Neville.
Neville told him that if he really wanted to follow Jesus, he needed to obey Jesus and trust Him with these family concerns. Kyow thought about this and said ‘No’. But he never forgot what Neville had said. It was a couple of years later when Kyow worked up the courage to tell his father he wanted to be baptised into the Christian faith. His father calmly told him that he was old enough to make his own decisions. Kyow couldn’t believe it! So in the baptistry of an old Baptist church, Neville immersed Kyow.
With that, an overriding sense of peace consumed him, changed him. A peace that he had never known before. Being in Christ opened a new life to him that brought an assurance, comfort, and peace which made him a different person. And knowing that one day he would go to heaven to be with Jesus filled his heart with joy. Armed with this knowledge and experience, Kyow entered and graduated from seminary – the first Deaf man in Myanmar to do so – and became the pastor of DMI’s church for the Deaf in Yangon, this church with worship leaders, Bible readers, communion servers and a preacher, this church that is alive.
Today Yangon – and the church – is a different place. The coup de’tat in February 2021 effectively destroyed the country. Kyow says the violence, deaths, insecurity and fear that continue to this day have changed everything. People can’t work. Schools are closed. Churches are silenced. People do whatever they can to get by. COVID has only compounded the hardship. It’s such a tragedy. He says the return to normal life will take a long time. He sees no normal life for Myanmar in the future.
I see something different.
A few weeks after our interview, our school in Kalay has reopened. The church is meeting again. The gospel is being preached again. And just last week, one of those Buddhist congregants gave their life to Jesus. Myanmar remains a violent mess. It needs a new order and it needs our prayers. But God is bigger than Myanmar’s mess and Naing Naing Kyow is bringing God’s order to a hurting people.
If you would like to support Naing Naing Kyow and our ministry in Myanmar, please give here: https://deafmin.org/donate/
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