Keeping their Faith: Zomi Baptist Church overcomes hardships, partners with Walnut Memorial for worship space

“At the time we started, there were four households — between 15 to 20 people,” he said. “It was hard at first because we had no money. We wanted to provide food and drink every Sunday. Everything was on my shoulders. It was a tough time.”

Sian, however, is no stranger to overcoming hardships.

In 2006, Sian was facing religious persecution from the Myanmar government that aligned itself with Buddhism.

He was forced to flee to Malaysia without his wife, Niang Ciang, who was three months pregnant with their first son. Sian spent two years in Malaysia before being allowed to enter the United States as a refugee.

“The army was going to kill me; that’s why I had to flee my country,” Sian said.

Sian said he worked as a sushi chef at chain grocery stores across the country as he built a life for his family, waiting for them to be approved to come to the United States as refugees.

It was six years before he reunited with his wife and son.

“Before I met my son in the Indianapolis airport, I had no photos or contact with him for six years,” Sian said. “…The taste was really bad. I don’t know how to express the feeling of never seeing your son.”

Although those years tested their faith, Sian said they never lost it.

“Before I left, I told my wife that I would be faithful to her and she would be faithful to me,” he said. “And that someday, God will bring us back together.”

In 2013, Sian and his wife moved to Owensboro and since then they have grown to a family of five.

Two years later, they started Zomi Baptist Church and within a year they outgrew the apartment. They began using a space at Matthew’s Table (formerly Buena Vista Baptist).

And then in August, the congregation moved to a new worship space at Walnut Memorial Baptist Church on Byers Avenue.

Brian Elliott, Walnut’s worship pastor, said the church has “always had a heart for working with believers of other cultures.”

And one of those ways is through its “Community in Arts” ministry, where they would take a trip to Clarkston, Georgia, and work with various cultures there.

But with the growing Burmese population in Owensboro, children from the refugee families have begun attending Walnut’s Awana program, which is a child and youth Christian ministry.

And when Walnut’s pastors were approached about allowing Zomi Baptist to use space there, Elliott said this was a chance to help fellow believers despite the language barrier.

“This has been a great opportunity for us to partner with the Zomi church,” Elliott said. “…It was brought to the pastors. So we began talking about it and praying about it for several weeks. After we prayed about it, we knew we wanted to do it. We just needed to make sure the logistics would work.”

The congregation, which has grown to around 75 people who all speak the Zomi dialect, hold their worship service at 1 p.m. on Sundays inside Walnut’s music practice room.

“It’s a lot easier now since we have a building to go to with space,” Sian said.

About a year ago, the church had also grown enough to pay Sian a full-time pastor salary. Until then, Sian worked at Specialty Foods Group LLC in Owensboro and he was a Lyft driver while pastoring the church.

“That was how I was trying to stand up the church because we didn’t have enough money,” he said. “…I had to work for the church and my family.”

And looking back at how far the church has come, Sian describes it as “a blessing from God.”

Sian said the goal is for Zomi Baptist to have its own church building within three to four years.

“Right now, my church people are the only ones who speak the Zomi language, so it will be hard to grow,” he said. “But I don’t want a huge church; a small church building is all we need.

“That’s what we pray for.”