(1955 – 2018)
Early Life
Claudius Brown was born in 1955, at the Adventist Mission Hospital, Rangoon (Yangon), Burma (Myanmar). His parents were Pastor Brown Kai and Daw Mae Ni. He has eight siblings: the eldest brother Pastor Cyrus Brown, a retired minister, lives in Myawaddy; the eldest sister Vinolia Pe, a minister’s wife, lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; his younger brother Darius Brown, a teaching evangelist who passed away in 1993 while serving the Lord at the Kaw-thoo-lay Adventist School; his younger sister Patricia Brown, the founder of Tawin Myanmar Education Learning Center, lives in Bangkok; other sisters, Christine Brown, Policy Service Specialist, works for Cincinnati Insurance Company, Lucky Star Brown, works for local nursing home and plays varieties roles, and the youngest sister Marida Gingras, PhD (nee Brown), works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Division of National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), live in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. The youngest brother Benjamin Brown, a Middle Year Program Facilitator (Maths) at Pan Asia International School, lives with his family in Bangkok. All his siblings are married and live with their families as faithful Adventist members.
Education and Marriage
He attended SDA Mission School at Myaungmya from 1963 to 1966 and finished primary education. In 1966 the school was nationalized and became known as No. 3, State Middle School, Myaungmya and he continued to study there until 1969 and passed grade Eight. When his father moved to serve the Yangon Central Church as the church pastor in 1970, he continued his high school education at State High School, Dagon (2) until 1972. He did not write the Matriculation examination because of the Sabbath problem and attended the Union Bible Seminary in 1972. He passed the DSLC Examination, India in March 1975 and finished his Ministerial Training Course in 1978, B.A. (Religion) in 1996 at Myanmar Union Adventist Seminary. He continued his further study at AIIAS, Philippines and finished his M.A. (Ed.) in 2004. He married Christabelle Gyi, a teacher at Yangon Adventist Seminary, in March, 1984 and has two sons: Christopher Kyi Min Soe, a College Instructor, lives in Bangkok and Columbus Brown, a College student, Yangon.
Ministry
He served as a pastoral evangelist in Yangon Attached District from 1978 to 1980 at three local churches, Twante, Bagoe and Kanbe where he introduced the pathfinder club. He continued serving the mission as an office secretary at the Myanmar Union Mission Headquarters from 1981 to 1984. After that he continued to serve Myanmar Union Adventist Seminary as a teacher from 1984 to 1990. He was appointed as the Principal of Yangon Adventist Seminary in 1991 and continued serving the Lord until 2002. After receiving M.A. (Ed.) degree in April 2004, he came back and served YAS from 2004 to 2006 as a teacher. He was appointed again to be YAS Principal from 2006 to 2013. While serving YAS, he arranged and produced Educational and Sabbath School Children songs (audio tapes) at AWR (Myanmar) studio. During his time, he supervised the upgrading of the wooden school structure to two-storey building in 2000. He assisted the Union Mission to propose the Thirteenth Sabbath Overflow project of constructing a new school building and it was blessed to receive funds from the GC, SSD and the Union Mission in 2015. By the grace of God the six-storey building construction has finished in 2017. After his ordination in January 2013, he was transferred to Ayeyarwady Mission as the Principal of Ayeyarwady Adventist Seminary from 2013 to 2015 where he has organized a wind instrument band. He supervised the extensions of the Boys’ and the Girls’ hostels with the generous donations of Elder P.D. Chun and his brother-in-law Mr. Martin Ro in their loving memories of their wives. He was appointed the Director of the Myanmar Union Education Department from 2015 to 2018.
Retirement
After forty years of service at the age of 63, he retired from active ministry in April 2018 and settled with his family in Kamayut township, Yangon, Myanmar (Burma). He continues to serve the Lord in some local churches with music ministry in educating and teaching children with different instruments and sharing God’s messages and blessings to the people who are longing to hear the message.
