Sunday Feb 17--Mae Sot and Mae La

After a relatively uneventful--although occasionally frighteningly exciting--6 hour van ride over the mountains and into Mae Sot yesterday, we arrived at the offices of the Karen Refugee Committee by about 2:30p or so. We met with Rev. Robert Htway (and I don't think I'm spelling that correctly), general secretary of the Karen Baptist Convention and the chairperson of the KRC, and several of the other staff. We were given an excellent overview of the Karen people's history and an idea of some of the work that the KRC does now. The KRC serves to make sure there is enough food and supplies in the refugee camps, as well as helping those who have chosen to resettle to work their way through the process.

The KRC helped clarify the situation for us. There are about 40,000 registered refugees living in the camps--so all the food and supply rations allowed by the Thai government are based on that number. However, the Thai government has declared that there "are no new refugees", despite the fact that new refugees continue to arrive. Many of these "new" refugees have been living in the camps for several years. So the numbers are actually swelling well beyond the 40,000 registered residents and food rations and supplies can't keep up. The KRC, therefore, needs to work "under the table" with local authorities to get enough food in to meet the need. It is complicated, and often costly, work.

The KRC also works with the IDPs, or "internally displaced persons"--those refugees who are still in the country of Burma, having been forced out of their villages, and are now constantly on the run and hiding from the Burmese army. The KRC sets up mobile schools and medical clinics to assist the IDPs, hiking 6 hours over the mountainous border between Thailand and Burma with the supplies necessary on their back. They have to be ready to pack up the schools and clinics on literally a moment's notice--as soon as someone sights the army in the area, they pack up and move to find another hiding place.

I was also struck by the maps of the refugee camps which were hanging on the wall in the office. Particularly looking at Mae La's map--the camp is several times larger than the town I grew up in and rivals the city I live in now. At 50,000 residents, Mae La is indeed a small city, with something like 23 different elementary schools, and several middle schools and high schools. I had to chuckle when I realized we often speak of collecting school supplies for "the school" in the refugee camp. We should more accurately refer to it as "the school district".

There are also many churches of many faiths. Our group is dividing into four this morning to attend three Karen worship services and one Kachin service. The Kachin also have a long and deep Baptist history, also dating back to Adoniram Judson. They are not as highly represented in the refugee population as the Karen because the Kachin state reached a cease fire agreement with the Burmese Army years ago. Kachin state is now basically an occupied territory--although they are not actually at war with the Burmese Army in the same ways the Karen are, they still have a massive military presence, poverty, and discrimination. Still living with the effects of the oppressive regime, there is little hope for advancement or improvement in their lives, so some are moving on to refugee camps and hopefully resettlement in other countries. I have personal ties to the Kachin community because my father and I spent a week in the Kachin state in 1998 teaching conflict resolution to Kachin Baptist teachers to use in their classrooms, and the woman that I work closely with in my home church in our refugee resettlement efforts is also Kachin. She has given me the names of some of her relatives living in the Mae La camp--I look forward to meeting them today.

I will be joining with the Kachin in worship, along with Angela Sudermann of International Ministries (who also has some personal connection with the Kachin community), Sharon Porterfield, an independent missionary who has served the Karen for 23 years and would like to get to know the Kachin better, and Allen Williams, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's area director for Asia, based in Chiang Mai. Sharon and Allen have joined us for this portion of our trip. It's good to get to know our partners in ministry!

Each of the church groups will then have lunch with the church communities with whom they worshiped, and then we'll join back up together at some point in the afternoon and possibly visit the Bible school on the refugee campus. This part of the plan is a bit "loosey-goosey" as time is interpreted a bit differently in the Karen culture as it is in the western culture. We'll meet up whenever we manage to meet up!

Being able to worship with our Christian sisters and brothers here in the camps is an extremely moving experience for all of us--we have all discussed how this already feels like the highlight of our trip. I hope, if you read this before you head off to church on YOUR Sunday morning (which happens 12 hours after my Sunday morning does), that you will remember us while you're worshiping and lift a prayer for the Karen, Kachin, Chin, and other ethnic groups from Burma who are forced from their homes into hiding or into refugee camps, who struggle with feeling as if there is little future for them or their people, who face discrimination on all fronts, who get caught up in chains of paperwork that seem neverending, and who simply want to have a home and be able to raise a family in safety and security. May God be with them all.