Feb 18--Monday

Yesterday was a day I'm still processing and probably will be for quite a while. In some ways, the camp was everything I expected, in other ways, it was nothing I expected. I had seen Duane's photos of the camps on his website so I did have a particular image in my head, but it is true that when you have the sights, sounds, smells, and touches all together it makes quite a different experience.

Angela, Allen and myself were the first to get dropped off as the Kachin church was the first we reached. (Sharon ended up going to a Karen worship instead.) To be more accurate, the van pulled over to the side of the road and several of the Kachin men had waited at the gate to meet us. They then led us on a short five-minute walk (beginning down quite a steep hill) to get to the church. The Kachin community is still fairly small at Mae La--we were told there were about 200 there. However, only a small handful of those 200 are actually registered so the vast majority of the Kachin aren't counted into the Thai government's statistics about who is in the camp. In addition, registration can often divide families. We spent most our time talking with La Ja, who was the "ex" church chairperson just moving out of office because he's leaving for Jacksonville, Florida, tomorrow (Tuesday). He and his wife are both registered, and they have an infant daughter who is registered because she was born in the camp, but he has two older children who were staying with grandparents at the time registration happened so they are still unregistered, and therefore not eligible for resettlement. Therefore La Ja is going to Florida alone, with hopes of establishing himself to be able to support a family when the rest of his family is able to follow him. He has family members in Jacksonville but because of the Thai governments attitudes towards registration of refugees, he will be separated from his wife and children--most likely for months, and maybe years, to come. He doesn't realize that, however--most refugees who divide from their families think it will be just a matter of months until the rest of their families join them. But in too many of the cases, the Thai beauracracy holds up the reunification process for years. I watched La Ja hold his baby daughter and wondered how long it would be before he'd be able to see her again.

The three of us were served a wonderful lunch before worship--rice, two different types of chicken curry, fish, hot cucumber salad, and a potato/peach tree leaf soup. The food had all been wrapped in palm leaves either to cook it or keep it warm after cooking--it was a beautiful presentation, though!

Allen, Angela, and I were each invited to speak during worship so we brought greetings and gave words of encouragement. I was filled with memories of the last time I'd spoken in front of a Kachin congregation in the Kachin State 10 years ago, and very much felt the presence of my late father at my side--he had so wanted to continue his work with the Kachin community and I felt as if this experience was following in his footsteps. I had also shared with La Ja that when I was with the Kachins in 1998 they had taught me a song named "O Le Le Goi"--and so a group of them led the congregation in singing that during worship. It was wonderful to hear it again! I believe Allen got it on video so I'm hoping to be able to share it with you in the near future. Two young women were dressed in traditional Kachin dress--it was gorgeous.

And then it was "rock star" time. Angela, Allen, and I must have posed for about 30 pictures with varieties of groupings--many "official" groups, but also just folks from the congregation that wanted their picture taken with us. I handed my camera off to a young man to take photos too--and he did a good job, so I'll have my own copies of all those photos to share with you as well. It was an absolute hoot. And, of course, we were all snapping plenty of pictures ourselves. The church building is beautiful and I joked with them that they'll have to build a new, bigger one soon--they were packed to the brim! The rest of our team mentioned the same thing about the Karen churches--they are all thriving faith communities and doing fantastic ministries in that camp.

La Ja and another leader of the church took us on a forty-five minute walk through the camp back to where we were to meet the rest of the team--it was probably the best thing we could've done. We saw close to the whole length of the camp that way--and were able to ask plenty of questions and learned quite a bit from that walk. I have tons of pictures!

After we met up with everyone else, we were at the Karen Baptist Bible College (still in the camp). The KBBC draws students from all the camps, as well as a few IDP students, and a small handful of Thai Karen from the surrounding area. They explained the history of the Karen people to us as well as the history of the college itself. The students sang for us and the wall of sound was amazing. Several of us made presentations and brought greetings to the students as well--NM, IM, and some individual churches had brought donations and supplies to share.

Finally, we walked up to the orphanage. The residents there are from age 8 to 18, about evenly divided between boys and girls. In some cases, the residents are truly orphans (no parents), in other cases they may have one parent who is unable to provide enough food and safety for them, in other cases they may have both parents but the parents are IDPs and wanted their children to have a safe place to live so they sent them to the orphanage in the camp. It's a complicated system--one I think we'd have difficulty imagining. Every refugee is torn between wanting to hold onto their homeland but needing to be safe--between praying and working for the day when Burma could be free but having difficulty trusting in that future. So every refugee makes their own decisions about how best to survive an awful, tragic situation.

I had brought a frisbee with me and we taught the children how to throw and catch it--as we walked away, I commented to one of the other team members that I strongly suspect that frisbee is going to be confiscated within a day or two! The kids were, as usual, being kids, and I think the frisbee will probably put holes in a few walls or roofs before the day is done. But our shared laughter as we played for a few minutes was worth the knowledge that I was probably giving the orphanage directors a few headaches in days to come!

We're heading back to the camp today--we're going to attend cultural orientation classes and then simply "be" in the camp for awhile. I'm hoping to be able to meet with someone from the Karen Women's Organization so I can learn more about their work. Pray for the children of the camp--they find ways to play but don't have much space to do it in.