A First Hand Report With Reflections

On Sunday March 22 leaving Chiang Mai I traveled 7 hrs by bus to Mae Sot, Thailand. The next morning Sunday the 23rd bright and early I boarded a pick up bus and traveled along the Burma border for an hour and half north to the Mae La Refugee Camp where I have taught many times since 2011. Kawthoolie Karen Baptist School and College (KKBBSC) was graduating their senior college students and I wanted to be present to encourage and congratulate them. The first service was at 10 AM and lasted till 1pm the second service started at 2 pm and lasted past 6pm. Seated in the congregation I was summoned to the platform where it was hotter but free bottled water was passed out. Three students spoke all toll and many adults – leader figures – honored guests from far and wide. On the platform there were VIPs so called, many seemed a cross between NGO and Church leader with a smattering of volunteer teachers and a couple preachers. These came from Germany, Denmark, Australia, Korea, Malaysia and the US as well as from Thailand and of course the Karen from Burma (most everyone present were already working in Thailand or Asia). I would estimate the entire count of persons present including students to be over 900. This being the case it was especially difficult for anyone with preacher blood coursing through his or her veins to sit down once he mounted the pulpit.

Here follows a few brief reflections taken from my 6 hrs on the platform on this auspicious day with its auspicious guest speakers and honored students.

1. First consider the setting. Mae La Refugee Camp is situated 65 kilo north of Mae Sot along the Thai- Burma border on the Thai side. It is nestled at the base of a great mountain with a sheer rock face and it is out in nowhere. There are no towns or villages even close. It is rugged mountainous terrain typical of the Tak province of Thailand. 50,000 refugees live in this camp their dwellings cut from the flora and fauna they inhabit. In this desolate outback approximately 70 seniors, all Karen save two or three, robed and polished, as the proverb states, “after the similitude of a palace” filled the outdoor pavilion. With all the pomp and ceremony one might find on graduation day in a great cathedral on 5^th Avenue Manhattan the occasion went forward. The setting made me recall a chance casual conversation I had with a young lady sitting at the table next to me in Manhattan a few years back. She told me at long last she believed she now lived in the center of the planet – Hells Kitchen downtown Manhattan. This is where she believed culture peaked and she experienced herself on the cutting edge. I openly scoffed at her judgment but sitting on the platform the thought lit upon my mind like a butterfly delights a blossom – this, here and now, is the center of the planet. Here is why.

2. The Karen have many gifts but among their finest is music and especially singing. They not only love to sing and fill the valley with song from morning to night they have developed exceptional skill. At one point in the ceremony the entire student body rose and sang the Hallelujah Chorus. During the chorus I closed my eyes for a moment and saw the angels weeping. No words can describe the harmonic ecstasy and the sheer spiritual and aesthetic power of this moment. Where such worship occurs, I mused, then and there we find the center of the universe. This is so because in my humble judgment when such exquisite praise occurs in the midst of such hardship, there one has pushed trouble to the periphery and found the goodness of God to be the center of life.

3. Dr Simon the founder and director spoke of the origin of the school. Even though I had heard the story many times before it moved me again.  In 1990 having fled Myanmar for the terror of the military that was reaping violence on their land and having found sanctuary in this camp Dr Simon dreamed a dream. With three other teachers and 6 students he opened KKBBSC and now 24 years later it has 500 students. But what’s more, the military who were motivated by ethnic hatred to destroy the Karen will in the end be defeated. Because soon the Karen will return and instead of returning beaten, weakened and begging for land and a share of the means of life they will return stronger, educated their native talents and gifts developed more than anytime in the past and confident of their belonging and right. What is the saying “revenge is sweeter when served cold.” And here certainly no revenge is intended but in the dues of God, (“God laughs at the wicked” the good book tells us) what was chased out and under will reemerge more potent and resilient than before. When justice, dignity and right are violated then it is, if and when education, study and reflection are mixed with this experience, that these become stronger, more self–conscious and determined. From the black churches in America the greater church at large awoke to the Prophets and Christ’s vision of justice. The Kawthoolei Karen Baptist have a distinctive fabric of justice and dignity woven into their religion and from the church in their midst (if they will) other churches in Asia may also awakened to the cause of justice incorporating it into their evangelism. This leads me to my 4^th reflection

4. Of all the distinguished and illustrious guests rich in experience and degrees no one in my humble opinion spoke with the poignancy and clarity as two senior Karen students. Each from his own perspective cast an eye upon their return to their homeland. They spoke of restoration of the land, the community and the work that needs to be done to replant and re-root their culture and nation again. These were at the same time concrete practical and visionary speeches. Never before visiting KKBBSC have I felt the imminence of the Karen hopes as with these seniors. It is as if many of them do indeed carry the burden for the return even more than the elders whose work is passing. “Young men grown up in their youth daughter polished after the similitude of a palace.”

5. Much was said during these speeches about the Karen nation and indeed a nation they were and a nation in exile they remain and a nation determined to be again in their homeland.  Sitting there on the platform I could not help but think of the Jewish nation and their Babylonian exile. The shape and form of their nation before and after it changed. National ‘restoration’ no doubt echoed during the seventy years in Babylonian captivity but when the time of restoration came what occurred was not simply a restoration of the way things were in the past but a transformation of it. Judaism did not go forward in the same shape it was before. ‘Restoration’ on the other side of all exiles, no matter their cause, whether personal or collective, is found and built in a new way. The old that was lost when it is reborn goes through a change and re-emerges in a new form. Judaism returned to new religious and ethnic pluralism and keeping their identity depended more upon piety and taking care of the law (Torah) and embodying the way of the law in life. From henceforth the synagogue and the teaching that occurred within it began to emerge and eventually became an important center to hold the people together. This piece of Jewish history is, I believe, very instructive to Karen people at this time in their history – perhaps even more instructive now than the Nehemiah text of rebuilding the wall – the Scripture reading for the graduation.

Add to this historic reflection and comparison the fact that when messiah Jesus came upon the Jewish 1^st century scene he laid the groundwork so as to tie their ethnic identity as the historic people of God to ecclesia not nation perse. The future of nation was caught up by Jesus into the coming Kingdom of God something much bigger and broader than nation. And ecclesia i.e. the called or called out (church) became the gathering point this side of the kingdom and included all believers, Jew and Gentile and existed separate from state/nation. All confusion of church and state stand not only under the judgment of Christian history but also the ways and means of messiah Jesus. Nations do not cease to exist but they cease to be  ‘Christian bodies’. There is only one Christian body – “where two or three are gathered in my name there I am present”.  Nations who have within them genuine Christian communities (salty eccelsias) indeed benefit and are built up, strengthened and ennobled in a tangential accidental way. This side of the kingdom this is as close as ‘Christian’ comes to any institution whether it be a nation, marriage, political or social body.

Epilogue

I was asked to speak and introduce myself in a 2-minute envelope of time. I may have by passed my name I am not sure. Having taught many of the graduating students some of my insights on faith and hope I wanted to remind them of their significance for the time at hand. So instead of an introduction I told them that if they were to fulfill their graduation commission to serve Christ they must venture what Peter did – walk on water, not literally but after a similitude. The key to walking on water I said was learning to walk by faith not by sight. With this rather abrupt cryptic message lasting 1 minute 43 seconds I sat down. Here follows my meaning that I trust will make it round robin to a few of the graduates.

Yesterday (March 22,2014 and before) you  (the graduates) were in the boat called KKBBSC. In this you were not much different than the 12 in the boat called GMS (Galilean Missionary School) under the head master Jesus. Today (March 23) you have gathered with family and friends in the presence of your teachers and elders to hear Christ bid you leave the boat and serve him in the world. In the boat you have each other close and you have the KKBBSC institution under your feet and in this boat you sing, study and play despite your refugee survival. You sing your dream song “row row row your boat gently down the stream merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream.” But now graduation has come and with it the definite word and time has come to arise and get out of the boat and get about your work. Times have and are changing for you. It is time to enlist your youth, zeal, time, strength and talents in service (with the exception of those of you who will post pone this calling and go on and study more).  Like Peter, Christ bids you to get out of the boat and serve him in the face of humanity.

The boat symbolizes a degree of security. It is under you and saves you from being submerged in the often troubled waters beneath you. Some of you when you grasp the degree of the challenge ahead will say Lord just let us stay together and row the boat where you want us to go, others will say “give me a bridge Lord.” “Lay up a bridge and I will walk over it and go where it leads and there serve you.” But in the call to serve Christ bids you like Peter to abandon the security of the boat and walk on water.

If you are to get anything done for the Lord, if you are to make your way in service and be fruitful you must now graduate from life in the boat to life walking on water, that is to say you must forego the luxury of having a clear, strong, firm and secure foundation under your feet thereby upholding your journey. You must forego your predilection to first have in place all the material needs to get the job done; forgo having a firm foundation under your feet. No, to truly serve and obey his call you are and will be a little beyond the safe zone, beyond your means, beyond your native strength, beyond what hard logic and good common sense dictates and beyond the measure of competence that the preparations you have made heretofore equip you. And here in this place all that is solid melts into air and water and here you learn and relearn to trust something that cannot be seen, touched or felt. And when you venture forth without having all you need to hold you up then and then only have you graduated. Even so be sure all of us without exception fail and graduate over and over by the grace of God. We all hanker after a material foundation under us before we go forward, often demanding it in vain from God and others.  Yes where opportunity puts helps, better preparations and supports within your reach do not be foolish, avail yourself to these but know one thing for sure – again and again God calls us out of the boat onto the water to get us where He wants us to go, do what he wants us to do and become what He wants us to be.

Look straight at what is not there, what ‘should’ be there, look directly at your lack of good support and the lack of material economic subsistence under you and your lack of thorough preparations and this absence will gain a negative spiritual magnitude will subdue and overcome your faith and destroy it and you will retreat. Sooner or later in life we all must learn to walk on water else we will either sink into despair and retreat or we will become graspy, demanding and forceful, ways far from the Kingdom of God that Christ has sponsored.

“Underneath are the everlasting arms” so reads the good book but most often you and I cannot see, touch or feel these sturdy caring arms. Courage, duty and Christ call you beyond feeling and sight to go forward on by faith alone and lay up good work and efforts in service to Him and his kingdom.

Together with you in His service,

Daniel Age
Teacher of the Gospel of Christ and Way of Faith