These are juniors at KKBBSC (Karen Kahoolawe Baptist Bible School & College in the Mae La Refugee camp. They are all Karen peoples from Burma living and studying in the camp. While many have been in the camp several years, the energy and beauty that these youth introduce into the camp life is irrepressible. Every morning they emerge from little thatch dwellings (lean bare dwellings with the meanest cleaning grooming facility) looking like a million dollars -always downed in their traditional ethnic dress. They reminded me of a Proverb in Scripture “sons grown up in their youth, daughters polished after the similitude of a palace”. Here in this remote camp on the edge of nowhere one stumbles upon rare grace and maturity. I looked forward to this class because they were so spirited and totally present.
Tag Archives: Teaching Report
Justice, hope, equality, human dignity, peace and reconciliation: Thai-Burma border
I’m here with Dr. Saw Simon the founder & principle of KKBBSC –the college inside the Mae La Refugee Camp at the Thai Burma border. He’s been in the camp for 22yrs. His work on behalf of the Karen People is now known far and wide. Madeleine Albright has been to see his work as well as Aung Sang Sui Kyi Burma’s rising prophet of hope. Prominent UN & religious leaders have made their way to his humble abode where he lives with his wife along with 50,000 other refugees in small thatch and bamboo dwellings. The school (now 450 students) is Baptist (as are most Karen). Because of the plight of the Karen people, the shape and fabric of their religion has been woven into many fine social strands – justice, hope, equality, human dignity, peace and reconciliation. One must wait for Dr Simon to speak. His brevity and quiet way tests almost all visitors and is sometimes misunderstood. But if a guest is patient, lets the bucket down into the well and waits, wonderful tales and stories are forthcoming. Hidden away in the remote mountains, ostensibly removed from the world Dr Simon has his fingers on political and religious movements far and wide. He remembers dates, events and personalities and their histories with uncanny precision. And he is testing the winds for the Karen whether the times of change they have prayed and waited for are now emerging. At his invitation, I taught for 2 weeks at the school.
“Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God” Thai-Burma Border
Everyday for 17 days I traveled from Mae Sot to the Mae La Refugee Camp 67 km away, in a bus that picked up its passengers at random along the highway. By the time I reached the camp, 1.5hrs later, the pickup bus was jammed full. On the third day, I counted 23 in the little truck. Thinking this was the limit I consoled myself. The next day we crammed 47 people in the truck, not counting chickens and sundry animals. This did not include the front seat in the pickup that had four more passengers. The truck looked more like a tethered flag waving in the wind for the fact bodies were literally hanging out like clothes on a clothesline. To get to the camp we had to cross 3 military roadblocks. The Thai government wants to slow illegal movement on their border with Myanmar so there are frequent document checks in route. The two children you see in the picture were part of a family of 5 headed to the security of the refugee camp, but without documents they were depending on bribes if detected. It was heartbreaking to see what happened. They made it through the first check point but they were not so lucky at the second. Studiously trying to avoid eye contact with the soldiers they stared silently down until forced to respond where upon they thrust 200 bhat [$6.00] toward the soldier who refused it probably because a USA citizen was looking on [myself]. The fear on their faces was palpable. I could not shake the hopelessness and desperation I witnessed in their eyes as they were hauled off the little truck to be shipped back across the border. There was not an ounce of compassion and kindness in the soldiers eyes. Micah 6 kept running through my mind “Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God”
A little housechurch at the Thai-Burma border
This is a little house church just inside the Thai border a few miles from Burma. Philip, a Burmese, is the young man leading. There are about 15 people in this church with about 10 children. All are Burmese and most have come to Thailand illegally after their property was taken by Myanmar military leaders (usually for no reason except greed.) Two of the members are college graduates and one is a teacher. Philip raises money and feeds his congregation as well as provides classes in English. I spoke at his church twice on successive Sunday mornings. A gifted and very compassionate leader it is almost certain this church will soon burst its seams. There are 1000’s of Burmese who have migrated across the border in search of a new life but a new life is hard to put together. Even though Burma is changing they have nothing to return to. Mission work here is humanitarian and religious. The church becomes a place where food, education and community are present in a setting where faith and Christian beliefs create fellowship. It is everything fragmented people need. No committee decides whether the church’s endeavor will front social relief—it’s in the mix from the get go.
Stay close to what feeds your passion it contains the seeds of your future… Burma
With professor Yaha Laylay La of KBTS in Yangoon, Myanmar (Burma). Dr Yaha heard about me from the Karen leaders in Maesot Thailand and invited me to teach. It was my first entry into Burma and a very interesting varied experience. The country is crawling out from under a rock and attempting to groom itself to receive visitors from the outside world. It has a long way to go! I had entry problems – [nobody really knows what is required], the hotel had rolling power outages, taxis taking me to my speaking appointments got lost, internet access felt like 1990s. To resupply money one needed to find an ATM but these only exist theoretically. During the time I was at KBTS I did many things every day. I was Yaha’s toolbox and he opened me up and used me in a new way! I ended up doing a memorial service for a lady I never knew. I taught a seminar on Daniel and Revelation because an upper level class was grappling with heterodox interpretations on Revelation 14 and asked if I might know anything about the subject. I taught a series on Paul’s dictum “We walk by faith not by sight” to three different classes and preached to several hundred students on Jesus words “My Yoke is Easy My Burden is Light” – “How to Get the Victory over Hard Work”. I chose this subject because the students were visibly drooping under their workload and I sensed they were losing the fun of learning. One of my points about hard vs easy labor referred to David the shepherd boy. Imagine him whiling away the doldrums smashing Coke bottles with his slingshot and then after the thrill wore off sitting down under a Juniper tree and scribbling out little poems – playing with words, rhymes and rhythms. We are still reading these poems and his sling shot prowess catapulted him toward his future like no other single skill. My point – stay close to what feeds your passion it contains the seeds of your future. I now have many friends in Myanmar and invitations to return.
Underground Bible College, China: Something’s Happening Here…
AT an underground Bible College that protects its covert identity with great care, I got the right to take a picture only after making promises it would never reach the internet. The place of this school is in one of the many umpteen cities in China with over 1m population (it’s projected that 12yrs there will be 200 Chinese cities exceeding 1m). A factory owner became mysteriously convinced that the building he was operating in was haunted and bringing him bad luck. He promptly sold it at a ridiculously low price and the school bought it. It’s in the middle of this giant city up against a little hillside and scarcely anyone knows it exists. Students must not leave the building and even I could not walk around outside the school (which looks like a closed factory from the outside.) Over 100 students live for months on end inside this transformed factory where they eat, sleep, study and worship. In late September I was in the bowels of this place, that reminded me of the catacombs in Rome. Luther’s refurbished Pauline ideas of how to live were given an airing …”the just shall live by faith”. Has any one graduated from this school? Is this faith a piece of cake as we say? Luther would argue we’re all in kindergarten and anyone that says he has mastered this way has likely either forgotten it or never known it. The natural and broken elements lodged in the human heart cause us to recoil from trusting this unseen foundation of grace the Father has put under our lives, in Christ. Mere Apostolic words preached and heard, and the subtlety of the Spirit urge us beyond our comfort zone to rest our lives on the Invisible. These subjects and others replaced the buzz, grinding and fitting of metal gears and parts. Surely the neighbors must be saying to each other “something’s happening over there but I don’t know what it is”
Cross Cultural Mission School, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
A couple days before I was to start lecturing I arrived in Phnom Penh. I wanted to see the city before I checked in with t
he mission school so I took a room a near the Mekong rented a bicycle and peddled around for a couple days.
This is the first thing I learned and anyone from the West who has been to Cambodia will attest to this fact. Before venturing onto the streets either on foot but more so on a bicycle one should complete and sign a last will and testament. Phnom Penh is every woman and man for himself and it is impossible to look in every direction a vehicle is approaching. Traffic is like the nest of billiard balls just after the first player breaks the set. Miraculously none of the balls collide except when they do. I survived. I have been to Calcutta, Thailand and Lao they do not compete.
The first morning I peddled to a restaurant that served an American breakfast with free wifi. While seated outside on the veranda Europeans and a few Americans came and went. CNN was on covering the Republican conventions. In the two hours I sat eating and reviewing my lecture notes western guys showed up with Cambodian women for breakfast. One guy came with a tribe of three Cambodian girls in tow. The youngest was between 14 maybe 16. Another European fellow also brought three. I think poverty and wealth often create an ugly synergy. I had read about this now I had seen. I think at a certain level of poverty most people will do almost anything for money and at a certain level of economic power many people will do almost anything they can get away with. Economic power and economic weakness both present temptations and my experience and belief teach me that human beings are fundamentally weak. This might be why the wise man writing in Proverbs asks God for neither riches nor poverty. Both, he asserts, present forces which can potentially jeopardize the soul. With more and more in Asian societies getting a piece of the pie I think it is harder for the poor to survive the psychological social effects of poverty let alone the physical burden. In fact NGO’s are playing a big role in Cambodia among other things to crack down on the sexual exploitation of young people. Probably because I do not dress like a back packer more like a teacher the European guy with the especially young girls cancelled his order and took his tribe and abruptly left. Times are changing.
I have now traveled in several South Asian countries and more than any other Cambodians are able to handle English and not a few are proficient. It seems Cambodians are entering the modern world perhaps with less baggage than other developing countries. Their monarchy is not top heavy. The dark chapters in the country’s recent past while inflicting a terrible price has also rendered them leaner more open to the future and with less political and cultural structures to impede their advance. They are not the least bit apologetic for using the American dollar as a second currency and English as a second language. No heavy nationalistic fiction compromises their interest in entering the modern world but this does not mean they are lacking in pride for their land. Great ancient cultures thrived in Cambodia and amazing cultural landmarks are to be found unrivaled by their neighbors.
The fabric industry feeding western corporations – the giant clothing chains we all know so well are to be found in Cambodia and Vietnam. It is possible for a Vietnamese or Cambodian to work 28 out of 30 days a month and earn 80 dollars. But 80 dollars is enough to live on and save 20 or maybe 30 dollars. My impression is that this work is not viewed negatively here. The people are grateful for any economic branch they can grasp hold of to lift them if only a little.
The Cross Cultural Mission School is a small potent endeavor backed and organized by Chinese reaching out to Cambodians. Everything of this nature no matter how small takes organization and financial backing – in this instance China has provided these. The Koreans are the primary leaders in mission Asia but now the China is building mission cells in more and more countries. My class was a cultural cross section of Cambodians, Chinese and Malay. There were 11 students in all each one working out their own mission project and set on advancing their education. All the students were in there 20’s except a couple who were in their early thirties. They were pastors, teachers and missionaries. The course they requested was “ Luther’s Evangelical Breakthrough and its Implications for the Reformation of the Church –Then and There & Here and Now” The plot of the course was to first show Luther’s seminal Breakthrough [which the reknown German theologian Gerhard Ebleling once summarized in a single theological phrase (..) and then show how this one insight of necessity changes how church is understood and practiced. By the time the class ended we had given this goal a fair run with many applications to the present time. Sheneequa Mackal, a Malay and leader – teacher of the City Church prayed at the conclusion of the course and her prayer was my reward. Confident the Lord had showed them the way the gospel could be taught and preached by the new generation in Cambodia she gave thanks and prayed that nothing would be lost as time slipped by. I am now loved in Cambodia by a potent small group of young up and coming Christian leaders who with me look forward to my return. My supporters are thanked by 11 sturdy young leaders in Cambodia.
existence and faith 