Rain and Refugees

So it’s been twelve days since I’ve written anything, partially because there’s barely enough time for us to really soak in anything here, but also because we’ve seen so much in the past few weeks it’s a daunting task to put any of it into words. I thought I’d go through a couple stories over the next few days; it’s taken me quite sometime to figure out what I’ve seen, and there are some stand-out experiences I wanted to share with y’all.

The day I waited for my team (Casey, Katie, Kristina, Jessica, Tyler, and Emily) to drive from Bangkok to Mae Sot I got the chance to visit a Burmese refugee camp on the border. As gray skies and water drops the size of marbles filled the horizon for what felt like the millionth day in a row, the group I was traveling with got the low-down on the camp. As one of the largest camps in Thailand at 150,000 registered (and upwards of 100,000 unregistered) refugees, Mae La holds a long history of fear, uncertainty, hunger, and homelessness. People of various Burmese ethnicities have fled from Myanmar to escape from one of the most oppressive and terrifying dictatorships modern history has ever seen. I don’t even know where to start with the stories we’ve heard about this regime; just think murder, rape, torture, human sacrificing, and Satan worshipping, and you’d get the foundations of what’s been driving Thwan Shwe and his military.

To get to a Karen tribe tucked in the back of the Mae La camp, we rode in the back of a truck along what felt like the real-life version of the Indiana Jones ride—complete with muddy potholes, fording through rivers, and me thinking over and over, “my parents would kill me if they saw what I was doing right now”. We eventually arrived at the bible school our Karen friends attend, completely drenched and clothes splattered with bright orange mud. Everyone stared at us with a combination of curiosity and laughter as we swish-swooshed through their lessons for the day. We got a tour (I completely forgot his name, but this Karen guy was totally awesome and told me that one day I get to give him a tour of California) from one of their students, and he showed us through the elementary schools and ramshackle huts that were scattered along the dirt paths of the camp.





For what was supposed to be a temporary place of refuge, the people living In Mae La had definitely created a new community; most of the kids and young adults there had grown up in this part of the camp their entire lives. Just like most of the experiences I’ve had here, I was amazed by these people’s ability to thrive with so little. Kids ran through the muddy puddles with their school books in tote, mothers rocked and fed their babies from the porches of their huts with smiles on their faces, shop workers waved at us as we passed by. At one point, they had the entire bible school (of about 400 students) sing worship for us—and if you want to be knocked off your socks with what will probably be the music we’ll listen to in heaven, I’d strongly suggest paying them a visit.

In the middle of our tour, we stopped at the “handicap ministry”, which consists of mainly of victims who’ve lost limbs, their hearing, and/or their sight from the landmines scattered along the Burma forests. Our group sang worship music for them, and as Rachel’s beautiful voice reverberated off of the tin roofs, I had a hard time not losing it. Seeing these men and children with their sewn-up arms and legs and eyes gutted from their faces was a reality check that destroyed my world. Oh my God, my God, this is for real, I kept repeating in my head. These chosen people of God were being wiped out off the face of the planet, and I was right in the heart of their exile. And at that moment, all we could give them was a song of praise, lyrics of redemption and hope. I prayed over them, reminding them of their eternity with Christ; I knew in those words that one day I’d see them whole and in their glorified bodies, surrounded with heavenly treasures no one on Earth can imagine of. The man with no eyes smiled as we closed our thanks to God. It was a moment that will stay burned in my mind forever.

Our visit could’ve ended there, and I would’ve left feeling completely humbled our experience in Mae La. But God wasn’t finished with us yet, and at the end of our visit, the Karen people surprised our group with one of the most incredible lunches I’ve ever had. And as the third, maybe fourth course of rice, pork meatballs, vegetable salad, and noodles made its way to our table, I couldn’t help but feeling this horrible weightiness in my chest. Here I was, enjoying the hospitality and gifts of people who had next to nothing—and they served us with joy. I asked our tour guide how anyone could be so kind, and he told me with a serious face: “We are proud to have friends from the West who are willing to come and listen to our story. We hope that our friends we make will go back to their homes and tell their families of the Karen people, our faith in Christ, and our fight for peace.”


It’s this kind of stuff that continuously strips you of your privileged mindset, that breaks your heart into a million different pieces, and that makes you question what kind of faith has been driving you for the past couple decades.
It makes you question what faith even means—like when people tell you to have faith you’ll do fine in finals, that you’ll get the job you applied for,

and on the opposite side of the world there’s a group of people who have faith their God will save them from genocide.
Needless to say, I’ve fallen in love with the Karen people. And I hope you all are ready to be bombarded with their story when I get back, because I’ve got a responsibility to fulfill.

☺