Family Shelter

There are no loans or mortgages but acquiring a house inside the camps is a lengthy process. With the large numbers of refugees pouring into the Thai-based camps from Burma, housing is a serious concern. This large, extended family takes shelter from the burning midday sun under a simple lean-to, squatting on the land until their home can be built. All work is done by hand while bamboo and leaves are the only materials available. With nearly 50,000 people inside Mae La, materials are often scarce while housing is not only on subsistence level but crammed tightly together, increasing the spread of disease as well as unsanitary conditions. Though there is less fear these simple homes will be burned by soldiers like inside Burma, the Karen still live daily with profound emotional pains—even when this family’s house is complete they still won’t be home.

Sharing Hope

I was asked to preach many times while staying with the Karen during my month long stay. This photo was taken on perhaps the most emotional occasion of my preaching—Easter Sunday. Thra Simon, the KKBBSC seminary president was my translator and I was terrified in many ways to speak to the Karen that morning. Many preachers wait all year for the big Easter sermon—but I was struggling with how to give hope to people who hourly live with murder, rape, and destruction. Who was I to tell them to keep faithful? Yet Easter is the day we are reminded of our true hope—Christ’s resurrection. I reminded them of our Lord who suffered more pain and shame than any of us will ever know. That day I stopped pitying the Karen as I began for the first time to understand them.

A Muslim Coffee

It is not only the Karen that are suffering under the Burma military junta. Many ethnic groups including the Karenni, Shan, and Kachin are facing persecution and genocide from the Burmese army. To my surprise large numbers of ethnically Indian Muslims have also fled the injustice of the military regime and live inside Thai refugee camps alongside the Karen. I enjoyed a coffee with Muslims the morning I took this photo. Muslims run most of the shops inside Mae La camp’s busy market and have dozens of mosque for their worship. They are a new mission field for the Christian Karen who are now witnessing to them and building a united community.

New Life - Baptism

Nineteen former Buddhist and Animist celebrated Easter Sunday by announcing their new life as Christians with a public baptism. The site was a new church plant that already has grown to 500 members in a few years, many of them recent converts. I asked one of the teenage boys after his baptism about his change and he answered that inside the camp he had first witnessed the love of Christ through school friends. Still wet from her baptism, a girl told me she had always felt empty in Buddhism, never knowing how she could do enough to earn happiness. She smiled brightly and told me this was the happiest day of her life. She is one of thousands of refuges finding a new freedom inside these tight walls.

NOVICE

Largely Buddhists in religion, the Karen have many temples inside the Mae La camp. Like their Thai neighbors, the Burmese and ethnic groups inside Burma fuse traditional Theravada Buddhism with animism, spirit and ancestor worship. Many monks protested the Burmese military in Rangoon and were shot the same as other civilians. These young novice monks live inside temple compounds atop a high, dusty hill. As dusk came on, I spent time with them, photographing and asking questions through my guide. I was moved by their playful smiles though I know the crush of the refugee life touches their young lives. Though I have studied the philosophy of Buddhism through books and lessons, little of the formal scriptures help me understand these people. When we talk though I see many of their questions are my questions, their problems and desires the same as all of us—to Hope in a better world, a love that will last.

Across The Line

This photograph was taken during a brief but emotionally powerful visit across the Burma borderline. The children stand in front of rebuilding projects for their school, church and houses at Ler Pher Hurn village, which has been attacked by Burmese soldiers four times in as many years. The troops regularly burn villages and kill or enslave what Karen they catch. We were warned by radio that the soldiers were only 1km away on patrol when I snapped this picture. We hurried back across the border, the charred remains of the previous village visible as our long-tail boat skidded up the Moei River.