This is Part one of a two Part Journal Entry I wrote in Feb. 2009 while hiding inside a Thai refugee camp full of Christians who have fled from persecution in Burma.
02/26/09
Illegally I am hidden away deep within the Mae La refugee camp on the eastern side of the mountains that border Burma. Daily my heart is torn for the Korin, all of them having fled Burma to seek refuge and safety within these barbed wire fences. None can leave. The parents speak of the days they once had freedom and their eyes light up like fireworks, while the children look longingly through the fences at a world outside they have never known.
An English teacher, whose English name is Elvis, sat and talked to me for at least an hour today. He is the first Korin person I’ve successfully persuaded to talk to me about life before the camp. Reluctantly he began, first with the history of the Korin. They are a Christian people. A white missionary had set out to bring Burma the gospel. Amazingly, the Korin tribe in the north had for many years remembered a prophecy given by one of their ancestors. The prophecy was that a white man would come and teach them. He would teach them about a man who would save their lives and give them eternal life! Needless to say, they embraced Christianity immediately. From that time onward the Korin have been heavily persecuted.
Elvis told me of how the Government of Burma was a military government bent on making the entire nation Buddhist. Forcefully they would enter the villages of Christian people and tear down their churches, their crosses and burn their houses. He went on to say they mercilessly raped the women and burned abandoned villages so that no one could return to their homes. Many fought and are still fighting for their homeland. God had blessed the Korin with some of the best territory in Burma and not long ago the government discovered oil beneath their land. This only encouraged the mass killings of Christians and motivated the military to seize control of their valuable land.
And so, Elvis explained, his people fled here, to Thailand, where they found safety within Mae La Camp. Here they will stay until God or time changes things, a day when the tides change and the relentless great waves of misfortune beat themselves against another people.
Finishing his story Elvis looked at me with tears on his face. His heart was for the children he taught. They were malnourished. Lack of a proper diet would have its effect. They would never reach a normal IQ level or be able to finish school. I cast my head between my hands. “Why?” I couldn’t help but cry out ‘why’. They had trusted and followed God for years and I find them here freezing at night in, only half built, bamboo huts because they have not been given the supply’s to finish their building projects. There schools are falling apart and they have no supplies to educate with. I was haunted by the question, Where was God?
Part 2 will be posted Friday.
