I took this little nine year old girl’s picture in an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp on the border of Thailand and Burma. Her name is No Pow Pet. Her village had been attacked; her parents and siblings had been separated from her in the melee. She found one of her aunts and they came the the border together. At that time she didn’t know what happened to her parents, where they where, or even if they were still alive.
When the SPDC attacked – firing mortar and small arms fire in to three villages in the area – the people fled every man for himself. They didn’t have time to get even food or clothes but raced down a narrow path through a mine field lining the border. Rebel soldiers blocked the SPDC from following them, saving their lives.
I visited No Pow Pet’s IDP camp only a few weeks after I first came to Thailand. That visit changed my life. It was there that I decided to give my life to serving in this area.
Hello from Asia! I arrived in South East Asia in January of 2007 with the intention of starting some Christian radio projects in India. I immediately began to see the enormous amount of work that needs to be done to reach the people of these countries. Whether Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, or even wayward Christian, all need the saving, renewing power of Jesus Christ in their lives. And nothing excuses us from actively fulfilling the great commission “Go ye into all the world…. and make disciples of all nations. ”
So far, I have been a very unconventional missionary. I came here planning to stay for 3 months in order to look into the possibilities of FM radio broadcasting in southern India. Those 3 months have been extended. During our brief visit to Kanchanaburi Thailand, the plight of the Karen people caught my attention and my heart. Forced to flee a military dictatorship, with war and killing a regular part of their lives for the past 60 years, they still have not given up. The Karen of Thailand and Burma are ripe for the kingdom of heaven. All they need is someone who cares enough to tell them about Jesus.
I have spent the year of 2007 doing a number of things. My number one goal was to learn the language. With a good command of the Thai and Karen languages, there is no end to the evangelism opportunities in this area. So, learning language has been and will continue to be one of my primary goals. In the mean time, I have done a lot of teaching. I spent nine months teaching at a school/orphanage in Kanchanaburi Provence Thailand, near the Burma border. It is called the Bamboo School. Then I spent two months in intensive Karen language study, living with a Karen lay evangelist in Tak Provence, Thailand. Next I went to a school/orphanage in Seim Reep, Cambodia. And I spent a very good 3 months there. I have made a lot of friends, and have had a lot of fun. Next, I went back to Thailand and the Karen of Tak Provence. I have spent most of 2008 in Bee Yo Tah village teaching English. But I have been involved in a number of other schools and projects as well. More recently Pastor Phamor from Chaing Mai, Thailand has asked me to help with the EOP associated schools. These schools exist to help children from the conflict zones of Burma (Myanmar) to get an education for eternity. Please pray for me, this is a very big responsibility.
Please check out some of the other pages. The My Blog page will have posts that I put up now and then, containing news, happenings, stories, etc. Unfortunately I don’t come to Internet land very often. So I don’t get to update the blog but once a month or so. But I will try to as often as possible. Keep checking in. The Thai/Burma Border Schools page should give you a better idea of what is happening there. Keep these school in your prayers. The Papun Schools page is about more than a dozen schools in Burma that I am working with. The Refugee Schools page will give you information and pictures from the EOP refugee camp schools and some of the churches. The Thai Karen page has information about Karen people in Thailand with information on how you can help.
It is my prayer that as you read some of the adventures, triumphs and discouragements that I have in Asia, that God will impress on your heart the need for getting involved.
Some of my Khmer students and I
Some of my friends from the Thai village of Day Ya Day and I
