Hua Hin and Burma

I'm a little behind the times, so I need to start filling in the blanks! Jenny and I spent the last 4 days of our trip in Hua Hin, which is a beautiful beach town on Thailand's peninsula. We stayed with an amazing missionary family who packed everything up and moved to Thailand for a year when they found out that an Australian woman (Ruth) who works with refugees needed some help with her ministry (apparently it was only about 3 months from the time they heard about the need until the time they were IN Thailand- kudos to them for being flexible and obedient, and kudos to the three kids for having a sense of adventure and great attitudes about the move!). They now work with an orphanage for for Karen (Ka-RIN) children whose parents have either passed away or who come from extremely dysfunctional families.


For those of you who don't know a lot about the situation in Burma (like me!), let me fill you in on a little bit of what I learned while I was there (Rich, I apologize ahead of time if I misrepresent the facts you told us! Feel free to correct and add stuff in a comment... I'm sure we'd all enjoy hearing more): there are several people groups in Burma, of which the Burmese and the Karen are only two. Currently, the Burmese are in power in Burma, under a military dictatorship which not only refuses to grant the other people groups human rights, but also seems to be trying to wipe them out. Although the government is persecuting other people groups, it is specifically targeting the Karen people for a couple of reasons:
1) Britain colonized Burma back in the early 1800's, and during WWII the Japanese fought Britain on Burmese land. The British used the Karen people as guides and fighter pilots-- but the Burmese people sided with the Japanese. Hard feelings, anyone??
2) The Karen are mostly a Christian people group... I think the percentage of Christians is around 80%. The Burmese are Buddhist, so a lot of the persecution can be traced to religious differences.

To give you an idea of the extent of the internal conflict in Burma: Rich told us that the country spends 80% of its GDP on military, but it has no external enemies!! All the military force is directed against its own people.

Many of the Karen fled Burma into Thailand. Although they are safe in Thailand, life is still difficult because it is nearly impossible for them to get ID cards... and in Thailand, if you don't have an ID card you can't get a decent job or even travel outside of your province without special permission. As a result, the Karen form the backbone of Thailand's menial labour force. In fact, if the Karen were to leave Thailand, the country's economy would plummet drastically. We speculate that this is one unspoken reason why Thailand makes it so difficult to get an ID card-- they can't afford to lose their cheap labour.

(Incidentally, this ID card fiasco is an issue we discussed with Art in Chiang Rai at the beginning of the trip. Hill-tribes in N Thailand also find it extremely difficult to get them, and this is a significant factor in the cycle of poverty we see among the tribes. Consequently, it is also a factor in human trafficking.)


The awesome thing is that the story doesn't end here-- there are people in the world who don't just sit around and complain about all the things that are wrong with the world... they actually go out and do something about it! As I mentioned, the Livelys (the family Jenny and I stayed with) work with an orphanage for Karen children. The neat thing about this orphanage is that it is actually organized and run entirely by Karen staff. God gave a Karen man named Samson a vision for this orphanage, and Ruth simply helped him plan the project and get it started. The Livelys and Ruth now only help in certain areas, like fund raising and leadership training, and are actually getting ready to pull out completely pretty soon. The fact that it is a local endeavour gives the orphanage more credibility in the Karen community.

Jenny and I got to visit the orphanage, and we were pretty impressed. The place is very nice, but simple. The staff build their own buildings out of bamboo or wood or cement. They also grow their own vegetables, so the kids get the benefit of nice, fresh food... and some gardening expertise. :)

Apart from visiting the orphange, here are some highlights from our time in Hua Hin:
- Relaxing on the beach and getting severe sunburns! Although the great thing is that it was the first time this trip that we got sunburned... or even used sunscreen. Funny how those two events coincided...
- Riding everywhere with at least 3 people on a single moped.
- Going for a hike with Rich and the kids up a river in the jungle- we saw tons of gorgeous butterflies, had to use vines to steady ourselves going up and down really steep paths, and slid down a waterfall. The only thing missing to make us feel like real adventurers was a machete.
- Playing Pshaw (a card game similar to Whist) with the whole family.
- Talking with Rich about missions, sex trafficking, worship, and everything else under the sun. Rich, I don't think we told you, but we both felt really blessed to hear what you've learned and observed over the years from being a pastor. Especially that first night, Jenny and I felt that God definitely used you to speak into our lives-- it was like being discipled at the end of a very thought-provoking trip, which is pretty much the greatest thing that could have happened! So thank you. :)

Alrighty-- thanks for reading, everyone! I have a couple more posts about things we learned on the trip that I will try to put up here in the next day or two. So keep your eye out for it!