Postcard from Myanmar (Burma)

Sunday 9th March is the global day of prayer for Burma: The ethnic minorities had their own states in the British colony pre-World War II., but since then they have been harshly oppressed by the Burmese Army. This MINUTE is about the KAREN Group, of whom there are some three million along the Thai border, many of them Christians. Their villages get burned, their children abducted, their food crops destroyed. My eye surgeon colleague, Mitch Ryan, joined the Free Burma Rangers, to help these Karen. Mitch lives in Chiang Mai
The FBR takes small groups to serve the disrupted Karen, usually a pastor/counsellor, a human rights video person, and a nurse and Mitch, who is teaching paramedics full-time. This is his life of sacrificial love for Christ.

Last year he asked if I could scrounge some equipment to start an Eye Clinic in one of the internally displaced people’s camps (IDP camps). The Perth Eye Surgery Foundation kindly donated the funds for an operating microscope and instruments, which are shown here in the operating tent, inside the bamboo clinic. I give thanks to Max Bailey who accompanied me to Chiang Mai –helping bear the cost of the heavy luggage, and also helping lug the stuff around airports, and through customs.

There was another tragedy on the 14th February, just after my return home, notified by the Human rights Group of Baroness Cox in the UK. They write: “We ask your prayers for the Karen people of Burma following the assassination of the General Secretary of the Karen National Union Padoh Mohn Sha, yesterday”

And so we now pray, Father, for Mahn Sha’s family as they mourn this death;
-for Htoo Lay who replaces him, that he will unite and heal his people, in wisdom and strength;
- for the Karen people, that they might find peace.
-for Mitch and Caryl Ryan and family be a sweet savour of Christ in their lives of service to these oppressed people. Amen

Peter Graham