Since returning from Thailand a few days ago, I have been sorting through more than 1200 photographs I took to document my experiences. (You can view many of the photographs online at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22991234@N03/sets/72157603977867721/) As I have reviewed those images, I have also reflected on the meaning of this journey for me, for our congregation, and for the individuals who arrive in our midst as refugees and strangers and quickly become friends and neighbors.
The first photograph on my hard drive is of the Thai Air Airbus Jet that carried me from New York’s aging JFK airport to Bangkok’s recently opened Suvarnanhumi International Airport. This was my first international flight. It was a long one – sixteen and a half hours. My journey from Utica to Bangkok took over 24 hours. I arrived halfway around the world knowing that I would encounter a different culture, be exposed to new traditions, experience new ways of living, and function in a world in which my language was not the tongue of most people around me. But, I also knew that after two weeks I would board another Thai Air jet and within a day be returned to my familiar and comfortable world.
It is a similar, yet different, experience for the refugees from Burma who board a passenger jet in Bangkok destined for Utica, New York, or a host of other cities across the United States. The trip is just as long. But, for most, it is not only their first international flight, it is their first time aboard an airplane. They make the trip knowing that they will probably never again see the place of their birth or friends and family members left behind. They will travel half-way around the world to enter a strange new culture with different traditions, a foreign language, and new ways of living not for a mere week or two, but for the rest of their lives. Unlike me, they make the trip knowing that they will not return. They come in hope of peace and security and a brighter future for their children.
Among my many photographs are pictures of the Baptist missionaries we met in Thailand. Annie Dieselberg introduced us to the ministry of Nightlight that provides hope and new life to exploited young women trapped in the sex industry in Bangkok. At the New Life Center, near Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, we saw firsthand the life-changing ministry the New Life Center, and missionaries Kit Ripley and Karen Smith, provide to tribal young women in danger of exploitation. We also met Kim Brown and toured two of her ministries: the House of Love (a home for women and children affected by HIV/AIDS) and the House of Blessing (a daycare center for children from some of Chiang Mai’s most impoverished neighborhoods). LaMon and Pat Brown, who serve in theological education at Payap University in Chiang Mai, welcomed our group into their home for pizza – a familiar meal for travelers far from home. I have never been more proud to be an American Baptist than I was in meeting our missionaries and seeing the compassionate, creative, and Christ-like ways in which they are responding to pain and brokenness of our world.
My favorite photographs from Thailand are portraits of individuals who are the friends and family of members of our church. For almost nine years, Tabernacle Baptist Church has been welcoming Karen brothers and sisters being resettled from Thailand. Today, our extended church family reaches all the way to the Mae La and Umpiem refugee camps and beyond. In Bangkok, we met P’Doh Kwae Htoo, a Karen National Union leader, and Tabernacle’s Kawsoe Win’s younger brother. In Mae Sot, we met the Reverend Robert Htwe, who coordinates nine refugee camps on behalf of the Karen and Karenni, and who is well known to many Karen in our community. Also in Mae Sot, I met the Reverend Newton and his wife, Bupo, leaders in the Kawthoolai Karen Baptist Convention and Thai Karen Baptist Conventions. They are also the uncle and aunt of Tabernacle’s Khin Soe Moe. At the Mae La camp, I met three young men, who with their families, will be resettled in Utica in the coming months. Among them was Thara Roben, the nephew of one our congregation’s leaders - Hsar Mu Taw.
Among the many portraits that accompanied me home from Thailand is an image of the Doctor Simon. Doctor Simon is the Principal of the Kawthoolai Karen Baptist Bible School and College at the Mae La refugee camp. His name is spoken with great reverence by all my Karen Baptist friends in Utica.
I had the honor of briefly addressing the Bible School at the Mae La camp. I recalled for them the Legend of the Golden Book, a Karen folk story that prophesied that one day the Karen people’s younger brother (a white-skinned man) would return to their land with a book of great value that would instruct them how to live. Karen Christians believe this prophecy was fulfilled when Baptist missionaries from America came to Burma and gave them the Bible – the Golden Book. I told them how a missionary printer, named Cephas Bennett, sent to Burma in the 1820’s by our congregation printed the first Bible in Sgaw Karen. I also told them that the connection between the Karen people and Utica did not end in the 1800’s. Among those who have been resettled in our city from the refugee camps of Thailand is a graduate of the Mae La Bible School. Today, Khin Soe Moe is a modern day missionary among the Karen in Utica, New York. She is one of our congregation’s most gifted young leaders. And, she serves in a key role with our school district, acting as a liaison between the schools and the growing Karen community in our city.
Whenever we observe the Lord’s Supper, our congregation has a tradition of singing the first verse of the hymn, Blest Be the Tie That Binds, to conclude our worship service. Since welcoming so many Karen brothers and sisters into our fellowship, we now sing those familiar words first in English and then in Karen. Halfway around the world, in Thailand, I had a profound sense of being bound to Christian brothers and sisters by the powerful ties of our common faith, identity, and purpose in Jesus Christ.
The first photograph on my hard drive is of the Thai Air Airbus Jet that carried me from New York’s aging JFK airport to Bangkok’s recently opened Suvarnanhumi International Airport. This was my first international flight. It was a long one – sixteen and a half hours. My journey from Utica to Bangkok took over 24 hours. I arrived halfway around the world knowing that I would encounter a different culture, be exposed to new traditions, experience new ways of living, and function in a world in which my language was not the tongue of most people around me. But, I also knew that after two weeks I would board another Thai Air jet and within a day be returned to my familiar and comfortable world.
It is a similar, yet different, experience for the refugees from Burma who board a passenger jet in Bangkok destined for Utica, New York, or a host of other cities across the United States. The trip is just as long. But, for most, it is not only their first international flight, it is their first time aboard an airplane. They make the trip knowing that they will probably never again see the place of their birth or friends and family members left behind. They will travel half-way around the world to enter a strange new culture with different traditions, a foreign language, and new ways of living not for a mere week or two, but for the rest of their lives. Unlike me, they make the trip knowing that they will not return. They come in hope of peace and security and a brighter future for their children.
Among my many photographs are pictures of the Baptist missionaries we met in Thailand. Annie Dieselberg introduced us to the ministry of Nightlight that provides hope and new life to exploited young women trapped in the sex industry in Bangkok. At the New Life Center, near Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, we saw firsthand the life-changing ministry the New Life Center, and missionaries Kit Ripley and Karen Smith, provide to tribal young women in danger of exploitation. We also met Kim Brown and toured two of her ministries: the House of Love (a home for women and children affected by HIV/AIDS) and the House of Blessing (a daycare center for children from some of Chiang Mai’s most impoverished neighborhoods). LaMon and Pat Brown, who serve in theological education at Payap University in Chiang Mai, welcomed our group into their home for pizza – a familiar meal for travelers far from home. I have never been more proud to be an American Baptist than I was in meeting our missionaries and seeing the compassionate, creative, and Christ-like ways in which they are responding to pain and brokenness of our world.
My favorite photographs from Thailand are portraits of individuals who are the friends and family of members of our church. For almost nine years, Tabernacle Baptist Church has been welcoming Karen brothers and sisters being resettled from Thailand. Today, our extended church family reaches all the way to the Mae La and Umpiem refugee camps and beyond. In Bangkok, we met P’Doh Kwae Htoo, a Karen National Union leader, and Tabernacle’s Kawsoe Win’s younger brother. In Mae Sot, we met the Reverend Robert Htwe, who coordinates nine refugee camps on behalf of the Karen and Karenni, and who is well known to many Karen in our community. Also in Mae Sot, I met the Reverend Newton and his wife, Bupo, leaders in the Kawthoolai Karen Baptist Convention and Thai Karen Baptist Conventions. They are also the uncle and aunt of Tabernacle’s Khin Soe Moe. At the Mae La camp, I met three young men, who with their families, will be resettled in Utica in the coming months. Among them was Thara Roben, the nephew of one our congregation’s leaders - Hsar Mu Taw.
Among the many portraits that accompanied me home from Thailand is an image of the Doctor Simon. Doctor Simon is the Principal of the Kawthoolai Karen Baptist Bible School and College at the Mae La refugee camp. His name is spoken with great reverence by all my Karen Baptist friends in Utica.
I had the honor of briefly addressing the Bible School at the Mae La camp. I recalled for them the Legend of the Golden Book, a Karen folk story that prophesied that one day the Karen people’s younger brother (a white-skinned man) would return to their land with a book of great value that would instruct them how to live. Karen Christians believe this prophecy was fulfilled when Baptist missionaries from America came to Burma and gave them the Bible – the Golden Book. I told them how a missionary printer, named Cephas Bennett, sent to Burma in the 1820’s by our congregation printed the first Bible in Sgaw Karen. I also told them that the connection between the Karen people and Utica did not end in the 1800’s. Among those who have been resettled in our city from the refugee camps of Thailand is a graduate of the Mae La Bible School. Today, Khin Soe Moe is a modern day missionary among the Karen in Utica, New York. She is one of our congregation’s most gifted young leaders. And, she serves in a key role with our school district, acting as a liaison between the schools and the growing Karen community in our city.
Whenever we observe the Lord’s Supper, our congregation has a tradition of singing the first verse of the hymn, Blest Be the Tie That Binds, to conclude our worship service. Since welcoming so many Karen brothers and sisters into our fellowship, we now sing those familiar words first in English and then in Karen. Halfway around the world, in Thailand, I had a profound sense of being bound to Christian brothers and sisters by the powerful ties of our common faith, identity, and purpose in Jesus Christ.
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