Roy Medley - Karen Diaspora

I write this on Sunday morning, Thai time, as our ABC team with CBF representatives prepare to go into the refugee camp near Mae Sot to worship with our Karen brothers and sisters. What we are witnessing now is the beginning of the Karen diaspora - our hearts are heavy for them. We give thanks for the churches ready to receive and resettle them. But our hearts cry out against the brutal Burmese regime, "How long, O Lord; how long?"

As I stood on the hotel balcony this morning watching the Sun rise over Mae Sot, I began to sing, "When morning guilds the sky,". As I sang in my wavering uncertain morning voice a blackcapped sparrow flew to a an arborvitae beside me and with head up began to sing her praise with me. As we sang all around us a chorus of nature began to lend their voices with ours to praise God.

As we entered the camp, I was astounded by the setting and its beauty, but also by its size. I continue to be amazed by the resiliency of the human spirit. In a hostile environment they have organized an infrastructure including orphanages, housing and care for the disabled, businesses, church life and a Bible school.

It is hard to believe that this is the only life some have known, having been born here in the last twenty years. Years of uncertainty, but years sustained by faith that God was present with them.

Today many in the Karen community see the diaspora as a fulfillment of a long-ago prophecy that one day the Karen would spread the gospel throughout the world. As Saw Simon said, "we are going as missionaries to many countries without passports, visas, cost or planning (referring to the resettlement of them in third countries as refugees). That being said there is also something incredibly tragic in their being uprooted from land, family and culture to be scattered to the four winds.