Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Youth Endeavor

The KKBC’s Youth stream consists of seven areas of Church associations: from South to North ranging along the Thai-Burmese border.
1. Tavoy Mergui Area
2. East Daw Na Area
3. Thoo Mwei Area (1)
4. Mae Ra Moe Area
5. Cholodraw Area
6. Has Mu Ber Area
7. Shwe Gyin Area
We are supporting 7 workers who represent each of the 7 areas and we can give only 2500 Baths a year which I actually want to increase if possible. This amounts to 17, 500 Bahts each year. We also pay six workers in our youth department, the Chair Person, the Vice Chairperson, the general secretary and assistant general secretary, the treasure and one office worker. So we have to spend another 15,000 Bahts each year too. We used to send medicines, sport equipments to those areas, especially the IDP (Internally Displaced People) areas. We also support a Bible School student who is now in his first year of the Karen Section (KTS). It is a four year course and we give him 5000 Bahts a year. I mean we can afford only that much.
This year, 2006, we are doing a music video which will portray the Karen situations in general: video clips from the IDP, the Internally Displaced People’s areas and some views of our struggle in and around the camp. We try to work on this music video with a goal to motivate our youngsters both here and around the world to put more efforts into the Karen’s struggle for freedom and justice. It is basically a praise and worship album, and with a motive to conscientize people of our socio-political situations as well. The name of the album is "our living testimony" Now that the music video is out and it is on sale with resonable price of 100 Thai Bahts.



A Note from the Youth's Secretary

My name is Saw Wado I was born in 1975, August 12, at the peak of the Burmese military operation against the Karen National Union. The whole village, i.e. Pitaka village was burned down by the military regime, a day or two before I was born. All villagers fled to the jungle including my family just to give birth to me inside a deep jungle.

My father was a freedom fighter. He started a counter-operation in our village area against the Burmese regime by seeing in full length the cruelty of the regime. He first fought alone, was later joined by his elder brother who was anxious about my father safety. Later some villages joined them in that counter movement.
My father was captured later, and put into prison for five years. I was raised in a war, zone at the depth of turmoil and poverty. My father was released and came home thinking to lead a new and peaceful life. That dream was shattered and the whole family life was at risk when we were under constant watch.

I had to leave my village for my education’s sake. I finished my matrix at No (1) High School, Mae La Karen Refugee Camp, and then I went back to my village for a year of teaching in our village’s middle school. I came back to the camp the next year to enroll for my Bachelor of Theological Studies at KawThooLei Karen Baptist Bible School (KKBBS) than, and now is KKBBSC, ‘Collage’ is added to that name by 2000. By way of God’s chance I was chosen along with Teetoh to further our studies at OTS.
At OTS (Oriental Theological Seminary), we did what we could to be good students though our background in English and our knowledge of theology was not in par. We had no time to blame our background; all we did, I guess, was tried our hearts out.
I finished my M.Div. Degree with the academic excellence Award, while Teetoh tugged the most improved student title under his belt. Then, we were given another degree called Th.M. That meant another two years of hard work. We were also given a quarter of teaching opportunity to M.Div. students as assistant teachers. After finishing all we had to do, it was time, we knew, we had to head back to the camp from where we were sent.

The journey back home was exciting, heart-pounding, risky, and full of uncertainties. However, God’s directing we reached the camp safe and sound, life goes on!
I can now smile while looking back upon those bitter-sweet experiences. Immanuel, God is with us! God has made a way where there seems to be no way. Personally, I can with full confidence and total amazement, say; “He leaded me!”

I am now serving as a teacher of the KKBBSC to equip my younger brothers and sisters so that they may one day become effective instruments of God and for the freedom of our Karen people. I want to see the Gospel spread like wild-fire in and around Burma through the faithful service of Karen people. So the Burma will one day be free from the bondage of Satan.

And I am also serving as the general secretary of the Youth Department in KKBC (KawThooLei Karen Baptist Churches). My dream is a spiritual awakening or revival among young people during my three years stay in office.


A wild dream

The Karens are universally weak in two things. 1. Politics 2. Economics. This weakness is actually a cultural identity. The Karens are actually simple minded people and are not attracted to high standard lifestyle. They are peaceful and are not aggressive about issues like human rights, freedom, justice or economic development. These things boil down to our cultural values and under developed educational system.
Our day-to-day struggles have, may be, blind-folded us from seeing a distant future and we are left to live only on a one-day-at-a-time basis. Our future is actually scary, considering the fact that prices are higher each day and those who have been helping us will have to increase, or may be even double their donations each year. We can easily imagine the hardship that is to come from not-a-very-distant future if we cannot become self-support in some ways or if we cannot recirculate these helps that we get in some sustainable ways. Prices, higher; population, increases; alas, we need to take control, work on some workable solutions. We need to rise up, I guess to mend some mend able leaks.

The UNHCR’s leadership in sending people for a third- country resettlement is one of the solutions, and yet this thing does not touch the Karen’s root-cause problem. I mean what the Karens need is more than this privilege. They need a land in which they can settle peacefully with freedom and dignity. The Karens, I feel, generally are not opportunistic business people. They seek their destination, not foreign resettlement. Their hope is rooted deep in their belief of the ‘Promised Land,’ their mother land and not in some utopian third countries.

However, many families left the camp for the third countries’ option; many will be leaving as far as my knowledge is concerned. Their reasons of leaving are educations and economics. It looks like many people have lost hope or are in the process of loosing hope in the Karen cause; they don’t want to live in a place where they have nothing to live for.

Moreover, more and more people seek to become Thai-citizens by paying some 50,000 Baths or so to some Thai-Karen villagers to acquire the Thai Identity Cards. This thing, too, can dilute our sense of responsibility toward our Karen cause.
The camp-arrest live is not a bad opting comparing to the IDP (the Internally Displaced People), provided we have things to live for, or when we hold a job of some sort at hand. Unfortunately, all the major shops are run and controlled by Muslim people in all the Karen Refugee Camps; some of them are hardly refugees. Refugee status, for them, is just a mask or an excuse for the business opportunity. Now, money goes to them flow into endless pits. Almost nothing returns to the Karen revolution, the Karen Churches, the Karen organizations, etc.

What would it be if these shops are managed by the Karen themselves in all the Karen Refugee camps along the border? There would be a difference.
Even when a time comes for us to go back one day, settle in our homeland; honestly, we do not want to see foreigners rather than our own people leading in our business, entrepreneurship and market system.
The Karen themselves will be their own example and inspiration in their struggle to become a peaceful and well-to-do nation.

I still believe in the oppressed themselves being their own example and inspiration and in the process of their own liberation. I value outside supports which we will do very badly without them. The Karen themselves will have to rise up; they will have to link up with each other and shout for our freedom. Nothing is like doing it ourselves. We have been receiving flowing help from NGOs, from different organizations, from individual donors, and so on; but these helps should not flow into endless pits. These are things I want to see done among the Karen people; if not sooner, it has to be done later. But these are as urgent as a life and death situation which every Karen should put first priority in. There are three most important things:






1. The revival of the Karen churches:
It has been 177 years since we received the Gospel and yet only 25 percents Karen become Christians. Because those professed Christianity are complacent enough to ignore the importance of our situation here and now. The Karen Christians are not relevant to the struggle of the day. It looks like the God the Karens believe in is sick and I do not think it is that same God who brought Israel out of the bondage of Egypt.
Nietzsche said that God is dead. That is the God he believed in. But I don’t think Nietzsche’s God is the same living God who rose from the tomb 2000 years ago.
If the Karens believe in a living God they need to be more living.
I mean God is not a dose of opium for our Karen situation. He is the champion of the weak and the oppressed. He is our solution and not sedation. The Karen churches have to be alive and kicking.
I mean, the church should rise up not to spread the church; or to increase materials inside churches, but to spread the kingdom of God. The duty of the church is not to maintain the status quo of institutions but to move forward and orient toward the kingdom of God. The focus of the church is not materialism but people and their souls. The first and last word of the church is not to glorify the church but to glorify God the Father who is in Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
2. The Karen Economic:
The kingdom of God that Jesus wanted to establish is not in Moon or in Mars. He said, “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” What actually is the Kingdom of God?
Is it some impractical things that we can perceive after we die? Or is it something that we can experience in a concrete historical situation? The actualization of the kingdom came with the person of Jesus Christ and the final realization is yet to come in the future. The rule of the kingdom of God is peace, justice, forgiveness prosperity and wholeness. And the rule of the kingdom of God touches every aspects of human life.
Economic well being is an essential part of human life, and this, I think, is the duty of the church to take on the issue of poverty very seriously.
The Karens are peaceful people and weak in doing business. Be it in Burma or inside refugees’ camps, we will rarely see Karen running shops. The Karens are not shop keepers. This is not a good trait. For economic independence is equally important as political freedom. All the major shops and businesses are run by Muslims in all the Karen refugees’ camps. And where does this money go? It may not come back to Karen causes such as Karen churches, Karen revolution, Karen organization etc…
If shops are run and managed by our own people; money will circulate among us for our use.
Ultimately, the Karens must be self-support if they want the Burmese regime to listen to what they are trying to voice out. (This is where the Community Bank’s idea fits in)
For economic independence is as important as the political freedom.
3. Karen peace process:
How good it is to see brothers live in unity.
The Church has an enormous responsibility to be a servant of the society.
The Church should play an active role in establishing a peaceful society for people to live in. the Karen churches need to rise up and say, “Enough with this division, and enough with this fighting, enough!” The Church needs to work out a solution for the Karen conflicts. To be straight forward, the KKBC (Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Churches) is a servant for the reconciliation process of the two Karen groups. The KKBC, together with KBC (Karen Baptist Convention in Burma) and The TKBC (Thai Karen Baptist Convention) should begin to explore and actualize this task. They should be united. The Karens will one day be united.
This is a dream wild and untamed; a future foretold. These three things, I believe, need to be done. These things are urgent which need a start somewhere; it needs to start here and now. The future we believe in should motivate, shape, revolutionize and eventually transform the present. The force of darkness is soaring high, we are still hoping against hope. However, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and faithful prayers can material this dream one day. The only hope for our Karen people is God. (Saw Wado, Maela Camp)