Global Day of Prayer for Burma

It's been about 2 years since my trip to Thailand and the border of Burma with several other questers and the fears that I had in leaving have somewhat been realized. My fears of apathy, comfort, amnesia, and the inability to act once I returned from all that I had seen and heard have sadly come true in many ways. All the high hopes and dreams had somehow become more subtle and subdued after having returned back to life in the states and my mind simply began to forget. This blog entry is not about my confession, rather it is a sad commentary of American life. We are sheltered and isolated from having to think or feel much of anything about any of the human rights atrocities that happen in our world. The reality is that this situation in Burma is just as dire and urgent as it has ever been. And the need for more to join in the efforts to bring relief and care for IDP's in Burma is needed more than ever before.

What will compel us to act?

In Partner's quarterly publicaction they listed these statistics of Burma:

• Burma's government spends 40% of the nation's GNP on the military while only 3% is spent on the nations's healthcare system.
• The World Health Organization ranks Burma as having the world's second-worst healthcare sysetm. Only war-torn Sierra Leone is worse.
• In Eastern Burma conflict zones 221 for every 1000 die under the age of 5, compared to 21 in Thailand, and 8 in the US.
• According to the U, 1 in 3 children in Burma today is malnourished.
• An estimated 34% of Burma's rural population have no access to clean water, which in turn, causes respiratory and water-borne diseases, while adequate sanitation facilities are unavailable to approximately 43% of this population.

This is just a small picture of the dire need of Burma. In addition, to the pathetic health care and general low priority that citizens of Burma are to their government people are constantly in danger of displacement, imprisonment, rape, torture and murder. Children walk out of their villages to be met by landmines and people live on the run in the jungle in order to keep out from under the radar of the SPDC. There are countless stories of human rights atrocities being inflicted on the people of Burma.

Next Sunday, March 9th is the Global Day of Prayer for Burma. Quest church will join with thousands of other Christians all over the globe to remember, to commemorate and to pray for the people of Burma. Steve Dunn, director of World Aid and Karen leader, will come and share his heart for his people of Burma. And I pray that we will glean so much from his sharing. I hope that we will learn about what it means to sacrifice personal comfort for the rights of others. That has been the dedication of Steve's life and work.

I pray that as we learn more together we do not become crippled by the big picture of the need and pain of our fellow brothers and sisters but that we would be united to act and enlivened to be a part in some way towards the efforts of freedom and dignity. Church, there are ways in which we can act even here in Seattle. We can support the mission of organizations like World Aid, Free Burma Rangers and Partners through our financial giving. We can volunteer our time, gifts and efforts in the World Aid office right here in Ballard. We can take part in working with the refugees from Burma who are resettling right here in Seattle by teaching English, providing transportation and most importantly building friendship and support. We could even go down to Kent on any given Sunday and join in the Karen church-plant worship, as we communicate our support and solidarity. Most, importantly we can pray. We must pray unceasingly-- believing and trusting that peace, restoration and reconciliation are possible in our lifetime. We must not give up on hope, because without hope we grow in apathy.

In an article written by Dr. Mitch and published in the Partner's first quarter magazine he writes in response to what he has seen in Burma, "I know my own capacity for participation in such evil. Human dignity seems like a concept stuffed with self-serving importance... a wishful humanistic invention. It seems obvious that all men have fallen and anything originally good has been lost, or at least twisted. And yet I can't help but believe there is still something inherently valuable in a person. Rich or poor, free or not, sinner or saint, we were all created in God's image. Moreover, Jesus came in this same human form and spent his life to restore it".

We must hope. AND we must act on that hope believing that we can work towards the words spoken in the Lord's prayer, "on earth, as it is on heaven". We pray for peace on earth, as it is in heaven. We seek love on earth, as it is in heaven. We believe in restoration on earth, as it is in heaven. That is the mission that Christ came to set into motion and that is the mission we must join to fulfill.

Mark it on your calendars and remember: Next Sunday, Global Day of Prayer for Burma.

In hope,

Pastor DeAnza