Karen of Myanmar
by Daren Downs SOC Director
Article on the Karen of Myanmar (Burma)
In the beginning of the 1800's America sent out one of it's early missionaries Adoniram Judson. Judson was heading for India, but he was refused entry. He then went across to the nation of Burma. Little did he know of the great difficulties that were ahead of him. He would preach for six years before the first soul would come to the Lord, and he would also be put in prison. While Judson was in prison, his wife and daughter would come to visit him and would smuggle the scriptures in. He would hide them in his pillow. At night the guards would tie his legs up off of the ground and he would role over and take the scriptures out and translate them into the Burmese language.
I often thought, how could he face such hardships; watching his wife and daughter leave and not being able to go with them. Judson knew he was espoused to the Prince of Life. He loved God more than he loved his own life. Judson was used of God to bring revival to the nation. Nearly two hundred years later Burma (now Myanmar) is in turmoil. The churches are dead and many of the pastors and leaders are not even born again. It has become tradition.
God has given the School of Christ an opportunity to breathe new life into the people. It is not something that we necessarily sought, it sought us. We are to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, but the Kingdom is also seeking. It is seeking for vessels of life. Through tragedies, wars, and political unrest many Burmese, Karen and other tribes of people have left their country and are currently in refugee camps. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the camps inside Burma and Thailand. The United Nations has begun to send them to more than thirty nations. America alone has received a hundred thousand Karen and many Burmese. Amongst them are many former students of the School of Christ. The school has operated in the refugee camps for several years now and thousands have been trained in the teachings and the discipline of prayer and study of the word of God. The former refugees have planted churches from San Diego, California to Buffalo, New York. There is likely a group of them not to far from where you live.
Who would ever have surmised that through such poverty God could send so many missionaries? When the School of Christ was filmed in the Karen language one of the students came to the class one day and said, "Last night I had a dream. I saw this school where we are now, and there was a bridge going out from here." We thought that the bridge would go across the street or maybe to the boarders of the nation. We had no idea that it would be carried by the Karen tribe of Burma to more than thirty nations of the world.
Some of these refugees were sent to Singapore. When they went to attend a church service the pastor, thinking that they were not converted, began to share the Gospel with them. They pulled out their School of Christ diplomas and showed him that they had been students of the school. This same thing happened in the United States.
Pastor Clendennen always said, "The end is contained in the beginning." Judson could have been America's greatest pastor in his day, but he gave it up for the nation of Burma. Today, the Karen tribe of Burma and several other tribes have come to us in America. Judson said in his day, "In no more than two hundred years the religions of Buddha, Brahma, and Mohammed would be gone and Christ will reign." We don't know exactly the year he said that, but it was most likely between 1812 and 1817. Truly church, the Lord is about to return. Let us work while it is day.
|
