Burma Earthquake Relief

On the 24th March an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale hit Burma. The epicenter was 200 km away from Chiangmai. At that time I as sitting in a restaurant next to a Californian girl who had just flown in. Being experienced in earthquakes, she pointed out that the lights were swinging and suggested we might be having one. Seeing as I am completely unexperienced in earthquake, I just assumed the sense of the earth shifting was due to the dizziness I had been feeling all week due to my fever and strong medication so I told her, "Nah, it's just windy."
Then when all at the table realised that we really were having an earthquake (i.e the floorboards were shifting) we debated whether to run out or not. Kath, an Aussie girl, in classic style waved us all back to our seats saying, "It's just a small one."
At first the news only reported one death. Then a score more. Then personal eye-witness accounts started to trickle through suggesting that the real death toll was much higher than the Burmese government was acknowledging. This isn't a surprise since a couple of years ago there were over 130,000 deaths due to Cyclone Nargis and the government claimed there were only 79.
The government tried to prevent images being taken, but some people still managed to get some out and some of the photos and footage ended up in my hands. With this news the disaster relief group in my church started to take action, although no foreigners are allowed into the affected areas. In my role as media and communications I began to collect accounts of the damage and try to collate a truer picture of what was really going on and keep the different relief groups informed so we can co-ordinate better.
It's complicated and exhausting to try to keep up with the reports coming in, work out what is the best course of action with limited resources and and even finding a map to locate the villages was tricky. On the side, I have been trying to use the media to inform the Western world which seems to have mainly overlooked it. The Burmese government and world news reported only 75 dead but one girl said that in Tarley town alone there were 137 known dead two days after the earthquake. Out of Kya Ku Ni came one of the sadder stories- the church fell on the the youth group bible study and 30 died.

Images of the church.


The unofficial reports lead to an overall picture emerging showing 300 known dead at the moment, neglected mountain communities not receiving help, tainted water causing diarrhea, collapsed homes leaving survivors trying to shelter under tarpaulins in the rain and the Burmese army confiscating relief supplies.
This earthquake was of a greater magnitude than the one that hit Christchurch, New Zealand and it has killed more people and left more devastation in an area with far less resources to recover. As we see the major relief groups ham-strung by international diplomacy, it seems that it will be the local ministries and indigenous church networks that can make a difference on the grass roots level to these affected communities.



To read more about what happened, I have been writing damage reports at:
http://thehavenproject.net/24-march-2011-earthquake/ and
http://thehavenproject.net/burma-earthquake-update/
You can donate at these links.

A google map tracking damage reports

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=214528781436986238938.00049f7c7f0997fd6a8a6&ll=20.705301,100.080729&spn=0.064872,0.115614&t=h&z=14

A link to one eye-witness account

http://blog.partnersworld.org/?p=1457

7-11 adaptation

7-11, considering that it's just a chain of convenience corner stores, has such an amazing impact on quality of life in Thailand. Having a 7-11 in your muu baan (village) immediately ups it's status I feel. Not only can you buy junkfood, alcohol and ice at 3am, you can also pay all your utility bills there, recharge your phone and even pay for a plane ticket. Think of how much these last services mean for the remaining large numbers of people in Thailand who have never owned a bank account or credit card. It's impressive how much 7-11has adapted.
And on top of all this, in this country that doesn't really believe in providing public trash bins, you can always reliably find a bin outside 7-11.

Pic of the week

A prayer walk around Wat Ched Yod- place of 16th C Buddhist convetion.

Location:Chang Khian Yu Yen,Chang Phuak,Thailand

Who is my neighbour?

Today I went to visit my other neighbours. About 500m down the road from my house is a Shan slum. It had a rickety wooden fence around it and the houses are made out of corrugated iron. The children are riding their bikes and playing on the dusty earth. I've assumed it's Shan before even though I've never been into it, because most of these kind of slums are filled with Shan people who have escaped from the oppressive military regime in Burma and work for around $3-$6 a day as construction workers in Thailand. As a result of their work, they often move around from construction site to site, and so they just bring their families and build these slums near their work. However, this one has been there for at least two years now and one guy we spoke to today said that they would stay there. So it's become a way of life.
I see the workers out every morning waiting in blue trousers and shirts by the side of the road. They are waiting to be collected for their jobs, and it's common here to see twelve or more crammed into the back of a ute on the road. I have never actually spoken to them in the one and a half years that I've lived here, perhaps because it's easier to ignore the poverty when you don't have an answer for it. I saw this very clearly a few years ago in Jakarta, Indonesia when I went to document evangelism in desperate slums that were right next to luxury malls. I heard Indonesian Christians who had lived and gone to church right beside these slums for all their lives say, 'We never knew this poverty existed' after they had prayer walked with us through the slum. After that experience, I still occasionally wonder, 'Where are the poor around me? Is there a blind spot in my 'garden'? (The garden is my euphemism for the area that God has assigned for me to take care of - I can't save the whole world, but I can tend my own backyard). Essentially, I'm the guy in Luke 10 asking 'Who is my neighbour?' and I never want to hear back from God 'It's the one you left by the wayside.'
So I spoke with Lydia about it a couple of weeks ago. Lyds is working with the 'Meeting Point' which is a YWAM ministry for Shan people in Chiangmai. Her assignment with them was to go and survey the different Shan slums around Chiangmai so that the ministry could plan their work. So she offered to come with me to visit the slum down the road from me. Also, the main actor from our Shan film, Sai Sai, moved to Chiangmai a week ago and we asked him to come along too. That was a very good move as Sai Sai is so affable that he opens doors everywhere.
Today the three of us walked down from my house carrying plastic bags filled with women's clothing to give away. My plastic bag was filled with clothes left behind from friends who had moved away and couldn't fit everything into their luggage limit. I wasn't really sure what they would make of the farang styles. We walked in through the opening in the wooden fence and saw a few children, but only one guy around. We said 'My song kha' which is hello in Shan and then that pretty much exhausted all the Shan language I know so Sai Sai went on to ask the survey questions. The guy told us that the head guy was not at home but pointed us to other people that lived one row further into the slum. We passed a woman bathing her baby in a plastic bucket and stepped into a skinny alley between the shacks.

Sai Sai stood in an open doorway and chatted away merrily explaining what we were doing. Lyds practiced her Shan that she's been learning with a young guy in the alley. I hid behind them both after answering the usual question about exactly what was I racially (they always guess Korean), and peeped into the one room houses. Cardboard was piled in the gaps between the roof and wall, probably to block the wind. I'm sure everyone could hear everything though. They slept on the floor, but did have electricity. It would be cold at nights, since they only had one layer of iron around them, and I know that I've been chilled sleeping within my cement walls.
I think that's why the lady who took our bag of clothes asked immediately if they were winter jackets. Unfortunately I know that it was mainly light summer clothing in my bag. I don't even have a winter jacket for myself here (my mother made me give my warmest jacket to her at Christmas as she's going to Antartica). I may try to get some jackets though and go back with them.
Sai Sai felt like it would be good for us to build trust and recognition by wandering around the slum for a bit so we walked around and kept talking to people. One middle-aged man was in his blue overalls speckled with paint, obviously his profession. Lydia asked Sai Sai to ask him if he was married. Sai Sai seemed a little bit reluctant, but in the end he did ask it. There was this awkward moment and then he sort of giggled nervously and shook his hands. Sai Sai had to quickly explain that Lydia was only asking because of her work with children, but the man still scurried quickly back into his room. Perhaps he thought he had better escape before the farang proposed to him.
There were over twenty families in that slum. When we reached the end of it there was an open space of dirt between piles of scrap material where kids were playing. One lady had told us that the kids didn't really go anywhere in their free time because it would cost money to take them out on excursions so they just played there in the slum. She suggested that if we were to start a children's program the weekend might be a good time as the kids had nothing else to do. I was surprised to see the towering over the kids' playlot the back of buildings (like the pink one) that I recognised on my street and realised that the slum extended much closer to my house that I had originally thought. We really were neighbours.
Today, the phrase 'Good Samaritan' is in common use and is a positive expression, but I think back in the day in which the parable was told, it would have sounded like an oxymoron to Jesus' listeners. But Jesus used that most ordinary of people, a Samaritan, to express the concept of being a true neighbour - the one who has mercy on them.

The Shan Outreach Centre has a website at http://www.shanoc.com/en/home.html

The Cue Meet

Usually I write this blog simply to vent or process for myself, but tonight I met Ericka who linked to it from Mark, who linked to it from who knows where, so it's encouraged me to write more knowing that people actually read it and in hopes of giving the larger world a honest insight into what missions is like.
One of the perks of missionary life is meeting great people and having deep friendships that spring out of like-mindedness and struggling together.
I was reminded tonight of one the more memorable first conversations I ever had with a friend and thought I would just share it.
I had been dragged to an annual ladies conference here in town. Usually I avoid them because I feel like ladies conferences always have themes like 'how to raise Godly children' which is not applicable to my foreseeable future, or 'modern knitting patterns' (also not in future). On top of that, every time I get encouraged as a 'nurturer' I just feel like growing plants in a hot-house. But my flatmate Bethany lured me into this conference with promises of 'quality time' and probably also something about her birthday.
In a tea break amongst all the Christian matrons and maids, I sat down with a cuppa next to a girl called Candace. I'm sure we probably swapped names, and then for some reason I can not remember, I began to tell her about this dream I had recently. So this is probably how it sounded:
"I was down at the beach with my sister when all of a sudden, planes began flying low overhead and we all looked up. Then with a shock I realised that the planes were actually aliens disguised as machinery so that they could come close enough to take over our world. One landed nearby and began to swallow me, but I realised that if I was digested they would eat my sister next so I fought back and ended up tearing my way out. I was then able to fight and protect my little sister because the alien bite had turned me into a super strong zombie with no feelings so my sister was saved. Then we travelled to one of the last hide-outs of mankind. It was like a football stadium. The humans embraced my sister but then sent me down to the cellar under the bleachers because I was a zombie and that's where the other zombies were. The cellar smelt because the other zombies were in a further stage of decomposition. I came back up to the light to tell them that I didn't feel like a zombie because I was still a pretty fresh one and I was scared of the other zombies. The humans didn't care and send me back under the bleachers. The other zombies shuffled out of the darkness with only one arm or half a face and surrounded me. I was completely disgusted but began a rousing speech about how we were the last hope of mankind because we were the only ones strong enough to defeat the aliens. The zombies were in a state of self-indulgent apathy, but finally I convinced them to get out and fight.
So all of us went to a mega-church in the area. The aliens had been waiting until church was finished and then eating people as they came out of church. And they ate everybody, whole services so other people never knew and new people kept turning up Sunday after sunday and being eaten. We attended a full service and then immediately after the benediction I grabbed the microphone before people could be dismissed. I said, 'There's aliens coming soon, so who here has a gun on them?' and several people put up their hands (this is how I know the dream was set in America). I ordered them to shut and man the doors. Then I arranged for all the women and children to come down to the front stage, the most protected area. Finally, I placed the zombies in front of the left door and said, 'Everyone get ready because I guarantee you, the next person through that door will be an alien.' We all tensed, set to blast them away. But the next people to come through looked like a young family, mother pushing a pram with a little girl alongside, and the dad behind. People in the congregation began whispering and doubting me. I hesitated in giving the order to fire. But then I looked into the little girls eyes and realised that they were glowing an unnatural shade of green. The aliens had learnt how to disguise themselves as people. I also realised that I had let them get too close and had to decide between giving the order to fire on them and have people accuse me of manslaughter later, or provoke the little girl into attacking me, which wouldn't hurt since I was a zombie, but I didn't want to get mangled any further since I didn't heal. While trying to decide, I woke up."
Candace looked at me for a second and then said, "So what you're basically saying, is that you were an alien turd then?"
I thought about it and said, "Well, yes I guess I was." Then we both burst out laughing so hard it took minutes to calm down. Bethany came over to try work out what we were laughing about but in between the ramblings about being alien turds and zombies while still laughing, I don't think she fully understood us.
And out of that a great friendship was born.

Chiangrai Motorbiking visit

Fending off a slight cold, I got on my motorcycle pretty soon after returning to Thailand because I received a text message at 3am saying "COME the baby is here." It was sent by Jeow, my Thai - Karen friend who had basically been camping on my couch in March last year. Then I had gone to India for a month and when I came back, I found that she was married and in the countryside of Chiangrai. Surprise! So now the baby had also been born prematurely by a month, another surprise!

Tara is pretty healthy, fat and sleeps a lot as you can see. Jeow tells me her name means river and she didn't know it sounded like an English name too. Two birds with one stone I reckon.

On the way back I stopped at the Charin Resort, a mecca for pies which I've been trying to find for a while now, but kept missing it before. Thanks to the careful instructions of Lydia, I found it, ate a banana cream pie and bought two more to bring back for others. Then I had to figure out how to strap them to my bike without squashing them. I also was parked next to a beautiful custom built chopper hybrid and felt pretty dodgy on my obviously unwashed motorcycle with the handgrip being held on by tissue paper because it kept sliding off.

I did get caught riding in the mountains at night because it took me so long to strap those pies down, but the sunset was worth it on the way.

Re-entry thoughts

Just a few things that jolted me when I returned to Sydney, Australia for a month after over two years in Thailand.

• Traffic laws are so strictly enforced! Big brother is everywhere on the roads.
• Everyone has an iphone.
• All the motorbikes are so big.
• There's so many cultures mixing it up.
• People look kind of depressed on the trains (they're probably going to work) and no one is eating.