Burma/Myanmar Refugee Resettlement

[Haruo]

A large number of refugees from the country known as Burma or Myanmar—many of them Baptists—are arriving in the United States. They speak a number of different languages (especially Karen, Chin and Burmese) and come by a variety of routes, via Malaysia or Thailand. Because of the long-standing connection between American Baptists and the Baptists of Burma (dating back to the work of Ann and Adoniram Judson in the early 1800s), it is most appropriate that American Baptists take an active role in welcoming and assisting these new arrivals. I will be posting a number of items here, most of which are from Dr. Paul Aita, Senior Minister of of Seattle, who with his wife Gail has spent a number of summers [read about it: / ] teaching at MIT (, not that nerd school in Boston) and who is now heavily involved in the resettlement issues and in encouraging Seattle-area ABC churches to become involved.

[Haruo]

The following letter was sent in, I think, November, though the copy that reached me was undated.

Dear Friends,

Within the past few weeks, I’ve been involved in several events and activities relating to people from Myanmar (Burma), especially those who have come or will be coming to the United States. I’ve also received or been made aware of a variety of informative materials on this subject. It seems appropriate for me to try to gather information about these things as a kind of informal report to a number of groups that I’m working with at this time. What follows will probably turn out rather uneven in consistency, and not all of the material will necessarily be of interest to all of the recipients. However, to avoid having to write about some of the same things in different formats—and to pass the information along in a timely manner—I’m going to ask for your indulgence as you look over what follows. Please feel free to contact me you’d like to discuss any of these matters—or to add to or correct the information I’ve collected.

Seattle meetings

On September 24th and November 17th, informal meetings were held at the Japanese Baptist Church for members of some American Baptist churches in the area that had expressed interest in helping refugees coming from Burma to the Seattle area. Individuals from the following churches attended one or both meetings: Burien Community Church, Chinese Baptist Church, Fremont Baptist Church, Japanese Baptist Church (JBC), Mountlake Terrace First Baptist Church, Seattle First Baptist Church, and University Baptist Church. Though unable to attend the meetings, individuals from Community Church of Issaquah have also participated in the discussions and in related activities. Dr. Marcia Patton, Executive Minister of Evergreen Association of American Baptist Churches, and Terri Simpkins, national president of American Baptist Women’s Ministries, were also among the participants.

Our special guest at both meetings was Cal Uomoto, Western Washington Director for World Relief, an agency that is helping in the work of resettling refugees from Burma. Cal noted that refugees coming to the Seattle area are settling primarily in South King County (notably in Kent), where housing costs tend to be lower. Some of the material that follows came out of our discussions with Cal.

Help needed for refugees in the Seattle area

World Relief provides a wide range of assistance to refugee families from the time that they arrive in Seattle. They help them get oriented to life here, help them find apartments and jobs, and help them with language and other learning skills. In order to accomplish these things, World Relief depends on assistance from members of the community at large. This is especially important because refugees from Burma are already arriving in large enough numbers to put a strain on volunteer agencies—and Cal Uomoto estimates that they will continue to come to the US at this rate for another two years.

Volunteers are needed in the following roles:

· Host families, with whom newcomers can live for a period of about three weeks while they get oriented to life in the US

· Individuals to help refugees with various errands, including appointments at various agencies

· “Cultural companions” to visit refugee families about twice a month

· Tutors in English language

In addition, household items are needed for families when they aquire their own apartments. These include

· Items of furniture

· Seven different kinds “Replanting Life Kits” of necessary items, specifically

Kitchen kits

Household kits

Bathroom kits

Cleaning supply kits

Adult kits

Child kits

Baby Supply kits

To review the items needed for each kind of kit, you can go on the internet to .

If you or your church would like to be involved in any of these ways, you are encouraged to call World Relief at 206/587-0234. Their Seattle office is located at 316 Maynard Ave. South, Suite 101. Their Kent office is located at 10610 SE Kent-Kangley Road. For more information, go to concerning the national organization or for the local offices.

Coordinating “Replanting Life Kits”

JBC has received some money to purchase items for Replanting Life Kits for World Relief to give to refugee families settling in Seattle. (Keep reading to learn where that money came from.) As of this writing, most of the needed items have been purchased for one Bathroom Kit, and one volunteer has been enlisted to acquire what is necessary for one Kitchen Kit. It has been estimated that the cost of each kit is approximately $65. Long-term items for the kits (such as table settings, cooking utensils, etc.) do not have to be new, as long as they are in good condition. Plans are in the works at JBC to put together a number of Kitchen Kits and Household Kits.

In light of the interest of a number of American Baptist churches in the Seattle area, one interesting possibility would be for different churches to work on different kinds of kits. If we coordinate with one another, we can share items that could be used in each other’s kits. If you are interested in this possibility, please contact Paul Aita at JBC (206/622-7351) or jbcsrpastor@qwestoffice.net.

JBC’s current funding for this project comes from a concert that was presented by a friend of our congregation, a classical pianist named Sachi Hirakouji. Desiring to help our congregation reach out to Japanese-speaking people in the community, she offered to present a series of concerts with introductions and announcements made in Japanese. Sachi’s second desire was to use net proceeds from such concerts to help support various worthwhile projects. It happened that we were gathering information about refugees from Burma when Sachi came to discuss her idea, and she enthusiastically accepted the idea of preparing Replanting Life Kits using the income from the first concert. As it turned out, the concert was well-attended by both Japanese- and English-speakers and was very successful both in terms of music appreciation and of outreach. Thanks to the graciousness of Dr. Hirakouji, it will also make it possible for JBC to purchase a number of Replanting Life Kits for newcomers from Burma.

Resources

· American Baptist International Ministries has prepared a Global Mission Study Toolkit: Myanmar and Thailand for 2008-9. [The Myanmar focus is on seeking peace and offering refuge. The Thailand focus is on abolishing human trafficking.] Sample copies of these resources were distributed at our November meeting by ABW Ministries President Terri Simpkins.

· Burma Roundtable is the name of a group sponsored by students at the University of Washington. The groups meets at 6:30 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month at the Greenwood Branch of the Seattle Public Library. Interested persons are invited to attend. Joan Bowers of Seattle First Baptist Church attends this group. At the meeting at JBC in November, she announced that the group is selling raffle tickets to raise funds for school supplies for children from Burma now in refugee camps in Thailand.

Burma comes to Kent

Most of you receiving this report know that my wife Gail and I live just outside of Kent, Washington, a city of 80,000+ about 18 miles southeast of Seattle. For some time, we have been aware of a Burmese Fellowship that meets every Sunday afternoon at the First Baptist Church of Kent, as well as of a Chin congregation that meets elsewhere. (I believe they have moved from the Sequoia Baptist Church to a Covenant church in Kent.) We have recently become aware of a Karen congregation that meets at the Kent Memorial Park Building at 850 North Central. I hope to be able to visit that congregation this weekend. Our own nearest neighbors from Burma live three houses from us. They are ethnic Chinese and Buddhist.

Some time ago, Gail discovered that the Kent School District had designated one of the rooms in the school where she teaches—Kent Phoenix Academy—for use in tutoring after school. Among the students who come regularly are many refugees from Burma, some of whom live in the apartments just down the street from the school. Gail has started tutoring in this program on Tuesday afternoons. In the process, she has also learned that the adjoining classroom has been set aside for use as a clothing bank sponsored by the various PTAs in the Kent School District. She and I volunteered there this past Tuesday and met a number of people from Burma.

On Wednesday evening this week, Gail and I attended a presentation at Kent Meridian High School for students in English Language Learning classes (formerly known as English as a Second Language) and their parents. There was a standing-room-only crowd in the large room where we all gathered for the first part of the presentation. Comments made by the teacher in charge were translated into six languages reflecting those present: Swahili, Somali, Burmese, Karen, Spanish, and Russian. Among other things, we learned that this one high school has 299 ELL students. After preliminary comments were made, the group was divided by language. Gail and I joined the group of those who spoke Burmese and/or Karen. Our friend Mimi Dissler, a member of Seattle First Baptist Church, served as Burmese interpreter for this group, as a presentation was made concerning graduation requirements. I counted thirty students and parents in this session.

Special Guest Coming

One of Gail’s and my many dear friends from Burma is Dr. Samuel Ngun Ling, a lecturer at the Myanmar Institute of Theology where we have taught as volunteers for five summers. Dr. Ling (as he is called in America) is also the director of MIT’s Judson Research Center, whose mission is to encourage Christian-Buddhist dialogue. Dr. Ling is currently serving as a guest lecturer at Luther Seminary in St. Paul MN. Gail and I have invited him to our home before he returns to Burma. Though we have not made final arrangements, we are anticipating that he will be with us from about January 9th through the 21st. Though he will not be available on Sunday the 11th or over the holiday weekend from the 17th through the 19th, there should be time for him to meet with various interested individuals and churches on other days. I’m thinking of convening a third meeting of our ad hoc group sometime between the 12th and the 16th, for example, and I’d also love to receive invitations for Dr. Ling to address evening meetings at some of our churches. If you are interested in this possibility, please contact me as soon as possible.

Distribution lists

I have set up a distribution list specifically for material relating to ways that we can offer assistance to refugees from Burma in the Seattle area. If you are not already receiving such materials from me but would like to, please let me know. I’ll be happy to add your name to the list. This particular piece is being sent to that group as well as to JBC’s Outreach (missions) Committee and Diaconate, to officers of the Asian American Baptist caucus, to a number of American Baptist staff members, to pastors and other leaders from Burma whom I’ve met in the United States, and to others I think might be interested. As circumstances warrant, I may prepare similar reports in the future. If you’d prefer not to receive them, please feel free to let me know that too.

Thanks so much for your interest.

With best wishes to you all,

Paul Aita

[Haruo]

Just received from Dr. Aita...

Dear Friends,

Here are some more reports and resources for you concerning refugees in our area.

I’m really happy to report that several of our American Baptist churches and friends seem to be getting involved in collecting items for Replanting Lives kits for World Relief to pass along to refugees in the Seattle area. JBC has most of what’s needed for one kitchen kit, one household kit, and one bathroom kit—along with additional items that will go into one or more others of the same kind(s). Some of our members have made donations of new and used items, while others (along with one of my family members and one of my friends who do not attend JBC) have done some shopping, using funds that the church received from a concert I wrote about previously. In addition, I’ve learned from Pastor Judy Gay of the Fremont Baptist Church that she is challenging her congregation to prepare one each of the seven kinds of kits. Also, Joan Bowers of Seattle First Baptist Church has gone shopping at estate sales and has brought many kitchen and household items, including a number of blankets. I believe that we have more blankets on hand than we’ll need for the kits we’re preparing, so I will try to take some of the blankets directly to the World Relief office this week, since they asked for blankets in light of this cold weather. I'm also thinking that I’ll need to plan a work party soon to sort the items that are now piling up in my office, to identify what’s still needed to complete kits, and to help deliver kits when they’re finished.

Starting on Sunday, November 23rd, I’ve been attending the afternoon services of the Karen congregation which has been meeting in Kent. Actually, for two weeks, I only attended the end of the services, since they’re all in Karen and I don’t speak any! However, this past Sunday I attended the entire service, having been asked to preach at it. A Karen man who is called “Saw” (who said he used to attend Seattle First Baptist Church) served as my interpreter. (Actually, Saw in Karen just designates a man, but he uses it as his first name in this country.) It was interesting to me that I preached twice with translation on the same day—since we’d had a joint communion service that morning at JBC for our English- and Japanese-speaking congregation. (At JBC, however, the translation is simultaneous and heard via headsets, while at the Karen service it was line-by-line.)

In my previous report, I mentioned that my Chin friend, Rev. Dr. Samuel Ngun Ling, would be visiting us in Seattle for a couple of weeks in January. Unfortunately, his plans have changed and he will be able to stay with us only for about five days. I will still try to arrange for some kind of meeting with him to which I’ll invite those who are interested in Burma. The mostly likely date would be Monday, January 12th, so you may wish to pencil that in if you’re potentially interested in attending.

In my last report, I listed some resources for you—but forgot to include all that I had. Let me try again, adding some more that I’ve become aware of.

World Relief has some great resources. One is a CD entitled Replanting Lives: The Story of the Church at Work. It contains a number of segments of different lengths, the shorter ones possibly suitable for use during worship. The longest segment is specifically about refugees from Burma and shows the various steps in the process of resettlement—and the ups and downs experienced by the refugees along the way. World Relief also has other resources, including a CD that describes a training experience they provide to churches entitled “The Refugee Project: Walk in My Shoes.” Contact World Relief directly if you’re interested. Remember that they too are non-profits, so be prepared to help with the cost of their resources.

The November/December 2008 issue of International Ministries publication known as Update contains a page entitled “From mission to ministry: New Immigrant Churches birthed out of ABC Church celebrated at World Mission Conference.”

Leland Ross of the Fremont church reports,
I am now the Moderator of the "ABC Life & Ministry" forum at

and I want to do a thread on Myanmar refugee resettlement etc.

There were some other websites I wanted to include in this list of resources—including one that Joan Bowers sent me—but I can’t locate them right now.

That’s it for now. Please free to send me information that you’d like me to pass along.

With best wishes,

Paul

Paul D. Aita, D.Min., Senior Minister
Japanese Baptist Church, 160 Broadway, Seattle WA 98122
Voice 206/622-7351 Fax 206/622-3462
Website http://www.jbcseattle.org

[Haruo]

Realizing that not all potentially interested parties even look at this forum, I put a post with a link in the BF&P forum.

[Mark]

Someday I hope to visit Burma, which I've been hearing about all my life, given the fact my mom is a graduate (and remains an avid supporter) of Judson College in Alabama: http://www.judson.edu

Not to be confused with (although named for the same family) the other Judson College - now Judson University - in Illinois: http://www.judsonu.edu

[pastormikejordan]

I had a Burmese youth pastor as a boy in NJ, who was working on a DMin at Eastern Seminary. He now is on the faculty at Karen Baptist Theological Seminary (), which must be an alternative to the seminary above. Anyway, thought those interested in Burma might be interested in the link.

Mike

[Haruo]

Thanks for the link, Mike. KBTS is much older than MIT (founded 1845 and 1927 respectively) and it looks like KBTS is much more focused on the Karen per se. Judson himself was still in active service in 1845, and was doubtless involved in the founding of KBTS. The Bama (Burmese) and other ethnicities were much less quick than the Karen to take to being Baptist, it seems. And KBTS is right in Yangon (Rangoon), which has I'm sure both its good and its bad points in the present political situation.

I was amused to see that KBTS has a faculty member listed as "Thramu Naw Htoo Htoo, Associate Professor of Feminism & Old Testament"; I imagine that right there is enough to preclude SBC support for the school . Seriously, the quality of the English on the KBTS website is not nearly at MIT's level.

The Karen (accent on the REN) speak a group of languages (Sgaw and Pwo being the two most important) separate from (Bama) Burmese/Myanmar proper, and their churches are organized (like other Baptists in Myanmar) into a language-specific, nationwide convention of their own, which is a subsidiary of the Myanmar Baptist Convention. I'm not sure if the Bama-speaking churches have their own language-specific convention, too, or if they just go directly to national. The Pwo tend to live SW of Yangon (in the province formerly spelled Irriwaddy) and the Sgaw to the SE towards and across the Thai border. Sgaw and Pwo (and another variety, Pa'o) are closely related but not mutually intelligible. The Bama form of "Karen" is transliterated "Kayin", and the indigenous pronunciation is "Kayan". FWIW.

[Haruo]

Dear Friends,

Earlier this week, the Seattle Times had , including a large photo of a family that had come to the US from a camp in Thailand.* I skimmed it before I left for work. During the morning, I received an e-mail from our church moderator commenting on the article and asking if I'd read it. (I agree with her that the content is quite discouraging, which is why I hope many people at JBC and our sister churches will read it.) Then when I got home in the evening, my wife Gail told me that one of the girls in the photo (Lah Htoo, age 14, front right) attends the tutoring class at her school and she saw her the day before--since Gail tutors there one day each week. Gail also said that two other girls in that class were quite excited to tell her they had heard her husband (me) preach at their church on Sunday. Figuring they were Christians, Gail started singing "Jesus Loves Me" in Karen as they were going for a snack, and the girls joined in singing it with her! When I asked Gail how she knew the words to "Jesus Loves Me" in Karen, she explained that this past summer while we were teaching in Burma at the Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT), one of her female students named Eh Moo taught it to her. Eh Moo is also the daughter of Lah Shee, the woman who prepared our meals for us at MIT in 2004, 2006, and 2008. She and Gail have developed a close relationship over that time, and Gail has enjoyed watching La Shee's daughters grow and entroll in the undergraduate program at MIT.

When Gail and I volunteered with International Ministries in 2000, we had no idea how it would change our lives. Even after five summers going there, we never suspected that Burma would be coming to us! It's amazing how things get connected some times. In cases like this, I can't help but believe that it is God at work.

* http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/n ... es09m.html

Paul Aita
Senior Minister
Japanese Baptist Church, Seattle

[Haruo]

Tangentially pertinent to this thread is the thread on the visibility (let alone legibility) of the Burmese abugida* hereabouts.

* is the term for a writing system that incorporates some aspects of an alphabet and some aspects of a syllabary... It seems to me that the Korean hangul ought to be classified as an abugida, but Wikipedia doesn't admit as much.

[Haruo]

I have a hunch some of the Burmese refugees recently resettled in Seattle's southern suburbs are probably just totally like freakin' out at the snow!

[Haruo]

I've invited those with information about or texts of Burmese and Karen hymns and hymnals to post same in . It seems to me that my wouldn't be complete without some input from that tradition.