Myanmar (Burma) – October Update 1

Barnabas Fund

Despite the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and her winning a parliamentary seat in April 2012, little has changed for Burma’s Christians.

They face severe abuse for both their ethnicity and their faith. In ethnic regions, the Burmese military continues to intimidate and harass pastors and other Christian workers, disrupt worship services and destroy churches.

In impoverished areas, Christian children are enticed to join government-run schools, prevented from practising their faith and beaten for failing to recite Buddhist scriptures.

Barnabas Fund assists with projects in Burma, including:

• Bible distribution,
• support for orphans,
• widows and refugees,

the construction of churches and Christian schools.

Myanmar (Burma) – September Update 2

Global One

 An estimated a quarter of a million Rohingya refugees have been forced to flee Myanmar due to conflict and burning of villages. No choice remained but to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. Without basic everyday essentials, the Rohingya are living in squalor without food, shelter or even vital medical attention.

The Rohingya are considered some of the most persecuted minorities in the world, and the current atrocities only demonstrate their continuous suffering. Rejected and unwanted, this ethnic minority group face ostracization. They are denied basic citizenship rights in a country which they have called home for generations.

Yet Christian Rohingyas are doubly disadvantaged. The country refuses to acknowledge them and the Rohingya tribe rejects Christians who’ve converted from Islam.

Myanmar (Burma) – September Update 1

Tearfund

Hours from the nearest town, lies a flourishing healthcare training centre, situated in the Chin State of Myanmar. The immense challenges of the topography surrounding the centre testify of people’s yearning to learn, inspired by the vision of one man, Dr Sasa.

Too many mothers weren’t surviving childbirth, children were dying from diarrhoea and other preventable diseases were claiming lives.

Driven by a God-given determination, Dr Sasa set about developing a training centre where people could come to study as community health workers.  ‘It was about being able to support people spiritually and socially as well as medically – a totally holistic approach to healing.’

His passion rubbed off on hundreds of locals who have helped him construct a mini-campus in the jungle, complete with training hall for 500 people, dormitories and offices.

The centre has trained more than 300 community health care workers from 150 villages and provided them with basic medication – the first time these villages have been able to access any form of healthcare at community level.

Myanmar (Burma) August Update 2

Mob destroys pastor’s house and church

Barnabas Fund Website

On 22 July, a Buddhist mob attacked three Christian homes and a church in a village in Myanmar, allegedly following the conversion of some members of the Buddhist community to Christianity.

The church pastor’s house and the church were completely destroyed, along with several motorbikes owned by Christians.

The pastor and his family are now living on the side of the road. The pastor said, “I and my family decided to serve the Lord in this village, we cannot run from this village, if we die, then we will die.”

Myanmar is 87% Buddhist and in 2015 the government passed a law requiring anyone wishing to change their religion to obtain official approval.

Myanmar (Burma) Update 2 – July 2017

Hospitality training for young Christians

Barnabas Fund Website

Church-run training in hospitality skills for young Karen Christians will equip them to earn a livelihood in Myanmar’s growing tourist trade.  Many new hotels need trained staff.  This will rescue them from the desperate poverty of rice farming and its exploitation by middle men.  Barnabas Fund is covering the costs of meals and accommodation.   

Praise God that Christians from minority ethnic groups in Myanmar have secured representation and significant positions in the new government.

Elsewhere in Muslim areas, hospital management forces Christian staff to recite from the Quran, or be marked absent.

Myanmar (Burma) Update 1 – July 2017

Pastor Jailed in Burma Falls Ill

Morning Star News June 20, 2017 

One of two assistant pastors arrested by the Burma army last Christmas Eve is suffering deteriorating health from malnutrition.  Pastor Dom Dawng Nawng Latt, 65, has become weak, lacks energy and suffers from asthma and diarrhoea, according to his wife and his lawyer. 

 Normally suspects can be held for only 28 days without trial under Burmese law, the attorney said. The two pastors finally appeared at a trial hearing on May 3.

The Christian leaders could face as much as three years in prison for allegedly assisting an “unlawful association,” and as much as five years for assisting in the management or promotion of one.  Human Rights Watch has decried the arrests as arbitrary and called on Burma to release the pastors immediately.

Burma is about 80 percent Buddhist and 9 percent Christian. The government has recognised the special status of Buddhism in Burma.

Myanmar Update 2 – June 2017

Open Doors

Please pray for seven Christian families from Myanmar who are living as refugees in India. The Muslim-background believer families have been expelled from a refugee camp in which they had been taking shelter.

“The Muslims in the camp are afraid that they would convert people to Christianity,” wrote our contact. “There are around 1,200 Muslim families in the camp. They need urgent help to rent land and put up tents. Even Amod, a Rohingya Muslim-background believer leader in India, cannot go near the camp to reach out to the believers.”

The Muslim-majority Rohingya people are an ethnic minority in Myanmar. They have become the target of persecution from radical Buddhist groups as well as the Burmese army. Muslim-background believers in the Rohingya tribe face further persecution as they are ostracised by their own people, as well as by the Buddhist majority.

Myanmar Update – June 2017

Open Doors

Amod is on the run. He’s from the Rohingya (Muslim) tribe and converted to Christianity after 33 years as a Muslim. Christian Rohingyas are doubly disadvantaged. The country refuses to acknowledge them and the Rohingya tribe rejects Christians who’ve converted from Islam.

Amod maintains his witness and pastors Rohingya Christian families who are now scattered. His vision is to see 500,000 Rohingyas come to Christ before he dies.

Attempts to build trust between the Burmese army, insurgents and minority groups, including Christians, have so far met with little success.

Conversion from Buddhism to Christianity is seen as betrayal of family, community and even country. Church leaders are targeted by radical Buddhists in order to paralyse the church. Local communities put extreme pressure on believers from Buddhist and Muslim backgrounds to reconvert.

Barnabas Update – May

Despite the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and her winning a parliamentary seat in April 2012, little has changed for Burma’s Christians. The military continues to pursue its agenda of intimidation, violence, rape and trafficking against ethnic minority groups, many of whom are majority Christian.

They face targeted and severe abuse for both their ethnicity and their faith. The Burmese military has continued to intimidate and harass pastors and other Christian workers, disrupt worship services and destroy churches. In impoverished areas, Christian children are enticed to join government-run schools, where they are prevented from practising their faith and beaten for failing to recite Buddhist scriptures.

 Barnabas Fund assists Christians in Burma (Myanmar), with:

• Bible distribution,
• support for orphans,
• widows and refugees,
• the construction of churches and Christian schools.

Barnabas has also provided Kachin refugees with emergency aid, including shoes for 1,000 needy children.