Last Thursday, May 31, my team and I were in our hostel in Myanmar, when in the early hours of the morning we realized there was an out of control, blazing fire two doors down. This blog essentially documents the entirety of the day staring from the fire.
Imagine the scene. There you are lying in your bed, sound asleep, when you are woken up by loud banging and popping noises at 2:30 am. At first you think it’s just construction but you’re so confused. Why would there be construction at this time of the night and why are the workers yelling? You sit up and listen closer and realize that what sounds like construction men casually yelling, are actually people yelling, seemingly, in distress. You remember you’re in a closed country. Could the popping noises and yelling voices be a riot?
Tormented by the unknown and each distressing noise, you’re not sure if you should get up and see what’s going on or if you should stay inside to keep safe. Finally you notice another team member in your room is awake. You ask each other what is going on and share the same panic that it doesn’t sound good. You look outside the window and notice an orange light but this doesn’t click. You both decide it might be best to get ready in case of an emergency. Dressed in night attire as you intended to have a restful sleep, you go to change your clothes while your teammates open the door, slowly creeping to see what the commotion is all about. You consider telling your teammates not to go but clearly something is wrong and someone needs to figure it out quick! So your teammates go ahead.
Just as you finish getting dressed, your team mates come back and say “There’s a fire and we need to leave now.” ‘Is this really happening?’ you think, as you quickly take a mental inventory of what you must take. ‘What else is important after you have your passport?’ So you grab that and your daypack and start heading out of the hostel room.
Your room is in the basement of the hostel so you head up the short flight of stairs. You get to the gate which was normally a comfort to you, in the case of unwanted visitors, but this time it’s a problem. There’s a lock on it. A slight panic comes over you as you can see the fire in your peripheral vision but thankfully you remember that you can climb over a gate on the side. So you do! Shoving your things to a kind Burmese stranger who is trying to help you, you get over the gate and move across the street.
Finally you and your team are on the sidewalk and safe but you look back at the building and then you see it.There is an intense fire ripping through the building right next to the hostel you were sleeping in. (Well at least you think so at the time. The wind blows the flames so close to the hostel you’re confident the fire is right next door. You later find out it was in fact two doors down, which is still too close for comfort)
As you stand in shock across the street you wonder if you remembered to grab your phone but that selfish thought is interrupted when a team mate says, “Guys let’s pray. People just lost their homes.” Immediately you remember that you’re on a mission trip and it’s then you are reminded that it’s in trying times that our faith is put to the test.
As we gather to pray the hostel owners see us and ask us if we’re praying. We say yes, so they join us and we begin to pray. As we pray, standing in a circle, in the street, in the midst of crowds of people watching the fire helplessly from the sidewalk, our hostel owners are praying with us but as they pray they’re crying. Their prayers seem urgent and desperate and then it hits you! We are privileged. As you remember the moments before you left your hostel room where you had the luxury of simply deciding if you should bring your Mac charger, your cellphone charger, or your clothes. What a luxury! These hostel owners stand to lose their livelihood. If only their concern was losing clothes or a laptop charger.
Convicted on this, as you hear the hostel owners crying out to God, your prayer too becomes urgent, now that you know what’s at stake. As you pray you feel yourself bearing one another burdens. Understanding what this fire would destroy, you pray specifically that the fire would not spread and that the hostel would remain untouched. The scene doesn’t look great but you still pray with faith knowing that God can do it.
Shortly after praying the hostel owners usher us to another hostel far enough away from the scene of the fire. After trying to assess what happen, in another hour or two of some of us decide to go back to the scene of the fire. Upon approaching the scene, we don’t know what to expect. When we get there, as suspected, we see devastation but we can’t help but notice that the fire has been somewhat contained and to our surprise, though it shouldn’t be since we prayed, the hostel is not in flames. We later hear that 1 person died and 3 people were badly burned. Yet again another reminder how blessed we are.
It’s now 5:30 am and in less than 4 hours our bus will arrive to take us to school, where we have been teaching the students English and bible stories. So the bus comes, still in shock we pile on the bus as per usual. How odd to proceed like business as usual in light of the morning we had? Nonetheless it’s our last day with the students and we’ve got to tell our beautiful students bye.
During our time in the school we have been sharing with the students bible story, after bible story but today we share the gospel. We ask the students if they know or heard about the fire. Given it’s a small town they all say yes. We ask if they are aware that someone died? Again to this, they say yes. We reminded the students that life is unpredictable and that death can happen at any time but through faith in Jesus and believing that he died for us and our sins, we don’t have to be afraid of death. Knowing someone died in a fire hours earlier, we share this message with much passion, only hoping their little minds can truly comprehend what’s being told to them.
We give them little prizes and candy for being great students, take our “photo op” and as we get ready to leave, it happens. A student, about 9 years old, says he and his other two friends want to pray. They want to accept Jesus. So we pray!
Heading home from school, the word privilege comes up again. As we scratch our heads trying to think what we could do, it hit me, they don’t need us. Please understand when I say, “they don’t need us” I don’t say that in the defeatists sense that our work is meaningless and that there’s nothing that can be done, however I say that in the sense that we can not be their Savior, nor should we view ourselves as their Savior. God will be God for them, just like he’s God for us. He can do things for them that exceeds their expectation just like he does for us.
For some, it’s a common misconception better yet, common subconscious thought that in missions the people who are being served are privileged to have the missionary. A missionaries job, simply stated, should be to share the gospel and show the love of christ in action through practical means. The people in Myanmar although they were very happy to have us and we may have even been an answer to prayer they still don’t NEED us . The only one they really need is God. He has the power to help people in a variety of ways. Sometimes it’s through people such as missionaries and sometimes its in miraculous ways.
Coming back home, as the bus drove by the area of the fire which was now completely contained, we saw there was a tent and board with the names of the victims. Under this tent were neighbors business owners and anyone who wanted to donate to help the victims as they try to recover from the awful tragedy. What community! In well under 24 hours the community pulled together a fund to support the victims and it was filled with people going in and out doing all they could to support their friends, and loved ones who were hurt. Imagine, while we were trying to think what we could do, God wasn’t waiting for us to come up with a plan, he was still working and was providing a way for these victims to get help through their community.
Our privilege in life aids in making us think we in ourselves can make a difference in the world with God as the footnote. Reflecting on the day, I am reminded I am privileged to be on this mission trip, I am privileged to be alive, I am privileged to be able to serve the people in Myanmar and every country I’ve been too thus far. Most of all,I am privileged to be used by God to bring others to him.
I’m fine, my team is fine but it didn’t have to end that way. As our team ended our day in worship, the first song played was God is so Good. How apropos. It’s evident he is, we’re just privileged.
The red building seen next to the fire is our hostel.
Once the fire was contained. This is what remained.
Some of the students
