Imagine waking up early one morning to the loud buzzing of the jungle creatures around you. Your one of the 7 healthy people who can still walk and move around. Your group of 10 is a miss match of a mother and daughter here, a father and daughter there. A 4 year old orphan is in the arms of a 17 year old girl with one leg. 2 elderly women are lying next to you, motionless. They are ill, most likely malaria, but you have no way of telling. 2 others are on watch up the trail about half a kilometer. And you begin to make a fire. There is a small container of water from the stream down the trail. You know you can risk drinking it, but you better be safe and boil it. You do have to boil those weedy looking plants anyways in order to eat them. Your group has been lucky as of late. Only one case of typhoid in the past month and only 2 one cases of dengue in the past 2.
And so you start to make that fire. You know you’re taking one of the biggest risks of your life with that fire. If there is even a hint of smoke into the air, you will be noticed and then hunted down. You know 7 of you can’t escape, so their lives are in your hands. This is life for you. You are scared. You are feeling a little bit natious in your stomach most of the time. You are hungery. And the worst thing of all, you are the last surviving member of your extended family. Andf then it hits you again. all those memories flash through your mind: How did I get to this point? Why me? Is it worth continuing on this wretched life? Is there even hope? then you remember that story you were once told when you were young. That story about a man who died on a cross for you! And you pray for the first time since that day you heard that story 12 years ago. And then, your mind goes to a place of peace. A place of assurance. You feel free for the first time in your life.
3 months earlier…
Life was tough. Being a 16 year old living in a village surviving on a brown rice field, chickens, pigs and roots and berries found in the jungle. You had food, so you were doing all right. Others were less fortunate than you. Everyday consisted of hunting and gathering for food. Your 2 siblings were alot younger and on this day went with you to find some berries and carry some water back from the stream a kilometer away. You are one of the many able children in the village. In your village of about 89 people you are one of 14 youth between the ages of 12 and 25. So you have an important role in the village life.
As you are walking back to your village, you hear some mortar shells. This time they sound a little bit different than usual. They sound close! So you drop your water jug and start to run. You run a little bit faster than usual down the trail towards your village. When you get to the crest of the hill you see smoke, and flames, 15 to 20 feet high coming from the heat shelter in the small rice field. You see an explosion on your left, and another one further down on your left. You hear screaming. you see a girl with her shirt ripped, half naked girl running down the trail toward you. Behind her are 2 soldiers shooting. One of them loses his attention and turns around to shoot a child running the opposite way in the back. 2 jeeps full of soldiers come racing down the dusty road and slide to abrupt stops. About 30 soldiers by the looks of it jump out and start shooting at people running away. Pigs are being shot, the chickens sliced with machetes, and the worst of all the people are being shot as they run.
There is no reason for this attack. Just a normal day. As normal as normal is in the eastern jungles of B/urma. You see your family being shot in front of your eyes. The worst thought is for those you don’t see. Is your mom being raped? Is your father being torchered. Is your little cousin being taken away and forced into the army? So many unknowns. The only peace you have for anyone is if they are dead. They are at peace in heaven. The only reason you think this is because that small building with a little white cross on top is engulfed in 20 foot flames.
These flashbacks haunt you daily. You can’t close your eyes at night because of the sights and smells of that day. Everything you have ever known gone in 15 minutes of horror. And this is where you make that choice. That choice to press on and somehow find inner strength to fight this mess of a life or just quit. Just die!
This is made up! This is not some sick idea I have in my head. What you just read is REAL. I happened to be 5 km’s from wher this stuff is potentially happening. The B/urmese army fires mortars into Thailand in hopes of hitting the fleeing people there. It hides it’s true “capital city” from the world. It’s idea of a nation makes no sense at all!
The world needs to wake up to the reality of this place! We need to wake up to what’s really going on! We need to see the TRUTH! Laura Bush went tp B/urma a few months ago and apparently the places she visited (on the border) have changed from the visit. You may have heard of the “Iron Curtain” of Russia or the “Bamboo Curtain” of China, but this is another “curtain” that needs to be ripped down. I urge America to watch the movie RAMBO 4. Now I’m not promoting the gorey, shoot em’ up idea of the movie. I want you to see the realities of what’s going on here! Right before I left my ministry location, I watched RAMBO 4 with some Thai nationals of the K/aren people group. The background story of the movie is pretty much bang on to what’s going on. The movie was mostly filmed in Thailand, but had authentic K/aren people in the film. The horrors you see are REAL everyday. The B/urmese army takes out villages just like that! The movie is violent and not for those who can’t deal with extreme violence. However if you want to see and get a glimpse of a reality here in southeast Asia, then go for it!
RAMBO 4 is banned in B/urma. No cameras are allowed into the country. Sylvester Stallone wrote this movie to bring light to one of the darkest places in the world. I thank the Lord for using a film like this to bring LIGHT in the DARKNESS!
I’m sick of hiding these feelings deep down inside. I’m angry at Satan for his hand in this. I continue to pray for those who are displaced. If God can use RAMBO to bring LIGHT into this darkness, then he can use the world’s prayers! The Lord WILL riegn over that nation! But we need to pray!
Here are some videos from YouTube.com to give you some idea of what’s going on:
