Located on the Thai Burma border are nine Karen Refugee camps housing over 200,000 Karen refugees.
The Burmese Military Government has for decades been going about committing systematic genocide of these amazing people who refuse to bow their knees to the oppressive communist regime. To escape the constant threat of death and in search of a better life for their children, thousands of Karen each year cross over from Burma into these Thai refugee camps.
In March, a small MVA team from churches in Melbourne partnered with Effective Aid International to work in the refugee camps of MaeLa (50,000 refugees) and MaeLa Oon (15,000 refugees) located on the Thai/Burma border southwest of Chiang Mai.
Our first sight of the refugee camp at MaeLa took us all by surprise. We saw thousands of bamboo and leaf houses built on the slopes of steep mountains all covered with a thick smoke haze. Truly an amazing sight and something I will never forget.
However even more amazing was how quickly these amazing Karen people welcomed us into their families and community. We soon felt very much at home with them and a strong bond of love formed between us all.
Our reason for visiting the camps was to teach, preach, and to train the young people and children. This was a real joy for us as they were so open and eager to learn and had a great hunger for God. The presence of God was in the meetings and many were saved, healed and touched by the power of the Holy Spirit. We heard many amazing stories of how God is working in these camps.
The team did an excellent job in difficult circumstances and was ready to do whatever we were asked to do which kept us all constantly ready. It was an awesome privilege to serve these precious people and we came away very blessed to have been there. It certainly was very hard to leave them and we will be going back.
We are planning to take a team to hold crusade meetings in MaeLa refugee camp early December 2009 and another team to work in MaeLa Oon camp in February 2010. If you are interested in being part of these teams please contact us at mvateams@mvaustralia.org.