Praise the Lord for enabling us to serve Him during such an unstable year. Since August, the Burmese army has been involved in a domestic war in Kachin State. Many people have died during the war, and a great mass of refugees have flooded into the areas along the Myanmar-China border.
In one town, there were more than 7,000 refugees in seven refugee camps. A group of three towns has more than 30,000 refugees.
This multitude seems beyond our capacity to help, however we still mobilized our brothers and sisters to help. So far we have distributed eight truckloads of relief materials to the refugees. As the refugees continue to flood in, we hope to reach our hands out to help them. Please pray for them and that the war will end soon.
Most of the refugees are women and children. Many of them are sick as they are not physically strong enough to sustain the hardship. As the winter comes, they don’t even have blankets. It is really heartbreaking to see such a situation.
During this time, the negotiations between the two sides were unsuccessful. We really don’t know when this war will end. We really hope to give them some support, so that they can return home. Among the refugees, there were people from the De’Ang, Lisu, and Jingpo tribes.
One refugee family is from the Lisu tribe. Since there was not enough living space, we could only cut down some bamboo to set up a tent for them. When another family of the De’Ang tribe reached the refugee camp here, they were starving. When we provided food to them, the kids enjoyed it very much and ate it with their fingers.
For another family, they were thankful to just sit around a stove to keep warm. This is a big family from the Jingpo tribe. Seeing their helpless faces, our hearts were broken.
In the seven refugee camps in one town, each day the people consume 80 bags of rice and a large amount of vegetables, plus medicine and tents. We currently plan to help them with one month of food, some cooking oil, and medicine.
We plan to raise half the total cost locally. We are hoping the Body of Christ will help in raising the other half for this critical need for rice, cooking oil, vegetables, medicine, and blankets.
We ask you to give a hand so that these poor people can survive this difficult time in their lives.
We thank you so much for supporting us in prayer and finances as we minister here in China and Myanmar. Thank you for coming alongside us so that the Great Commission of our Lord might be fulfilled.
