When we first planted Jacob’s Well church, we never imagined the plans the Lord had for us and Burma. We had been aware of the political and IDP (Internally Displaced People) situation in Burma through my younger brother’s video advocacy work in SE Asia (see Front Films).
In October of 2006 I received a call from Matt and he informed me that the US had cleared a large number of refugees from Burma to enter the US and that he thought some might be coming to the Western states. He encouraged me to find out…I contacted World Relief in Spokane and indeed, there were 3 families coming to Spokane.
Our family volunteered to host the incoming families and assist WR in all the resettlement work. The first refugees from Burma into Spokane lived at our house for 3 weeks…they were Moon Light, Yoo Yoe, Hailey, July and Lardhe.
After that a steady stream of refugees began to arrive and our church took on a very active roll in assisting the effort to resettle in our East Central neighborhood including: locating housing, assisting with appointments for incoming refugees, setting up and helping with medical and dental appointments, starting a Sharing Shack for collecting household goods, helping start an english tutoring class, School enrollment, prenatal care and appointment support at the birth of two Karen babies, job search, getting ID and working through all the details of learning to bank, write bills and figure out the grocery stores and public transportation. Whew..it’s been a wild ride!
God blessed this endeavor and soon we were able to see around 50 refugees living in our neighborhood. As the numbers grew, we knew we needed help not only serving them but pastoring them, so by God’s grace and a lot of networking and prayer…we were able to fly a Karen (one of the ethnic clans in Burma) pastor and his family from Utica New York to join us in caring for this growing community. Under pastor JC’s leadership we started a Karen service for the neighborhood refugees on Sunday nights at 7PM at our church building.
Now the numbers have outgrown our ability to care alone and with the great oversight and work of World Relief and other churches and volunteers; Spokane has seen so far over 350 Burma refugees living and raising families in our town.
God continues to work in and among the incoming refugees and we continue to pray for peace in Burma.
