Blame: A Pathway to Personal Exoneration

Love For Myanmar Ministries Update

Christ Centered, Servant Hearted, Myanmar Focused

We have been blessed recently with generous donations. As conditions allow, we have been channeling funds throughout our ministry areas. Last week, we transferred $10,000 through our trusted network to assist primarily “Internally Displaced People” in Western Myanmar as well as in the Karen State, Karenni State, and Tanintharyi Division of Eastern and Southern Myanmar. However, no sooner did we act than Typhoon Yagi hits Myanmar and the needs have multiplied.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) disaster response agency said an estimated 631,000 people had been affected by flooding across Myanmar.

Food, drinking water, shelter and clothes are all urgently needed, UNOCHA said, warning that downed communication lines, blocked roads and damaged bridges were all severely hampering relief efforts. Poor communications, particularly with remote areas, have also meant information about casualties has been slow to come out.

What is not shared in the articles below is the fact that the junta government controls rescue efforts, and is neglecting to provide assistance in those areas where they have experienced resistance. The junta’s response to this current disaster has been outrageous. Families, including children, have had to beg for help via Facebook as they sit trapped in trees or on rooftops after running for their lives from flash floods. Some of them were trapped in the vicinity of Naypyitaw, where Myanmar junta boss Min Aung Hlaing lives. Though the videos went viral, he didn’t bother to send his soldiers to immediately evacuate them. When villages were turned into vast inland seas and airlifts were the only possible way out, there were no army choppers in sight. Instead, Min Aung Hlaing continued to order his air force to bomb civilians in areas he recently lost to resistance forces. It is up to us to ensure as many people whether Buddhist, Christian, or other are helped.

• Prayer Request: Please pray that the recent Typhoon Yagi rains as well as those from Typhoon Bebinca which is forecast for Myanmar soon will move swiftly through Myanmar, the flooded areas will dry out, and the people most in need will be reached with survival supplies.

Ministry thought

“God knows our needs far better than we do. Limiting his benevolence to our ignorance is unwise for us and grieves our Father.” Jim Denison

Blame is an unequaled portal to the darker chamber of our soul. We harness blame to transmit it across the hearts of others, and watch it scatter the particles of relationships.

Blame has such a far greater selfish reward than most reactions as it absolves ourselves from responsibility by altering attention towards others.

Blame provides a pathway to personal exoneration to a secret place within us where the truth is not allowed to enter.

Blame is the beginning link in the hidden chain of cowardice that chokes the healing power of faith.

One of life’s greater challenges is to discover and understand the importance of personal accountability. Who among us has not been haunted by our own intentional deception?

The lonely truth is we need intimacy with God to reveal how blind we are to ourselves.

Gary Watkins, LFM Co-founder

Myanmar coup day 1,328: click on article titles for complete stories

“You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.” Henri Nouwen

• Typhoon Yagi: Hundreds of people have died across Myanmar due to flooding and landslides caused by heavy rainfall since the remnants of Typhoon Yagi arrived in the country on Monday.
• Junta boss: Myanmar junta boss Min Aung Hlaing has pleaded for foreign aid to help hundreds of thousands of flood victims, after having looted the state disaster relief fund following his coup in 2021. Myanmar’s military has previously blocked or hindered dispersal of humanitarian aid from abroad. In May last year, the military suspended travel authorization for aid groups trying to reach around one million victims of Cyclone Mocha.
• Junta military: The junta is on the verge of being expelled from a westernmost state bordering Bangladesh, the Rakhine State, marking one of the biggest military losses since the 2021 coup. The Arakan Army has made rapid advances across Rakhine state since November 2023 and is set to create the single largest area controlled by an ethnic armed group since the coup.

TIDBITS

1. Internally Displaced Persons: Over 400 people displaced by a junta offensive (IDPs), from villages in Launglon Township, in Dawei District, Tanintharyi Region are in urgent need of aid. With junta forces still occupying the villages after more than three weeks, villagers are still too scared to return.
2. Shan State: Over 5,000 people displaced by fighting (IDPs) sheltering in Naungcho (a.k.a. Nawnghkio) Township, Shan State, is in urgent need of food and medical aid. Over 1,000 households in Naungcho Township have experienced repeated displacement each time fighting erupts. With no proper refugee camps for them, these displaced individuals have limited access to aid and are facing numerous hardships.
3. Burning: The junta and its allies burnt down 21,012 homes in Myanmar, from January 1 to July 31, 2024. According to Data for Myanmar, over 101,460 homes have been destroyed by junta arson attacks since the February 2021 coup. The destruction of homes significantly affects the security, economic stability, and social well-being of affected communities. Residents flee an area after their homes are destroyed and many cannot return because they have nowhere to return to.