Fear: imagined or real?

Love For Myanmar Ministries Update

Christ Centered, Servant Hearted, Myanmar Focused

“Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace in difficulties.” C.S. Lewis

This evening Halloween will be underway. It is an evening now centered mostly upon the threat of, in some way, harming others should they choose not to honor your presence with a treat. It is primarily transactions understood to be done in a lighthearted manner i.e. no one truly believes they will be harmed if they either hand out mediocre treats or fail to participate at all. Nonetheless, costumes and antics throughout the evening are intended to instill a certain level of imagined fear into those brave enough to open their doors.

Unfortunately, the children in Myanmar live in real fear every day. They have seen their homes searched without warrants, looted, and even destroyed by their government’s military. They have seen their schools damaged or destroyed by their government’s military. They have seen their brothers and sisters kidnapped by their government’s military to serve as human shields or porters to carry ammunition for battles against their own people. They have seen their parents tortured or killed by their government’s military. They have hid in caves and jungles from their government’s military for months, some for years. They have seen their parents go without eating for days in order that they can have a meal because their government’s military has placed landmines around their farms. They do their school work by flashlight or moonlight because their government’s military has cut off electricity in those areas unsupportive of the coup.

Fear gives us a language which pulsates through our souls and wrestles hope from our hearts. It is the nature of fear to force our thoughts to live solely within the confines of anxiety, distrust, and worry. No small part of our ministries is to bend the Myanmar people’s fear-based experiences towards an understanding of God’s unconditional love for them. It isn’t easy because so many pages of the life of a Myanmar person turn from one tragedy to another.

With your faithful support, the quiet qualities of hope in a loving God will show them how to live with the uncertainties of their lives in Myanmar.

Gary Watkins, LFM Co-founder

Gaza war-755 days, Russia/Ukraine war-1,343 days, Myanmar coup-1,736 days

Please pray that the Christians in Myanmar keep on running the race of faith, always aware of God’s goodness in the midst of their trials while recognizing the joy and honor to participate in the building of His kingdom.

1. A junta military airstrike has killed 22 people, mainly students at a private boarding school in western Rakhine, as the junta escalates an offensive to retake as much lost territory as it can ahead of elections in December. It is estimated that the junta has absolute control over just 30 percent of the country.
2. In Myanmar, more than a third of the population is facing hunger, four million are displaced, the majority of the country is in conflict or under the control of anti-regime forces, pro-democracy and ethnic political parties are banned, tens of thousands of dissidents are in jail, independent media is shuttered, civil society operates in hiding and at grave risk, and the rule of law is in tatters.
3. Russian weapons and aircraft are widely used in the junta’s ongoing war against Myanmar’s civilian population, including in daily airstrikes. Earlier this year in Moscow, Putin and junta leader Min Aung Hlaing signed an agreement to build a nuclear power facility in Myanmar. A month prior, the two countries also agreed to build a port and an oil refinery in the controversial Dawei Special Economic Zone, on Myanmar’s Andaman coast.