May 7, 2008

Burma (Myanmar): Pray for openness and liberty

- a prayer request for Burma, based on Job 36:15               

 

Pioneer American missionary Adoniram Judson arrived in Burma in 1813. He was 24 years old and Burma was a hostile place. Judson laboured for six years before seeing even one convert. In 1828 a former slave and hardened criminal named Ko Tha Byu became the first ethnic Karen to receive Christ. By God's grace Ko Tha Byu became a mighty evangelist. In 1831, after 18 years of ministry, Judson observed that a 'spirit of inquiry' was spreading across the whole land. Operation World (2000) estimates that Burma is now 8.7 percent Christian. The 70 percent Burmese majority is strongly Buddhist, whilst the ethnic minorities are predominantly Christian.

In 1962 the Marxist-influenced military seized power in a coup. Foreign missionaries were then expelled and all private (mostly Christian mission) schools and hospitals were nationalised. Political repression and isolation escalated further after the major crackdown of 1988, and again after the junta received an influx of arms and military hardware in 2005. The junta is no longer defined by ideology but by its addiction to the perks of totalitarian power. Its violent, corrupt, discriminatory and self-serving governance fuels resistance to its rule, which the military then violently represses. Thus goes the perpetual cycle of conflict.

A genocidal conflict is presently being waged against the ethnic Karen. (See 'Burmese Darfur: The Silent Genocide of Myanmar', Spiegel online, 6 Sep 2007 http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,504286,00.html) This has created around 540,000 IDPs (internally displaced people) in eastern Burma and forced some 200,000 Karen into refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border. Most of these refugees are Christians.

The United States 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) decrees that the US Commission of International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) designate as Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) those countries whose governments engage in or tolerate systematic and egregious violations of religious liberty. Burma has always been on the USCIRF's CPC list, being re-designated a CPC most recently on 2 May 2008. Over recent years the increasingly desperate and paranoid junta has escalated its efforts -- as its official policy states -- to 'destroy the Christian religion in Burma'.

On 3 May 2008 the 190 km/hr (120 miles/hour) winds of C! yclone Nargis ripped through Burma's Irrawaddy delta. The toll of injured, dead and missing is spiralling upwards at a horrendous rate. On Tuesday 6 May Burma's state television reported that 10,000 perished in the town of Bogalay alone. Rescue operations will be difficult due to the remoteness of the disaster region which is a major rice-producing area and home to 24 million people. The risk of disease is high. However, Cyclone Nargis has blown open a door. The junta that has kept Burma closed, isolated and violently repressed for decades has now issued an appeal for international assistance.

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR GOD TO --

• work through the affliction caused by Cyclone Nargis, to deliver Burma from its affliction of violent, repressive, totalitarian rule; may he open the ears of multitudes of Burmese to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

'He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ears by their adversity' (Eli! hu, Job 36:15 ESV).

• bless all Burmese pastors, Christian leaders and teachers: inside Burma; in the refugee camps; in the Burmese diaspora; and especially those who are presently fleeing or suffering in terror. May the Holy Spirit fill the leaders with the wisdom, faith, grace and strength to shepherd the Lord's flock through these difficult times.