We walked a few hours to get to a village close to the areas of Karen State that is under the control of the Burma Army. In one village we met Meh Hah.

Meh Hah makes the room come alive. He has a smile that lights up his face and reveals kind lines around his eyes. He never sits completely still and his eyes are forever searching the space around him, noticing every little detail while he enthusiastically tells stories, laughs and uses his hands to add flavor to what he says.

I felt like I was in the presence of a man I would like to follow. “His village is lucky to have a leader like him,” I kept thinking. I asked him to tell me a little about his life. “I am just so tired,” he said, the eyes becoming narrower as he smiled again—a sorrowful smile this time. “I am tired of always fighting. I am tired of having to deal with the Burma Army. I am tired. I just want to quit.”

His village has been under the control of the Burma Army for many years. When the Army takes control they can do pretty much as they like. Meh Hah said that the enemy soldiers will come to his village on a regular basis and demand food and services. They will make the villagers their slaves, forcing them to do hard manual labor and portering. I asked if they get paid for the labor and Meh Hah laughed. “Never,” was his answer. The villagers struggle to get enough food to eat. The soldiers make it even harder for them by demanding parts of their crops, and by restricting their movement. Sometimes they will tell them that they are not allowed to leave the village to tend to their fields. When the villagers still do so, it can have tragic consequences. Last December a young man was captured and killed when leaving the village without permission. Right now there is a villager missing too. “He went to his fields and that is the last any of us saw of him,” Meh Hah recalled.

“We would be fine if it wasn’t for the SPDC,” he explained, “but now we are always afraid.” The worst is when they have to be minesweepers. The soldiers will force the civilians to go before them in areas that they know have landmines. “My mother stepped on a landmine and died just four years ago,” he told me. “I also had two cousins who did the same thing. One of them died, and one lost both legs. My aunt also died from stepping on a mine. Just this last year four people from our village had to walk as minesweepers. One of them stepped on a landmine and died.”

Meh Hah told me all of this while he was chewing some beetle nut and smiling with sparkling eyes. I was amazed that he could tell me such tragic stories with so much calm and gentleness. Every event was laced with pain and sorrow, but he shared the way I would have shared about my summer holiday.

It is the only way to survive, I realized. When living in the shadow of the oppressor one has to decide if one wants to live or die. This was a man who had chosen to live although he had no guarantee that he would be alive the next day. He had chosen to not be controlled by fear and obsessed with bitterness. He had chosen to embrace each day as a challenge that he could overcome. He had learned to laugh easily and to enjoy the small moments of pleasure that life provided.

I wanted to give him something. Freedom for him and his people would have been the best gift. But this was not in my power. I told him about our work and how much we too longed to see Burma free. “Tell the world,” he encouraged me. “Tell them what you hear. The Army hates it when the world finds out what they are doing.”

I smiled and promised to keep telling the stories of the Karen until they are free. Then I took a Petzl headlight out of my bag and gave it to him. It was the highlight of my day. The village headman who has carried so many burdens for his people over many years smiled like a boy who just got a new toy for Christmas. He held the lamp in his hand and studied it. He tried all the different settings and looked forward to the evening when he would get to try it out.

Meh Hah and the rest of his group had to walk back to their village before dark. Nobody ought to know that they had been talking to us. We said goodbye and went in opposite directions. On my way back I carried with me a new sense of faith. I knew that in the end the Karen people would conquer the enemy. I knew this because there are people like Meh Hah who will never let their hope die and who will continue to smile in the face of his adversaries.

Det var overraskende for meg sinnet jeg følte da jeg møtte en 9 år gammel jente navn Naw Mu Nga. Hun var en av de mindreårige bærere brukt av den burmesiske hæren og den demokratiske Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). For tre dager ble hun tvunget til å bære 10 kilo ris.Det var ingen lønn og hun fikk svært begrenset mat. Hun fortalte meg at hun var sulten og kunne ikke sove om natten.

Situasjonen i Pa-an District sentrale Karen Staten fortsetter å forverres, spesielt i de østlige delene av distriktet nær den thailandske grensen. For de landsbyboer lever under kontroll av SPDC og DKBA styrker i Pa-an District, tvangsarbeid har nå blitt vanlig praksis.

Bærere blir tvunget til å dyrke avlinger i regnfulle og tørre årstiden på felt som eies av DKBA offiserer. De må bevare gummiplantasjene Gjør veikanten rydding av skog gjengrodd etter regntiden, og levere bambus for å reparere konstruksjoner av regionene mange hæren leirene. De må tjene som camp-baserte budbringere og Porter militære forsyninger ut til soldater opererer en “hær frontline” leirene.

Sist uke møtte vi flere barn som måtte bære ris for DKBA og den burmesiske hær på et hemmelig sted. Naw Mu Nga fortalte oss: «Jeg ønsker ikke å bo på hjemmet mitt eller landsby, fordi DKBA bedt meg om å bære ris for dem”.

Siden den 2 juni 2009, tropper fra fem bataljoner av regimet, har staten Peace and Development Council (SPDC) og tre bataljoner av Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) vært avskalling og angripe landsbyer nær den thailandske grensen i sentrale Karen tilstand .Dette har forårsaket mer enn 3000 landsbyboere fra omlag 20 landsbyer, for det meste kvinner og barn, til å flykte til Thailand. Blant Eksternt fordrevet folk, over 800 er barn under tretten år gammel.

Naw Mu, 17 år gammel, fortalte oss også “Vi er redde for den burmesiske hæren og DKBA hæren. De ba oss om å bære belastninger for dem selv i regnvær. Vi tør ikke å bo i landsbyen vår, så vi forlot “.

Et barn er fremtiden, uten dem blir det ikke lett.

Jeg sier dere sannheten, uansett hva dere gjorde mot en av de minste av disse mine brødre, gjorde dere mot meg. “Matteus 25:40

Takk for alle dine åndelige og fysiske støtte. Vi kan ikke stå opp for å demonstrere Guds kjærlighet uten deg. Keep praying for styrken av håp og ledig i sin helhet liv for barna i Burma.

Gud velsigne dere alle,

Partners Relief Team