Thailand Highlight #3: Meeting the FBR Medics

Raykaw is strong in more ways than one

When I first got my project assignment from eMi I researched quite a bit about the Free Burma Rangers and the work they do.  Before the trip one of the things I was most looking forward to was meeting these people I had been reading about.  Let's just say I was not disappointed.

If you asked me what one of the most inspirational parts of the project trip was, one man would come to mind.  His name is Raykaw, a Karen FBR medic who has some incredible stories.  He also has an enormous heart for service and deeply cares for his people.  Not many people would be willing to leave their wife and three year old son for four months at a time to backpack into a war zone in the Burmese jungle to defend people from heavily armed soldiers.  Yet this is his job, and he receives nothing in return, having to support his family on the provision of others.

The FBR missionary doctor, Mitch Ryan, told us a story of how Raykaw came across a sick man in Burma and was deciding how to treat him.  After a while they found out what this man was trying to hide, that he was a Burma Army officer.  This is a man who tortured, raped, and murdered the Karen people.  A man who burned their villages and set landmines in their path.  Mitch asked Raykaw what they should do with him; they were in the middle of nowhere and nobody would know what happened to him.  But Raykaw said that they should help him, that maybe God was giving him a chance to change his heart.  So they carried the man for days to get treatment, and let him go.

I talk about Raykaw because I got to know him better since he spoke English pretty well.  But the other medics and people working with FBR all have amazing stories.  They are people that have escaped the terrors of Burma, just to go back inside to help others in need.  And they don't see it as a noble act of service, it's just what they have to do.  After seeing their people suffer, doing nothing is not an option.

FBR medics put themselves in dangerous and difficult situations to help others in need