By Grayson Hester
It is an age riddled with conflict. From the largest European land war since World War II to the intensifying crisis in the Middle East, it can be difficult to keep track of all the humanitarian need, let alone feel the empathy or take the actions we believe we should. It is for this reason that bearing witness, hearing testimony and beholding the Spirit’s image-bearers are all important.
For while we, privileged with distance and flooded in militarized security, have the luxury of forgetting, of turning away, those embroiled in these travesties do not.
Kyaw Soe is one such person. His home country, Burma (now known as Myanmar), has systematically oppressed the Karen ethnic minority of which Kyaw Soe is a member for decades. “The Burmese government forcedly controls us,” he said. “We have no voice and we have just to obey what they say —cook for them, carry the weapons for them and build their military bases.”
Located primarily in the Kayah State, the Karen people are subject to brutal unpaid labor, disenfranchisement, economic exploitation and all manner of despotic abuses of power.
But where the state fails, the Spirit is found. The gospel which originated with a refugee woman fleeing imperial oppression, the one embodied by a Jewish carpenter who would later be killed by the same state, would not only be preached in Kayah State, but come to life there.
For years, Kyaw Soe lived in a refugee camp along the Burmese-Thai border. By studying at a Baptist seminary and channeling that refugee-founded Gospel, he preached to people desperately in need of hope —God’s preferred audience.
“He did a lot of preaching in Burma, in Myanmar,” said Lita Sample, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel ministering in the San Francisco Bay Area alongside husband Rick. “So that was his passion already.”
From San Francisco (where Kyaw Soe is now located) to Louisville, Ky. (home to one of America’s largest Karen populations), the United States has emerged as a sought-after and generally beloved place of asylum for this people group.
So it’s no surprise that after a brief stint in neighboring Thailand, Kyaw Soe resettled in the United States in 2008. But at the same time when he, like many Karen people, wanted to become an American citizen, he faced profound difficulty.
“First, the culture difference is the difficulty that we faced,” he said. “But Karen people, they love America, and they want to become American citizens. But it’s difficult for them to become American citizens because they don’t know the language.”
This cultural disparity manifested itself in the absence of a church by and for Karen people, where the Gospel they love could be preached in the language with which they grew up.
That’s where Lita and Rick, who work primarily with refugee and immigrant populations around the Bay area, could make a difference.
“The Karen Church there started in 2009 and a couple of years later, they called a pastor out of one of the refugee camps in Myanmar, to come be their pastor,” Rick shared. “I know that they have a Baptist seminary over in the refugee camp. And so, they raise up their own pastors over there.”
That pastor was Kyaw Soe.
What emerged was a beautifully symbiotic relationship, in which the Samples used their connections, resources and, most pertinent to CBF’s ministerial ethos, presence to help establish this church.
Kyaw Soe utilized his language, his culture and his experience to turn that church into a much-needed Karen community.
“Rick and Lita helped us find a church —a place to worship —and they continued supporting us over the years,” Kyaw Soe said. “They visit us and basically helped us a lot and they were the first people to help us.”
But they did not do it alone. The Spirit that animated Kyaw Soe’s call in Burma and accompanied him over thousands of miles from Southeast Asia to America’s West Coast, aided the ministry from the ground up. Perhaps, in this instance, the characterization of the Holy Spirit as the advocate is most apt.
“I felt like the Holy Spirit touched me. So that, I work here to fulfill his words,” Kyaw Soe said.
These words, this Word, favor no one language over another. They are purely democratic in the means through which they find expression, recognizing that for every tongue to confess and every knee to bow, there must be all sorts of people speaking all kinds of languages.
Jesus recognized this, too. Paul did, as well—as only gospel worth speaking is one that is polyglottal. For out of language emerges culture, and out of culture springs forth community. As it is not good for us to be alone it is not good for us to be silent.
“It’s very important for Karen people to worship in their own language, to maintain their traditions,” Kyaw Soe said. “God created many different languages for different groups of people. With certain gifts and cultures and traditions. It means God loves everyone and every group of people. So, everyone should value their language and should maintain it.”
As the pastor of the Karen church for nearly 15 years now, Kyaw Soe (and the Samples alongside him) has seen this ancient truth play out in contemporary time. A people, torn apart for no reason other than being born inside a certain border, are brought together by a Spirit that knows no demarcation.
This is what it means to be equipped with every good thing—that the “things” be deemed good as evidenced by the fruit they bear. And for Kyaw Soe and the Karen people like him—we pray for all refugees and displaced peoples across the world—the fruit is wholeness. It is a place and a people to call home.
“But even though we prosper here, we don’t forget about our birth country. We send help to the people over there every single year. So that, they also may be free from oppression,” Kyaw Soe said. “To people who may not know God, we show them love and when they feel that love, it’s like, you know, being fulfilled and being equipped with every good thing.”