God Is in Control
by Parthenia Stout
If you don’t know how God works or you are not diligent you will not see how God is in control and that he openly rewards you for the work He has given you to do. After I got home from the Refugee Camp I was emptying my garbage and some one had thrown away some lovely --still fresh --yellow daisies and that is my favorite flower. I took them home rejoicing in my heart that my Father was pleased with the days I spent in serving Him.
THE REFUGEE CAMP.
My friend Siami who is a missionary from India among the Karen people took me to see the camp. Her husband drove a very nice pickup with Ahthid and Claire (Athid sounds like Ah Tee). He is so funny we were kept laughing for the 260 miles down south. Claire is a missionary from LA. Long drive through lovely country. Once we saw a huge lizard crossing the road as slow as a turtle. Since this was a very busy 4 way highway it was impossible to stop. I was praising God for the husband wanted to pick it up and put it live in the back of the truck. I said, “What for?” and Claire translated for me.. “To eat!” Gross-- for in Leviticus we find they are forbidden as unclean. “I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by an living thing that creepeth on the ground, I have separated from you as unclean.” (Leviticus 20:24-25.)
We arrived too late to go across the friendship bridge to stay with friends in Burma so we hunted up a hotel for the night. Had a cold shower and a hard bed so not much sleep for me. Claire slept until time to go about 8:00 Ah Tee had little sleep as well and had been up since 5:00. He had found a booklet for me that was a testimony of a Karen soldier before he found Christ, and after he found Christ. On the way the next morning as they don’t eat much but fruit from fruit stands. I had a peanut butter sandwich!!
Upon arriving Ah Tee said here is the camp. I looked to my left and saw thatched roof bamboo houses tons of them ALL BEHIND A BARBED WIRE FENCE. I was in shock since I remember the many stories of the Jews in Ghettos and behind barbed wire as animals. We found an open gate as Ah Tee guided us to a friend’s house. I burst into tears and cried my heart out while all but Siami waited for the dam to be controlled. If you have never read the history of the Jews you will not understand. This happened during their persecution in Germany and other places. One of the heart breaking stories is that some escaped Germany gas ovens and came by a ship and the British would not let them come on in to Israel, and imprisoned them behind barbed wires on Cypress Island for a very long time.
These Karen have been there many years and they are as prolific as the Jews raising children. You could hear and see children everywhere. Some with very little on. Some with nothing to play with but stones and sticks.
The houses are made out of bamboo and have little wooden steps going up to the floor as they are made above ground to allow drafts and allow the animals free housing underneath. The lady greeted us as royal guests. She brought water to drink as all do when you visit a family. You sit on the reed floor that is covered with a mat of some kind. By the door sat a very old man with a wizened face wreathed and brown and wrinkled. He was chewing something like tobacco. I think they call it beetle nut and his mouth was black. He said he was a Buddhist although he is an uncle and surrounded by Christians.
We talked about things he remembered but they were not things I needed for my research material. Siami’s husband played the guitar for awhile. Then the lady of the home brought in many dishes of fruit, mangoes and watermelon and a strange fruit in a red jacket with spines that you peel and a huge seed in the middle. Very sweet and juicy. I ate a bit of watermelon and got a hive.. tasted good though. Then they brought in a table small and round about a foot off the ground. The lady filled it with all kinds of food. Goat meat and beef meat which are so rare that they must have bought it just for us. Some vegetables with things like string beans and other things. Lots of rice and hot sauce. What a feast. Just the guests ate and it was so like the picture of Abraham and Sarah welcoming the three angels before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.
The lady is pregnant with her first baby and her husband is sweet and shy. I did get him to say a few words on the tape I am sending to Sue for our Karen friends in Colorado. She gave me her dad’s phone in New York so I will try to call him.
Then we went on another road that was open to see the biggest Bible school and there the students were on vacation. We then went out and came to another gate and it had a policeman on duty and he said no cars in the camp. So we knew Emmanuel --God was with us!!) We left with me in tears watching the hills covered with little thatched homes behind barbed wire.
Siami and her husband took me to the friendship bridge that spans a gap between Thailand and Burma and I got my visa stamped for another two months-- July --and then to go out in September. Home on a long journey as we left Ah Tee in the camp to visit friends and he will get a taxi home. We heard that this valley is to be flooded by a dam they wish to make so they will have to be removed and I pray it will be to Israel.
I later learned that the man of the home we visited was Ah Tee’s older brother who is a Christian. His wife did get to go to New York and her baby will be born there. The husband is still in the camp as of 9-20-08 please pray for him to join his wife and new baby.
I want to relate some history of Jesus here because it relates to the Karen who will not eat until the guests are finished as we did in this Karen home.
THE FOLDED NAPKIN
Whey did Jesus fold his napkin when he left the tomb? (John 20:1-10)
Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see that the story told by Mary Magdalene that Jesus was not in the tomb. The other disciple outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen lying there, but he did not go in. Then Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen body wrappings lying there, while the napkin that had covered Jesus face was folded up and lying to one side.
Is that important? In order to understand the significant importance of this that was done to the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit of the Hebrew tradition of that day. The folded napkin had to do with the Master and the Servant, and every Jewish boy knew this tradition.
When the servant set the dinner table for the Master, he made sure it was exactly the way the Master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the Master had finished eating. The Servant would not dare to touch the table until the Master was finished. If the Master were done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, and his beard, then wad up the napkin and toss it onto the table. The servant then would know he could clear the table. In those days the wadded napkin meant ‘I’m finished’ But if the Master got up from the table, folded his napkin beside his plate, the Servant would not dare to touch the table, because …the folded napkin meant, “I am coming back!.
I found this little teaching important for the Karen are always asking us to eat but never with them, they are always the Servants.
