Meetings and More Research
By Parthenia Stout in Thailand. 6-21-08
Much has happened in a few short days and hours, so revealing of this Karen tribe.
This past week Jinda’s friend Berlae who is the daughter of Pastor Baw Ney came to tell me some things about her family. It was a hard life for this family as Pastor Baw Ney had no one to help him. He had to be away from home much of the time which left his wife to work in the fields, the home, the children, and carry on with whatever needed to be done in the village. Berlae was about 6-7 when her mom gave birth to the next child while caring for her smaller brother Timothy who was about two. This child had to help her mom deliver and care for this new baby. What a story…
An interesting subject came up as she was telling me something about Levi. She said it like Lavi and I was electrified --could she mean the tribe of Levi? This was the first time I had heard of any name of Jews in the Bible. It seems that her dad studying the Bible saw where the Levi tribe loved and wanted to serve God and their gift of singing were so like the Karen tribe. An amazing break through for me.
This reminds me of the story in Exodus after they made a golden calf Moses broke the 10 commandments and made the people a choice: “Who is on the Lord’s side come unto me. Only the tribe of Levi came. (Ex. 32:26) God chose this tribe as His inheritance and no land was given to them as they were scattered among the 12 tribes.
Berlae’s observation over time was that Karen’s were more interested in God and the Bible than the Thai people. As of today she told me that every Karen church has a pastor and many of the 400 Thai churches has no pastor.
Thursday Jinda from the Bible school picked me up here at my home and took me to see Berlae’s brother, Pastor Sunny Danpongpee, who is the director of the Karen Baptist Convention who may be able to add to his sister’s testimony of why their dad had said that before Christianity he felt that they were Jews. We talked a lot for about an hour or more about the Jews and his dad. He said much the same as his sister, but what seemed an important addition was that the Karen’s had prophets. This I had found as well in other studies. Many of the poems were like Isaiah and Jeremiah who told their people to repent and come back to God --or telling them about God.
Pastor Sunny had worked hard on a translation of Karen into English. It has the alphabet in Karen and the English translation.. He gave me a copy and glancing through it I could see a few English spelling mistakes so he asked me to go through it and make the changes. While Siami was here Friday we went over it together to see some of the words I did not know. Pastor Sunny will come to take me to the office or we can work here on the revision. He was so happy to have the help before the final edition came out. The next brother I will visit will be Pastor Timothy and his thoughts of his dad.
I spoke briefly with Pastor Timothy today (June 22,08), and he said mainly the same thing about his dad and his thoughts about the tribe of Levi. He also told me that because the Karen are now scattered over the world the pastors are trying to keep together, by e-mail. He also said that his wife Esther will be going to Israel to see the land where her Saviour walked and taught as the Bible is dear to her heart. As Siami and I worked on this translation, the thought came to me as I looked at a book that she had a man translate into English which took so very long; I remembered that Joanna had bought an MP3 to have for her work with the story of Siami’s life, I thought why not buy one and have people take the two books I want translated into English and just read the English as he reads the book; and then I can listen and make notes. We all agreed it was from God as it would take much less time. So I bought one in a big mall. The two books I am trying to get into English is “The Golden Book” and “The History of the Karen People.” Please continue to pray for this need for me. I have not heard how the translation is going.
We picked up Joanna and went to a Tribal Museum where Jiki had taken me. Joanna took many pictures for me. We went then to visit an older friend of Siami’s who might be able to add some history of the Karen people during the war with the Japanese, Burmese, and the British. It was so very emotional for this older woman. Her memories brought out the terrible emotions that had taken place as the Japanese had beat her mother while carrying her sister in the womb. They had taken away her dad and he was gone for about 3 months while they had to face the Japanese day after day. This was down by Rangoon.
The Japanese had taken her dad to other villages to interpret for them. They were looking for others who were helping the British. People were raped and beaten and some crucified and jailed. What was going on was that the Burmese had lied to the Japanese about the Karens saying that they had sided with the British. This was the Burmese way of getting the Japanese to kill the hated Karens so they would not have to. A Karen man was bold enough to go to the Japanese leaders and explain the situation and that stopped the persecution. Later the Karens did side with the British and the Americans missionaries that were in the area helped where they could by encouraging and standing by the Karens during this time.
From there we went to the Payap University to look for any history on the Karen people in English. The most they had was some people who had done some research on the language. The library is huge with 3 or 4 stories. We left sort of sad as we thought we had spent time for nothing. God had other plans.
We wandered into another section on the 2nd floor and as the girls were looking at some old books I picked up a book on the HILL TRIBES TODAY. I went to the back where I could see a woman at a desk to ask if I could check it out. This was God --as she had been doing some research on many tribes and had some information of the Karen. We connected with the love of God and she has invited me to go with her to see dyeing and weaving and other things. Even if this never comes off --the book I wanted could not be taken out of the library as I was not a student there, so she came to rescue me, and she took it out in her name trusting me that I would bring it back. This book will add much to my list, for it has a wealth of information about the Karens living in the forest. It is all GOD!!! I took notes over the weekend and got the book back and thanked her. I never did get to go with her which is my sad story.
