Ways That People Can Help in Burma Now
8 April, 2021
Dear friends and family,
Thank you for praying for the people here and being with us in this. Even in the midst of killing and displacement here in Burma we feel and see God’s love, and appreciate so much your help. Although many people in the cities have been captured and tortured, and hundreds killed, they have not given up and continue to stand for freedom. The ethnic people in the mountains, although chased from their homes, also refuse to give up and continue loving and helping each other. Our teams and other groups move amongst the ethnic people giving medical and food support and being with them in love. The Burma military is more powerful than anyone here but we believe God is more powerful and is giving us ways to help.
Now we are focused on three primary ways to help:
1) Relief for the displaced. We are providing immediate food, medical and shelter relief to ethnic people who are under attack and hiding in the mountains.
2) Support for people who have left the cities and want to be trained to go back and help their people. We help provide food, shelter and medical and communication training so they can go back and help their people stand for freedom and survive. We tell them the most important thing we have learned is to love God, love each other and not give up. We share about how Jesus has helped us not to take revenge but to act in love and keep going.
3) Support for escape. We are also helping people who are targeted for death by the regime and whose only choice is to escape.
In the midst of the suffering that we see there is also joy in being together and laughter at the funny things of life. We feel the closeness together and have a hope that no matter how bad things get God will show us a way and that love will prevail. We pray for the dictators to change their hearts or fail and we pray for forgiveness and reconciliation after that.
We have been asked during this crisis in Burma how people can help more and what the needs are. First, we need prayer that we do God’s work God’s way, and that more help comes. The cost of helping in the ways described above can be broken down as follows:
1) Relief for the displaced: now in northern Karen State alone there are over 20,000 people in hiding. The cost of rice to feed a family for one month, a tarp to shelter them and medicine for medical care is about $100 per family. To give rice alone to 20,000 people for three months is $730,000, to give an idea of the scale of this need.
2) Support for people who have come to the ethnic areas and want training on how to help their people. We will share our testimonies of what Jesus has done for us and provide medical and information training for these people. It costs about $10,000 to train 50 people for a two to three-week course and $5,000 to support them with supplies and equipment. And in places where there are roads, we need trucks and motorcycles for transportation, $30,000 per four-wheel drive truck and $1,500 per motorcycle.
3) Support for escape. To help people escape and arrange all the various transport and communications costs between $300- $1,000 per escape. It costs $1,500 for a satellite phone and we need 20 phones.
Other ways to help are to ask your elected officials to get involved and encourage our governments to take action. Below is a suggested list.
Actions for the international community to take in Burma:
1) Immediate cross border humanitarian assistance directly to areas of need through ethnic governments and NGOs and direct assistance to the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in the Burman areas of the plains and cities.
2) Political recognition of the ethnic groups and support of the movement for a democratic and federal government between the ethnic groups, the CDM and pro-democracy political groups such as the CRPH and NLD.
3) Protection for people under attack from Burma military and police, both in the cities and in the ethnic areas. Also, the support of safe areas where people targeted by the regime and defectors from the police and army can go.
4) Establishment of a no-fly zone over the ethnic areas of Burma to prevent Burma air attacks against the population.
The most important is prayer and we thank you for your prayers, love, and support!
God bless you,
David Eubank and the Free Burma Rangers
