“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go further, go with your team.”

2 December 2024

Dear friends and family,

Thank you so much for all your prayers love and support. This is Dave reporting out from where we are training new relief teams in Burma. We have eight ethnic groups with us and over 180 total students: basic, advanced, and medical. Around us in different areas, fighting continues as the Burma Army relentlessly kills its own people to regain total control of Burma. The young people we are training are bright lights of hope. All of them have friends or family or both that have been killed by the military. Some of them have been wounded very recently. We just awarded and pinned medals on four of our own Rangers who were wounded on the last mission. Yet they continue to come, they continue to smile, they continue to act in love. We also continue to pray for our enemies, that their hearts would change, and, if they don’t change, that they would fail in their attempt to control this country.

During the training, we were visited by Maung Sangkha a top ethnic Burman leader of the pro-democracy groups. He is one of the leading poets in Burma. Also, before the coup three years ago, he was one of the main human rights leaders. He has formed a pro-resistance group to protect his people called the Bamar Peoples Liberation Army (BPLA). The BPLA has grown and operates in many different parts of the country, trying to protect their own people from the dictator’s attacks. He addressed the new Rangers and we all listened and laughed as he mixed jokes with a serious message. This is what my wife Karen had to say about that.

From Karen-

“Hi Family,

I wanted to share something that has stuck with me since I heard Maung Sangkha (BPLA) share in his talk to the Rangers yesterday. It was a small thing but I think God wants me to remember it personally as well. He said, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go further, go with your team.’ Knowing that the FBR Rangers are very competent, he was telling them that anyone can go ahead on their own, and if we are skilled we usually find it easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable to ‘go it alone at our own pace’…which is often ahead of others. But, if you want to go farther – accomplish more, both in breadth and depth – go as a team. It came back to me again in my devotional this morning, as FBR draws people who are independent, fast, accomplished and not tethered to approval of others before moving on something. It’s a challenge to pray about our ‘position’ in each situation: am I meant to accomplish this alone or with others? There are times to go solo ahead, and then there are times God will rein us in to lead others to go farther with a team than we would go on our own. I’m not thinking of any specific situation or person at all. As that quote came back to mind I just realized it applied to me when I ‘just want to do it myself,’ and our family, as we’re usually quick to do things, and then many at FBR who are very independent. Knowing we are that way, I need to pray for each event, that God would tell me if it’s a solo or team effort, and then give the humility and patience to do that well. There are probably times when further is better than faster.

God bless us all today: Dad and the team on their way to the frontlines; Suu, Reh, the team, and I at camp, and Sahale and Peter finishing school well on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving and getting off for a sweet Thanksgiving weekend! Love you all!

-Mom”

Thanks and God bless you,

Dave, family and FBR