Mangte

June 3, 2008 – Tee Chaung,

We had Ma Ma noodle for breakfast and we are happy and are ready to go. We set out from Kattamin for Tee Chaung at about sun rise. Volunteers from Daunt Gyi was added to our team. We got on a boat and started navigating along the river in the early morning. When the boat reaches the middle of the river, it suddenly stops. We were surprised and asked the boat keeper and he told us that boat had hit a shallow ground and was stuck. We exclaimed, “O My God!”. He then asked us to go down and push the boat immediately. We responded to the order of the boat keeper immediately. The ladies on our team cried out with a loud voice, “come on boys, be strong!”. After a short push, the boat moves. ‘Praise the Lord.”

As we moved along the river side by boat, we could see vast green paddy fields but now it could no longer be cultivated because of “salty water” that had been washed in by the flood. I prayed to God, “ don’t turn your face upon this victims, or they will all die.” Suddenly under the glittering sun light, rains fell heavily and lightning was striking. Strong winds came and blew away umbrella and hats. We had to take cover under the roof and some of us had difficulty breathing.

The weather situation continue until we arrived at Tee Chaung ttwo hours later. Tee Chaung is a village who are predominantly Buddhists. Under heavy rain, we searched for a temporary shelter. We found a nearest house and got in without any invitation. We saw children under ten years of age having a meal in that house. They were having curry with crab and rice. They were surprised by strangers. They watched us with amazement and a woman in her 40s asked us to come in and have a sit. I asked this woman, “whose children are these?” She replied, “Mine”. “How many children do you have?”, I continued. “Eleven”, she answered me. A doctor who traveled with us offer to give her some medicine that will help plan her family with greater space. She replied to the doctor, “No, we dared to give birth but we did not dare to take any medicine? The doctor was without words so was the iLoveMyanmar team members.

The village chief came to us after several minutes. We requested him to prepare a building for a temporary clinic and another building for relief supplies distribution. Almost everyone in the village join us under heavy rain. We asked the villagers, did someone ever send you any aid? They replied us, “Yes! Government helicopter threw three cartons of candy and 1 carton of medicine for us.” In my mind, I thought, “ How can that be enough for 590 people from 135 household”.

Before we started aid distribution, one of our team member shared the gospel for 30 minutes. The villagers were attentive to the Gospel message. After hearing the Gospel, they commented that we are good story teller. Then we realized that this people had never even heard the Gospel once before and we are grateful to Jesus Christ for allow us to serve in such a special way. They asked us for Myanmar Bible which we didn’t have with us. (Levi, please send more Myanmar bibles…many people need the word of God)

All day long, we have no time to take rest, no time to take our lunch but we didn’t feel any hunger or thirst. Our hearts were so burning in generosity and love towards them thus we cannot feel any hunger or thirst. They looked at us with great curiosity. We were like men and women from another world to them. They surrounded us and watched us like as if we were “super man”. At 3:00pm, we said “bye-bye” to them and left the villagers to return to Kattamin. In their farewell speech, they mentioned that “Let your God send you back to your village safely.”

As we worked under a heavy rain, there was no need for anyone of us to take bath. The truth is there no clean water available.