The Road to Mae Sod

Hey Everyone… Well the rain has finally come and it has hit down hard! Over about the last two weeks or so it has been raining everyday here in many parts of Thailand, and the area where the Forgotten Foundation is at is getting hit the worst. I have spoken over the phone with Pastor Manat and he said that it would be very difficult for him to coordinate a way to pick me up in Mae Sod and get me out to Forgotten, so we have therefore decided to postpone my trip until the end of July. Hopefully by then the rain will have calmed down a bit making it easier for me to get out there.

I wanted to send out this message to keep you all up to date on my whereabouts and let you know my reason for not being able to make the trip out this time. I also wanted to share with you all an experience that I had on one of my previous trips out to Forgotten. I have written down the experience in somewhat of a story format and attached it below. It was a very moving experience for me and feel that the story needed to be told, so please take the time to read it if you can. Hope that you are all doing well and look forward to updating you again about what all is taking place at Forgotten after my next trip!

Road to Mae Sod

On the bus ride from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot a middle aged man sat in the seat beside me. He had a dark complexion and even to me it appeared that he might not be Thai. I said Sawadee Krap (Hello in Thai) and he returned the gesture very quickly. He then said, “Oh you can speak Thai” with a smile on his face. He seemed impressed to see a foreigner that could speak a little Thai. At this point I forgot about my first impression and the possibility of him being a foreigner like myself. He was able to speak the Thai language very well and I figured that he must have lived in the country for some time now. He seemed like a friendly man and we continued to chat as the trip went on.

About 3 hours into the trip we reached our first checkpoint. Because of the situation in Burma there is a continuous movement of immigrants seeking refuge in Thailand, so in an attempt to try and control the illegal migrants from traveling freely throughout the country, the Thai government has set up a large number of checkpoints in and around the boarder town areas. There is also a very serious drug trafficking problem in Thailand, so the checkpoints have been set up in an attempt to curb this activity as well. But in this particular area the movement of illegal immigrants is the biggest problem. I have traveled to this area many times so seeing the checkpoint ahead was nothing new to me. I go through it every time that I travel to Mae Sot, and as always, it was expected.

As we approached the checkpoint I began to notice uneasiness in the man’s movements beside me. He started to fidget with his hands tapping the tips of his fingers together and was looking up and down quite sporadically as he bit at his lip. I then remembered my first impression and the idea that he might be a foreigner.

As we pulled up at the checkpoint a police officer immediately boarded the bus and began to check each person for proper travel documents and identification. As the officer grew closer the man beside me grew more and more anxious. I could feel his leg shaking as it rested against mine. I knew that there was a problem and my heart felt for the man. I also knew that whatever was about to happen, I had no power to do anything about it.

The officer finally made it to our row. He looked at the man beside me and asked to see his identification card. The man then stood up and retrieved a small bag from the storage area above us and began to remove a crumpled up wad of about 4 or 5 very old looking papers from it. The man then unfolded two of the papers and handed them to the officer. The officer began to take a look at them; he shook his head from side to side, he didn’t seem convinced. He wanted to see more validation of the man’s citizenship. The man therefore began to unfold the few remaining documents that he was holding in his hands only this time he couldn’t control his nervousness. As he unfolded the papers his hands began to shake violently. It was now not only me on the bus that knew there was a problem.

The officer stared quietly at the man’s hands and watched them as they shook in fear. He then, without removing his eyes from the man’s face, gently removed the remaining papers from out of his hands. The officer had a very stern look on his face and the man was too scared to even make eye contact with him. Looking down in his lap the man began to reiterate his purpose for traveling. I didn’t understand exactly what he said, but I did understand that he said that he was going to Mae Sot. After looking at the documents for only a few more agonizing moments the officer then said, “No you’re not, you’re getting off here”. The frightened man knew that he had no choice. With a look of helplessness on his face he picked up his bag from off of the floor beneath him and stood up. The officer then let him pass and followed closely behind him as he escorted him off the bus. The driver then helped the man unload his bags from the compartment below and then immediately re-boarded the bus and shut the door without looking behind him. He knew that the man wasn’t coming back.

As for where the man was taken and what exactly happened to him, I don’t know. All I do know is that he was scared of what he thought might happen to him, and I’m sure that he had a much better idea about what was going to happen to him than I did.

I wanted to tell this story because this is the reality for the families that we work for at Forgotten. They are illegal immigrants living in Thailand. They have chosen to live outside of the government controlled refugee camps and therefore have no legal status in the country. And their reasons to live outside the camps are many. They are tired of living within the confined walls of the camps and not being able to travel freely. They are farmers by nature and it is difficult for them to not be able to work their fields and move around through large areas of open land. The camps are also overcrowded so there is very little room for privacy. And aside from all of this, at the present time it is difficult to even get on the list to obtain refugee status if you want to. The situation in Burma has gone on for so long now that the camps are already filled to maximum capacity. This has led to many people having to live inside the camps as ghost refugees. Ghost refugees do not have official refugee status and therefore survive solely by living off the rations provided to others that are willing to share with them. So this is another reason why many of the Karen live outside of the camps and attempt to fend for themselves; it’s their only choice. These people have fled one country’s brutal oppression to live in another’s as an illegal immigrant with no official status and with the fear of knowing that at anytime they can be picked up and sent back to the danger from which they had hoped that they had already escaped. These people are in a desperate situation and are in great need of help to survive under such harsh circumstances. And this is why the Forgotten Foundation is here. Forgotten has been working on the border of Thailand and Burma for three years now teaching these people about the love of Christ and trying to help provide for their basic needs. Because of the vast amount of needs in the area at times the Foundation has been faced with confusion and a lack of direction in which way to take the organization and who exactly to help, but in having relentless faith in God and with prayer, the founders have continued to send their support and have left a lot of what direction the foundation goes in, in the hands of God. And as a result of their faith, I believe that God himself has become the visionary and director of the organization, which in turn, has made it into what it has grown to become today.

I would like to thank you for your time and interest in learning about the situation in Burma. Please take time to review all of the projects that the Forgotten Foundation is currently involved in, and if your heart tells you to make a donation or find a way to help support the efforts to provide for the Karen living as refugees in Thailand, please do so.

Much love… Jon