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Remember The Burmese Christians

from the June 01, 2010 eNews issue
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When the Irish Christian band Bluetree sneaked into Burma (Myanmar) to play music to the Karen Christians there, the band members believed they were doing something dangerous. They did not appreciate until they got back into Thailand that they had come very close to being slaughtered.

Four percent of Burma's 53.4 million people are Christians, according to the CIA World Factbook. (Voice of the Martyrs believes 8.7 percent are Christian.) The exact numbers are hard to know, however, since much of the Burmese church faces daily danger. Religious freedom is on the books in Burma, but it is no secret that Christians are targeted and killed in this country torn by civil war.

The band Bluetree had done some singing in Thailand and had even started a ministry to rescue people from the sex trade. Their time in Thailand inspired a song "God Of This City" that has since grown popular in America. Just recently, the musicians had the opportunity to go into Burma and sing for Christians there. They would have to sneak in by a dry river bed in the middle of the night and bring along food, clothing, Bibles - and whiskey to bribe the militia that would otherwise attack the villages.

The trip in was successful, and after bribing the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army with food and alcohol, they were allowed to enter a refugee camp and sing. They had just a short few hours to stay, though, because they could be executed if the Myanmar army showed up. Before Bluetree started back to Thailand, though, the DKBA general wanted the musicians to play for him. (There's a hunger for something better even with that general.) And before they could get a song started, soldiers from the Myanmar army spotted them and began screaming up at the white men on the general's balcony.

"We were told later their general said we're not even going to waste our bullets with them, we're just going to slice their throats," lead singer Aaron Boyd said from his home in Belfast, Northern Ireland. "Bottom line was our guy, whatever he did, whatever he said, managed to calm the whole thing down."

Bluetree drove straight back to Thailand after that, and soon gave a concert to 20,000 Karen refugees there. One little 8-year-old girl pleaded with Boyd, "Please don't ever forget about me. Don't forget me."

We know that we take our freedoms for granted in the West. We are free to spread the Gospel on the radio or do baptisms in the local lake if we choose. And people are free to tell us to jump in the lake if they choose. The freedom to criticize the government, to worship without harassment, to be different without being considered a threat to one's country – this is a wonderful blessing.

Bluetree spent a single day in Burma. Millions of Christians (4 percent of 53.4 million is 2.14 million; 4 percent of 8.7 percent is 4.6 million) call Burma their home, and face danger every day for not conforming to the Buddhist military government's desire for one language, one ethnicity and one religion. These precious people need to be remembered, along with that 8-year-old Karen child living in a Thai refugee camp. They are our brothers and sisters too, and they need prayer.

When we pray, God does great things, and He can continue to give safety to the missionaries – and occasional musical groups– that risk their lives to bring the Word of God into this suffering country.