please pray for the golden country

[burnunit]

Please pray for Burma.
learn more about what's going on

fyi: I have family who were born there. Mom lived there as a little girl while her parents were serving in the American Baptist foreign missions¹. Eleanor's namesake, my Aunt Eleanor (she's one of the girls pictured at right, maybe the bigger one? the smaller one being my mom?), grew up and returned as a nurse there. I have an adoptive cousin, MiMi (Myint Myint Ohn) who is Burmese.

Being of limited material means and living ten thousand miles away, I can think of little more powerful than prayer. International Ministries notes that there are long connections, strong twining roots between America and Burma through the missions work done there. In the history of colonial abuses inflicted on Asian peoples from various white missions, the Baptists' work in Burma was often exemplary of a better relationship. And certainly these Baptists could be counted on to stand opposed to the kind of powerful rulers who now grip Burma (unlike some we could no doubt name in our present degraded era) .

¹ It might interest you to note that my grandfather's name was Joseph Smith, a fact that always tickles me when I speak to LDS folk. Rev. Joe Smith, the American Baptist missionary, not the founder of Mormonism. Grandpa, with a degree from the old land grant college SDSU, was involved in agricultural work--I don't know if there was something like cooperative work going on there or what. But they were making some significant headway on land reform and agricultural methods that caught Mahatma Gandhi's ear from neighboring India. He wanted to know more and came to the mission for a visit. Mom was very young, so she can't confirm she actually met the great soul, but the rest of the family sure did. So, you know, there was a time when Joseph Smith met Gandhi! And believe me, the disposition of matters such as polygamy and translation of prophetic messages was not on the agenda!