Our group left Bangkok after breakfast in two vans for the small Thai/Burma border city of Mae Sot. We arrived in the late afternoon, check-in to our hotel, and enjoyed a delicious Thai meal at a restaurant set in a landscaped waterside grove of trees. It was like eating the jungle.
Directly across from the restaurant is the Karen Refugee Committee. The committee's chairman, Rev. Robert Htway, met us and introduced us the committee's work coordinating nine refugee camps (7 Karen and 2 Karenni) along the border with Burma. He spoke of the challenges of finding adequate resources to provide food and salaries to teachers for a growing population of refugees.We returned to the Karen Refugee Committee after breakfast this morning. Rev. Htway provided us with a liason who led us on the forty-five drive to the Mae La Refugee Camp and coordinated our entry with the Thai authorities at the camp. Once inside, we welcomed by Rev. Dr. Saw Simon, the principal of the Karen Kawthoolai Baptist Bible School and College. This institution provides both Bible school and college programs to approximately three hundred students. After enjoying lunch with Dr. Simon we were given the honor of addressing the students, presenting a monetary gift to Dr. Simon for the ministry of KKBBSC, and were then seranaded by the students.
The photos that follow are from the KKBBSC assembly.
For the remainder of the afternoon we toured the refugee camp which appears to the visitor to be an overgrown Karen village that now houses a population of 50-60 thousand. (I will post several additional images of the Mae La Refugee Camp in separate posting.) Tomorrow we visit the Mae Sot office of the IOM --- the International Organization for Migration --- before returning to Bangkok by van.
