Partners Blogcast: "Reflections of a Hero"

Steve and Oddny Gumaer started Partners Relief & Development in response to the needs of refugees and displaced people from Burma. This blog is meant to be a more personal stream of conversation than newsletters allow for. The opinions expressed here may not be those of Partners Relief & Development.

By Oddny Gumaer - Over the last few weeks I have been thinking a lot about what a hero is. A super-star athlete or a pop star? A person who has made millions of dollars without having to do much for it? A beautiful face or a perfect body?

A new Partners magazine will soon be printed. The theme is, as you may have guessed: What is a hero? We have met heroes in Burma. They are men and women who daily risk their lives to do what is right in a country ruled by evil.

While working on our magazine, we received a letter from Doh Say, one of our greatest heroes. He is Partners and FBR staff and spends most of his life in the jungles of Burma, helping internally displaced people. Most of all he wants to help the children. Recently he spent some weeks with children who had left their parents to be in a hide site for internally displaced people in Kyaw Kho Maw, in Karen State. Doh Say and the relief team were in the area to document what the army has done, how the conditions are for the people living there, and to give do relief work. The following are some of the thoughts in Doh Say’s letter.

This afternoon I had mixture of more happiness and more sadness. After the Church service, during playing an indoor-game with the children from the boarding house, I was very happy when I saw the children who were enjoying drinking sweet tea and playing games. For me all the children should have the right to be happy and the right to have what they should have. This afternoon, I believed that they had a happy childhood for some hours. I just wish they always had a chance to be happy like that.

This afternoon I found out more about their needs. It was painful to know that they do not have soaps, washing power, enough clothing. For instance girls or boys have only one or two under wears which are no good for the rainy reason. K’Chay and me arranged with a teacher to buy more clothing for them.

About food, they have only two meals a day. They do not have a chance to have lunch. One teacher told me that they are already used to two meals a day. For me I am sure that they want to have lunch, especially when they are working hard. Rice is the only food they can have. They hardly have a chance to eat this and that like coffee, Milo, snacks etc like we do.

The house they are living in is already dilapidated. Many big holes on the roof, the floor is broken and no proper walls. Many of them, I am sure that they are missing their parents. For me all the children around the world should have a chance to live with their parents till they grow old enough. (It) makes me very sad that these children may not have a chance to see their parents for a long time. I was told that the children may not be allowed to go home due to many other difficulties.

I want to add a little bit more by saying that just like I told you several years ago, my main spiritual objective is to have a chance to go to Heaven when God wants me to come back and together with friends in Haven.

I wanted to have this and that a lot, mainly about materialism until I was 30 years old. It is now become clear and clear to me that my second objective is to see everyone, poor or rich, educated or uneducated, to have the right to live peacefully and without fear. So I would like to request you to pray that: 1, everyone in Burma stops killing each other solve all the problems with peaceful mean that we are facing and peace and harmony for everyone prevail in Burma, 2. everyone in the world stops killing each other and peace and harmony prevail in this world, 3, everyone gets enough food to eat and, 4. everyone has a reasonable things that he or she needs to live on.

Thank you very much for your understanding the time you spent on this letter. God bless you all and the world.

What is a hero? You have just read a letter from a person who risks his life to give life to others. When you read this, Doh Say is on another mission in the jungles of Burma. Partners is proud to work with men and women like Doh Say.