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HILO -- The members of a Hilo church are on a mission: to take help to a persecuted ethnic minority on the border of Myanmar and Thailand. RELIGION
Hilo church aids
persecuted Karen
people of MyanmarBy Rod Thompson
Star-BulletinSince the late 1940s when the British left Myanmar, then known as Burma, the Karen people (pronounced ka-REN) have been seeking a measure of self-government, said Dale and Carol Wilson of the Hilo Missionary Church.
Myanmar government troops have terrorized the Karens, sending 115,000 across the border into Thailand. They live in 16 refugee camps. In September the Thai government set a three-year deadline for them to return to Myanmar, said Carol Wilson, a teacher.
"What these people themselves feel is, they are doomed," she said. During a stay last year at a camp with 20,000 people, the children told her, "They are going to send us back to face our enemy."Myanmar forces frequently use Karen men as laborers, then kill them. They rape Karen women and sell Karen girls into prostitution in Thailand, she said.
The Hilo Missionary Church became involved because many Karens are Christian, she said.
A Central Intelligence Agency Web site says Karens make up 7 percent of the population of Myanmar, or about 2.9 million people.
A Karen Internet site, www.karen.org, says 30 percent of Karens are Christian.
After adopting the Karens for missionary work last year, the Hilo church sent a group of 30 people to visit them in Thailand in late June, followed by a group of 12 in August.
Harry Char, former head of the church's missionary committee, found an orderly community of huts scattered on a hillside with a school and churches. The buildings had dirt floors and leaky grass roofs, but the people seemed healthy.
But Dale Wilson, a former Army major and military historian, said as many as a million Karens and other ethnic groups are "internally displaced" within Myanmar because of Myanmar army activity. Some live hand-to-mouth, he said.
Unlike some ethnic minorities in Burma who make money from illegal drugs, the Karens avoid drug trafficking, Carol Wilson said. But as desperation mounts, there is danger of drug use, she said.
Wilson hopes to set up a "base camp" in Thailand next month through which Christian groups can send relief supplies.
Church pastor Tim Carigon said about 100 people from the Big Island, Oahu and Kauai, mostly teen-agers, will serve at various sites in Thailand this summer.
To make donations, contact the church at 959-7510 or the Wilsons at 968-9211.
Hebrew scholar and author Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum will be the guest speaker at a four-day Bible study series beginning Jan. 28 at Nuuanu Baptist Church. Hebrew scholar, author
to speak on 'Mysteries of the
New Testament'The series of talks on "The Eight Mysteries of the New Testament" is open to the public. The conference includes Sunday sessions at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., with nightly meetings at 7 p.m. to follow.
Fruchtenbaum is the founder and director of Ariel Ministries, a Messianic Jewish organization of Jews and Gentiles. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family which immigrated to New York from Russia.
He studied theology at Cedarville College, Dallas Theological Seminary and New York University. He attended Hebrew University in Jerusalem to study Hebrew, archaeology and ancient history.
Fruchtenbaum is a frequent speaker at religion conferences on the role of Israel in God's plan of world redemption.
The differences between creationism and evolution and other ways science and religion affect each other will be the subject of a lecture Thursday at Windward Community College. Talk to highlight views
of science and religionBiology and oceanography professor David Krupp will discuss "The Ages of Rock or the Rock of Ages? Science and Religion Through Time" at 7 p.m. in the Hale Kuhina special events room.
"We'll ask whether there really is a conflict between scientific and religious views, whether that's appropriate and how we can come to respect these differing perspectives," Krupp said.
The free lecture is part of the college's Millennium Lecture Series "From Time to Time." For information, call 235-7415.
Star-Bulletin staff
