Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
Karenni refugee children are attending Baptist vacation Bible school as part of their resettlement services in Winston-Salem, NC. The US State Department has allowed a former Baptist missionary couple to bring the Karenni refugees to the area – described as the “the promised land” – in conjunction with World Relief.
“North Carolina has become the promised land,” said Tim Cross, who co-founded Open Arms Refugee Ministry with his wife, Jody Cross, in 2009.
The Crosses worked with World Relief’s High Point office and Calvary Baptist Church, where they have been members since 1996, to bring the Karenni here last year. The Karenni are political refugees from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
There are now 45 Karenni families living in the area, with a total of about 100 children, the Crosses said.
The ministry also works with Iraqi and Bhutan families. The couple spent eight years living overseas and working for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention before getting involved in resettlement efforts with the Karenni.
Last week the Karenni children participated in vacation Bible school at Calvary Baptist Church. They did arts and crafts, played soccer and learned to read music and play musical instruments. here
Something tells me there is a bit more going on at this Bible school than just arts and crafts, soccer and music.
What the article doesn’t mention is that the Karenni had their own traditional Kay Tyoboe religion before Baptist missionaries began arriving in their lands in the 1860′s following Britain’s colonial conquest of Burma. Many Karenni have never converted to Christianity and are still attempting to practice their indigenous religion.
