Our week started with the Burmese homework club on Saturday morning, where we have at least 12 kids (probably more) to entertain with craft and conversational English, or as in my case, teaching year 10 level maths to a girl who has had virtually no formal education in her life! (fortunately she spent 3 years in Bangkok and as a result was able to learn a fair amount of English). It was a challenging yet enjoyable experience even if I did walk away from it with a massive headache. An exciting thing that happened at homework club too was that a friend of one of our volunteers donated 8 or so scientific calculators, which will come in very handy to these young students as often they cannot afford these themselves!!!
The next day we also went on an outing with about 40 of our Burmese friends to the Melbourne museum, where we got to view an aboriginal display and some other bits and pieces, It was a very moving display, focussing quite strongly on the stolen generation and other atrocities that we didn’t learn in Australian history at school. The day itself was absolutely fantastic, There is something about seeing such a large group of people ascending the escalators at parliament station together, for many of them it was the first time on an outing to the city. As always various Burmese families invited us to share their lunch with them and fortunately there was no (obvious) offal involved this time.
We also got the opportunity to spend a bit of time with one of our families that we have been making friends with, just hanging out talking about the differences in Australian and Burmese societies.
On Wednesday six of us (4 UNOH workers, 1 prospective UNOH worker and a Burmese friend) headed up to Canberra to protest the 19th anniversary of the atrocities that happened in Burma on the 8.8.88. The protest was held outside the Embassy of Myanmar (the military in Burma officially changed the countries name to Myanmar some time ago, but none of our Burmese friends recognise the change of name). We got to stand beside Burmese from Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, as we yelled slogans calling for a free Burma, UN intervention and the end of atrocities in that country. It was very moving to get to talk with these people and find out about their struggles, both back home in Burma and living here in Australia. The look of pure joy on our Burmese friends face as he yelled out slogans that would have got him instantly shot in his own country will not be forgotten quickly.
On Thursday, Naomi also got the opportunity to learn some authentic Burmese cooking with another neighbourhood friend, from what I understand it was a great time of connecting as women together (I wasn’t invited :( - though I did get to sample the curry :))…
So anyway, all that to say that things are starting to really pick up for us in this area and we are overjoyed and excited that God would use us in this very important ministry…
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