Rangoon, Burma (Yangon, Myanmar): November 9, 2001: “Quite frankly, Mr. Htay Aung,” I said, “I am in no way a risk to your country or to those in charge of keeping order. I am here to work with you and bring good to you and your country, both now and in the future. I want your permission to continue to travel as planned.”
About that time Daniel jumped in and told of the medical needs and Project C.U.R.E.’s ability to help the rural people of the north. He then described the Needs Assessment Study, which we wanted to undertake to make sure we would be able to appropriately help in the future. After about thirty-five minutes, the deputy minister had tea brought in for us, and he excused himself from the room. Daniel and I continued our discussions with the other officials who had been brought in for the meeting, and I showed pictures of Project C.U.R.E.’s work in other areas around the world.
After another thirty minutes, the deputy minister returned to our meeting.
“I have successfully intervened on your behalf with the minister of tourism,” he informed us, “and he has signed your papers. But you will not be able to travel today because the minister of defense must also sign off on all your papers. He cannot possibly even hear your situation in time for you to fly today. Monday will be the earliest opportunity, if he decides to sign the papers. There are some radical changes taking place in our government situation today, and the cabinet ministers are extremely preoccupied with those meetings. It is more than likely that your papers won’t even be considered at this time. You will just have to wait and see.”
That wait-and-see verdict was what Daniel had put up with before when he was refused entrance. On other occasions, he simply had to return to Chiang Mai.
The situation is certainly out of our hands. God definitely answered our prayers and gave us favor with the ministry of tourism, and we are making progress. We will continue to pray that God will give us wisdom and favor and make a way where there seems to be no way.
To unwind from the meeting, Daniel and I decided to eat lunch and then visit the busy marketplace. I love going to foreign markets and observing the customs and habits of the locals. I wasn’t disappointed.
Of the popular items being sold today were huge crickets. Large baskets filled with the bugs were carried on top of the heads of vendors who strolled through the marketplace. The insects were three to four inches long and had been fried in garlic and ginger. People buy ten of the crickets for the equivalent of thirty US cents. Most people I observed would pull off the wings, the smaller legs, and the lower half of the back legs and pop them into their mouths. The crickets, flavored with garlic and ginger, are apparently appealing to the taste and are a great source of protein. There is a crunchy sound that accompanies chewing the crickets. Other bugs, worms, snails, and sea creatures were also readily available at the market.
We waited the rest of the day and evening to hear from the office of the defense minister. But we went to bed having heard absolutely nothing.
I was preoccupied thinking about our situation and had difficulty sleeping. The biggest impediment to my sleeping, however, was the horrendous snoring that was taking place in our room. Daniel had wanted to save some money by having us share a hotel room. Bad idea! I lay there and thought, This too shall pass, and I will get to sleep. Wrong. The earth shook; the lights rattled. I feared for Daniel’s life, lest his head should collapse when he inhaled, and his sinuses should explode when he breathed out. I’d never heard snoring like that in my life.
In desperation I turned on the lights. The only difference that made was that I could now see the pictures as the wall shook and the earth moved, but it certainly did nothing to deter the snoring. In a loud voice I started calling out, “Daniel, wake up. You’re going to kill yourself. Daniel!”
I recalled his story about the guys in Colorado taking him on a duck hunt, and Daniel’s snoring had kept all the hunters awake. They had just laughed and watched him snore because no one could awaken him, and no one could sleep either. It amused me, but I wasn’t laughing.
Finally I walked over to his bed and started slapping his hand and hollering, “Daniel, wake up! You’re going to kill yourself. You’re going to inhale your nose and mouth and blow them out your eyes. Wake up!” That did the trick. Daniel woke up and was so innocently pathetic. He apologized profusely and quickly admitted that he had a “slight” snoring problem whenever he was fully relaxed in his sleep.
“Okay,” I said, “here are the new ground rules. When you start snoring, I’ll turn the lights on and the television on with increasing volume. The sound and lights will wake you up, and I might as well be watching the news if I’m going to be awake.”
Saturday, November 10
Morning finally arrived, and following breakfast at the Central Hotel, Daniel and I wandered back over to the Bogyoke Aung San Market. We didn’t want to get too far away from where officials could reach us if the defense minister should happen to take up our case today. Our official liaison, Khin Khin Swe (Ma Lay), has really been working on our behalf. I think she likes us and is sold on what we’re trying to do for her people. She had already been to the government offices trying to push our paperwork under the eyes of her contacts in the ministry of defense. As a personal favor to Ma Lay, her friends had agreed to try to interrupt the defense minister’s other urgent meetings and plead our case to him. All we could do was wait.
At the marketplace I decided to do my Christmas shopping. Each year we invite friends and Project C.U.R.E. people to our Evergreen home for “Christmas on the Creek.” I try to bring home small gifts from a country where I’m traveling to give to each of our guests. Most people have never had a small gift from Rangoon, Myanmar. Fortunately I found exactly what I felt would make perfect Christmas mementos, and I bargained until I felt I was paying an acceptable price.
As Daniel and I spent time together, he confided to me a lot of concerns he has regarding his future plans and how they will fit with the structure and polity of his ministry format.
“Jim, you know well the complexities of the inner workings and peculiarities of Christian ministry boards and organizations. I think a lot about what is possible and what seems impossible, but I have never really had anyone help me from an objective standpoint. I know you to be a deep man of God. He has given you much wisdom, and you have successfully operated important ministries. It is such a relief to have someone like you as my friend, who travels halfway around the world and is someone I can talk to.”
I also thank God for the opportunity to be Daniel’s friend.
This afternoon, Ma Lay took us to the Burma historical museum. When she asked if we would like to go, I jumped at the chance.
“If Project C.U.R.E. is going to invest millions of dollars’ worth of medical goods in Burma,” I said, “we need to avail ourselves of every bit of economic, cultural, and political information provided to us. We’ll always make better decisions here in this country, as well as at home, if we increase our scope of information and facts.”
We gleaned a treasure of information at the museum. I was able to get a clearer idea of how the Asian tribes had migrated down from areas around Mongolia, and how the southward push had settled the different tribes in China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan—and all the other “stans”—Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Japan, Burma, eastern India, and the island countries. I was also able to gain some good insights on the British colonization period and the effects of that era.
There was nothing I could have done in Rangoon this afternoon that would have been more useful for our future work in Myanmar than walking the halls and display rooms of the history museum. I hope to pass that important strategy on to future Project C.U.R.E. leaders.
This evening Daniel and I went to a lovely restaurant called the Karaweik, owned by the Myanmar government. The Karaweik is a mythical Burmese bird believed to have an alluring and melodious call. The monarchy originally built a large boat, or barge, on a huge lake in the city of Rangoon replicating two such birds floating together. It is now used as a restaurant and cultural performance center. Ma Lay knows all the good spots to visit. And as elsewhere in the Asian countries where I’ve traveled, the music the Asian artists performed were favorite songs right out of my high school days. The artists clearly loved the old hits by Andy Williams, Elvis Presley, and others, and although I wasn’t convinced that they always knew the words they were singing, they had learned to phonetically make the right vowel and consonant sounds so that I could enjoy from memory all the verses and choruses of the old hits of the l950s and l960s.
Daniel and I returned to our hotel tonight without hearing a word from the defense ministry. I expressed to God that it would really be all right with me if we were required to fly back to Bangkok without going into the restricted area of Myanmar.
I’ve made myself available, I prayed. That is what I felt I should do. I have no other expectations or designs that would go beyond your plan or your timing. If we’ve accomplished all that’s on your agenda for this trip, then I’m satisfied. But if the situation is such that we should ask in faith for you to move the stogie bureaucracy of the Myanmar government, then I would simply ask that you directly intervene and deal with the defense minister and his office to get our papers signed. I’m not special, but I am available.
Next Week: Home again in the High Himalayan Mountains