“Never Underestimate Jesus”
7 January 2025
Karen State, Burma
How do we have hope when the world around us is hopeless?
For me, this is not a hypothetical question, working at FBR. Burma has not seen peace since 1948: over 77 years of war. In Syria, HTS has failed to fulfill its promise “to respect the rights of ethnic and religious minorities,” as Alawites, Druze, and Christians have all come under attack. Meanwhile, American leadership seems eager to abandon Ukraine even as North Korea and Iran lend industrial and military support to Russia, who, in turn, lends support to the dictators of Burma. Seeing these things happening, meeting people firsthand who have suffered, it makes me angry, it makes me sad, and it’s just hard to hope for anything different. I’m not confident the current leaders and groups can resolve these conflicts well. I’m not even sure they want to resolve them.
So I often find myself thinking, “how can we have hope?” On a recent mission in Karen State I heard an answer I had heard before but had lost sight of.
“…never underestimate Jesus,” said Reverend Saw Lerr Moo, the leader of a Karen Baptist church made up of about 200 IDPs now living in Ma Pi Lay, Karen State. We met the Reverend at a Good Life Club (GLC) program we were running for his congregation and people from several other surrounding villages. As the kids enjoyed dances, songs, and skits, some of our team met with various leaders from the villages to encourage and pray with them. I decided to sit in with the chaplains as they met with local church leaders. As the designated field reporter, I have to admit I wasn’t thinking about how to encourage the church leaders in the meeting; I was too busy looking for a good story. But God is good; even with my distraction, He helped us encourage them well, and I heard a story that encouraged me. I hope this story encourages you when you are feeling hopeless.
Reverend Saw Lerr Moo and his congregation were forced to flee their homes because of Burma military air and artillery attacks. They live in simple shelters spread out through the fields around Ma Pi Lay, thankful for the hospitality of the villagers. The Reverend has served his congregation for 44 years and has suffered many hardships in that time. His church started in Glaw Mu, Karen State, where he lived with his wife, four sons, and daughter in a large house. Because his home was large, armed men from both the Burma Army and Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) would stay there as they passed through. The Burma Army did not appreciate him allowing KNLA men into his home and jailed him for two years, from 1992 to 1993.
While in jail, his 12-year-old son died from malaria, his church was bombed and forced to relocate, and, after he was released from jail, his daughter died from the flu. It was devastating but the hardships were not over. They settled in a new village, Ma Pi Gyi, and built a new church; it was peaceful until the coup. Not long after the military took over, his home was hit by Burma Army 81mm mortars and destroyed. He moved again, but his next home was bombed by a Burma military jet fighter two years later. With all these hardships and attacks, you would think that Saw Lerr Moo felt hopeless but he had other stories to tell.
When the congregation first had relocated they paid a local armed group to transport them and protect them along the way. But the group had enemies. Another armed group saw the group’s markings on the truck and opened fire with machine guns. The rounds easily cut through the unarmored truck where the Reverend and 18 of his people were huddled. He called out to God for protection and, though the bullets kept punching holes in the truck, not a single person was injured.
On a different trip, the Reverend and 10 of his congregants were traveling late into the night. They had not gotten a chance to stop to sleep and the driver nodded off. The truck veered off the road and, there being no shortage of mountains in Karen State, tumbled down a cliff face. Miraculously no one was hurt.
On two other occasions, he and his congregants accidentally passed through minefields laid by the same group that had fired the machine guns. No one was injured, even though the first time they drove over a mine twice with their car. The second time it happened, some of the group’s soldiers were nearby and asked some of his congregation who they were. The congregation members called him on the phone and he talked with the leader of the soldiers. The leader said, “You must be very special, we keep almost killing you but you keep surviving.”
After telling us these stories, the Reverend said, “That is why I tell everyone, never underestimate Jesus! He is not just the king of Judah, he is the whole world’s king, the king of everything. Praise Jesus and trust in Him.”
What a powerful reminder! Who am I trusting? When I’m feeling hopeless, it’s because the problem is too big for me or my imagination to solve. I too often default to thinking “What would I or could I do?” Which, if I’m honest with myself, is not much.
But when I put my trust in Jesus, when I refuse to underestimate His power in me, the sky is the limit. Jesus can do anything! He can stop bullets and silence landmines. He can take our little contribution, a desperate prayer in a storm of machine gun fire, and make a miracle. I have hope because He is able “…to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” (Eph 3:20)
I’m so thankful for Reverend Saw Lerr Moo and his powerful reminder. I have a thick skull so it takes repetition for a message to get through. I hope his story was as encouraging to you as it was to me. I’m thankful for you and your interest in and support for FBR and Burma. Most importantly, I’m thankful to Jesus that we can put our hope in Him. He takes our little contribution, our loaves and fish, and makes a miracle.
Thank you and God bless you,
Daniel, staff writer, FBR reporting team
