Post-graduation update (and photos), PART 2

Continued from PART 1…


On the next Sabbath back at the school (February 15), the next event was our annual baptism--where 21 students were baptized this time! It was an answer to prayer to see some of my students make decisions for Christ, and it was exciting to find out on the day of baptism who all was going to be baptized, because I hadn’t been able to keep up with all the many students!


Saw Lweh Ghay, our oldest and most hard-working student (Grade 9), was one of the first baptized. Later in this post you'll read more about him!


Bi Li was baptized also--he is a new dorm student who has helped teach me Karen occasionally. He wants to become a pastor or medical missionary.


Paw Htoo Paw, one of my shy piano students, finally decided at the last minute to be baptized also!


Here are all of the students (and Josiah, MK) after they were baptized. Saw Ghay Wah, the boy with polio, is sitting in the chair.


This is Saw Lweh Ghay right after the baptism. Due to the busyness of our lives at the school, I hadn’t been able to talk to him much for some weeks. I knew he had been choosing to fast for 24 hours every Sabbath without food or water, and had talked with him about that a few times. I disagreed with his sincere personal belief that Jesus fasted 40 days without food or water, and that he needed to fast without water too. After the baptism, SLG led out in the AY worship service on Sabbath evening, and then afterward somebody saw him walking off into the jungle. I didn’t find out until Sunday night that he was gone missing (I thought he’d gone to his brother’s house nearby) and he had not notified the boy’s dean. We knew he had been fasting since Friday evening, and worried that he would become too weak to come back if he was out in the jungle alone without food or water. But we didn’t know if instead he had decided to go back to his village in Burma without telling anybody.
The Grade 9 and 10 boys had to take some of their final exams the next morning, but they were going to go search for SLG in the jungle after that. Since I knew the jungle paths and caves that SLG had been to before, I decided to leave that night (by then it was 11 PM+) to hike to one cave to the southeast that would seem to be a likely place for him to go. It was a full moon and very pleasant for hiking, although I was glad that I knew the way and had a compass, since the trail is unmaintained and is hard to find at times, even in daylight. I made it up the mountain and into the cave by 2 AM, and by then I could tell that SLG hadn’t been around there, due to all the undisturbed dead leaves that were thick in that area.


When I went into the cave, I saw this snake on the wall, which was the only time I’ve actually seen a snake inside a cave. He was very slow-moving, and I moved to a different area of the cave near the entrance before I wrapped up in my hammock and crashed to sleep for a few hours.  I wished I’d brought a blanket, but it actually wasn’t so cold on this night, and the nylon hammock wrapped around me was somewhat like a space blanket.


In the morning at 6 AM, I woke up and headed back down to the school amidst the beautiful jungle hues of the dawn. I made it back for chapel and let the boys know that we could choose a different area to search in after their exams.
But to try to make a long story shorter, that day (Monday) we split up into 5 groups and SDY and I searched high and low in rocks and caves on another mountain nearby, and we and the other groups never found a sign of Saw Lweh Ghay. By then we were thinking that maybe he did go back to his village in Burma, but his brother hadn’t been told if that was the case. We continued praying for him, and went through the week preparing for graduation, which was that upcoming Friday.
Finally, during graduation on Friday, SLG showed up, barely able to walk, looking haggard and very skinny. He rested in a teacher’s house and I checked his vital signs and counseled with him about how to break his fast, since he was still refusing to even drink water or ORS until Friday evening. He had been resting weakly in the jungle all week, and had heard us shouting for him but did not respond.  I was amazed that his vitals were normal, and his dehydration state didn’t seem too severe, although of course he had lost 22 pounds by our measurement. He had been dry fasting for 7 days since the previous Friday evening, and I told him that normally humans cannot survive for more than 3-4 days without water. But it was becoming obvious that God was sustaining him!


That evening/night, SLG broke his fast with water and coconut water and ORS. I stayed with him to monitor and make sure he was okay. As he laid there on his mat, he told me more details of his experience.
He told me that he had promised God--when he committed to baptism four weeks before--that he would do a 7-day fast after he was baptized. (He had a little bit of a hard time explaining in his English to tell me the reasons he had made that promise—but he seemed to want to really seek God and that he was wanting God to answer him in some way.) At that time he didn’t know that his week of fasting would end up being during final exams week, but he decided he would keep his promise to God even if it meant missing his final exams. He told me that when he would fast for 24 hours without water on the previous Sabbaths, he would get severe headaches from the dehydration and heat; so when he started his 7-day dry fast, he wondered how he would survive, but determined to keep his promise even if it took his life. The amazing thing was that after the first day of his fast, his headaches went away, and he didn’t have any more headaches during the rest of the 7 days! 
Also, when he started his fast, he still had a cough since he was recovering from likely pneumonia. During the fast he would only cough infrequently, but had some bloody mucous for the first few days. By the end of the 7 days he no longer had bloody mucous, and the cough was improving. In addition, during the first few days of his fast, he stopped having urine output and felt severe bladder pain. But after he prayed to God, the bladder pain went away and he started having some (brown) urine output for the rest of the 7 days.  During the week, he had back pain from laying on the ground all the time, and suffered with the heat daily with only a little shade from the bamboo, and tried to use a few (green) leaves he scrounged to cool himself a bit. (Maybe he’d had fevers—but he said he didn’t even get cold out there at night, like we did sometimes that week.) He said he felt very weak and could only silently cry out to God. He couldn’t even sleep much at night, let alone in the day, due to the discomfort, heat, etc. (But he said whenever he thought he couldn't handle it anymore, he would pray and it seemed God would quickly send a cloud or a gust of wind to cool him.) He laid far away from the creek so the water wouldn’t tempt him. He heard us calling for him when we were searching for him, but he chose not to try to answer. He tried to read verses from his Bible, but only barely could do that. In the morning when it was cooler, he could set his Bible next to where he was laying and only had energy to lift his head and read a verse or two. Then he would try to recite verses by memory. Based on his total weakness during the week, he didn’t think he’d be able to walk back on Friday for graduation, but on that morning he prayed some more and God gave him enough strength to walk back to us with only one stop for rest.
After SLG broke his fast on Friday night, I counseled him to take it slowly as far as starting to eat again until he was rehydrated. When morning came, he ate watermelon and rice gruel and felt fine.  Despite my advice to rest some more, he felt enough strength to get up and walk to church and visit people and play guitar and seemed almost normal (except still very skinny, etc.)! PTL, I believe God definitely rewarded his promise and faithfulness, even if it seems a little bit extreme to some of us. And SLG told me that he got his answer from God, and doesn’t feel a need to fast every week anymore! I think we could all take a lesson from SLG’s experience, to encourage us about how faithful we are to our promises to God.


Meanwhile, I’ll go back to telling about our graduation day, with everything else going on! The above photo shows Saw Dih Yin on the right, and Bi Li on the left. SDY spoke for the early morning worship talk before graduation…and he surprised everyone by speaking the whole worship talk in English, with Bi Li translating into Karen language for the other students and Karen staff! None of the students had spoken for a long public meeting in English before, since they are shy and have had limited years of English study at this new school. (They also study Thai and Burmese and Karen language, and English is not always made a priority in their speaking for many of them.)


That morning also, one of my piano students, Paw Htoo Paw, became the second of my students that overcame her shyness enough to play a special music piece with me at the worship service. I felt bad because somebody had taken my music the night before, so I had to play my part by memory, which I wasn’t exactly prepared for!


Later that morning, the graduation service started outside under the mango trees.


You've probably never been to a graduation like this.  (Photo by Sabrina)


Part of the crowd of students and visitors, sitting under the mango trees for shade.


The principal (Harvey Steck) and a guest speaker (middle) spoke for the graduation, along with some of the graduates, and there were several special music items.


The Grade 8-9 classes singing up front. Their song was beautiful and I wish I could show you the videos I have.


The Grade 10 graduating class, singing special music. (Students graduate at Grade 10--actually 10th standard--in this system.)


After receiving their diplomas from Harvey Steck, the students were greeted with gifts by Thara EhGanYaw and Paul and Lena Adams (pictured here with SDY).


This is me and Caleb with Saw Dih Yin, one of the graduates who was one of our hiking buddies and Karen teachers.  The graduates have lots of colorful handmade-yarn-things around their necks which were put on them by their friends and family after the ceremony. (And we teachers received one from the 6th grade students.)


One of my piano students, Naw Sah Pwe--the youngest of the graduates (17). She was the first student brave enough to do a piano duet for special music. (You have no idea how shy most of these students are!)


Dah Ku Say, the girl who had a testimony about her baptism last year, which I wrote a bit about earlier.


These are the three graduates who have been some of my best piano students so far. They plan to come back next year for some additional medical-missionary training, so I'll see them again! :)


The eight graduates with their traditional Karen clothing.


The Grade 4-5 classes singing a goodbye song...until next school year! Please pray for the students as they return to their homes during the vacation, that they can be a light where most of their families are Buddhist. And pray that our graduates will continue to follow God’s leading for their life—we hope they will all come back for the medical missionary training program this coming year!