Forever Changed

“In 2005 our lives were forever changed when we met the first Karen who arrived at our church in Australia.  The Karen community grew rapidly and as we reached out to help them; we were blessed by being part of their lives.  We made our first of many trips to the Thai Burma border in 2010 and then in 2019 we went on a trip to see who we could join in serving the Karen. We met Dan and heard about Earth Mission Asia.  EMA ticked all the boxes for us as we love the idea of training and equipping local youth and our skills would be useful as Greg is an Engineer and I am a teacher.  We spent 4 months teaching first year students in Chiang Mai, Greg filling the need for an engineering teacher and I was able to teach a variety of classes whilst teachers were on leave. 

In 2020, we excitedly moved to Ler Doh and were impressed with the EMA volunteers and local staff and how much they had achieved together with their first group of medical students in their final year and a second group of engineering students being trained. We got to observe Dr Shaw, who is passionate and hardworking, coordinate local medical staff and students to organize for a group of medical specialists to come to Ler Doh to treat patients who had walked miles to receive medical help they wouldn’t usually have access to.  It was great to see the skills of the students in action on that day.  For three weeks we set up house and commenced working with the students when we had to make an emergency trip home, arriving to spend the last 4 hours with Greg’s mother before she passed away. Due to CoVid, we have not been able to return to Burma yet.  The time that EMA has put into setting up courses and training students is really paying off as so many volunteers are unable to be there in this strange season but the medical care of the local people is able to continue.” – Carol Oswald, Ler Doh Education Assistant