The Students are the Mission
As the rainy season starts to slow down in the jungles of southeast Myanmar, we wanted to update you on recent flooding in the region. Twelve days of relentless rains had disastrous consequences on our hospital campus and surrounding villages. We are incredibly thankful for our resilient students, doctors, staff, and local community who all came to the rescue!
We are also quickly entering the last quarter of the year, which is the most important fundraising season for Earth Mission. For additional ways to get involved, please consider sharing Earth Mission with your family and friends! Whether you encourage others to sign up for our newsletters, invite them to follow us on Facebook, check out our website, or donate—these are all excellent ways to learn about the situation in Myanmar and invest in a better future for the people.
This year more than ever, the stakes for our students have been high—with civil war raging around them and natural disasters wreaking havoc on their communities. Every day, they sacrifice their safety and comfort to bring health and hope to their people.
At Earth Mission, we often say that our students are the mission. They hold the future of their country. Thank you for your generous support and for keeping our work at the top of your prayers.
This is how community works. We are grateful you are here.
The Students are the Mission
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the rivers will not overwhelm you..."
- Isaiah 43:2
A series of recent storms wrought disaster on Earth Mission’s jungle clinic campus and surrounding villages. For 12 days straight, the rugged region drank in more than 12 inches of rain every day.
The ground could only hold so much water. The mountainside quickly became oversaturated. Within the first 2 days, the earth simply melted away.
Day 2: The first landslide to reach our clinic campus crashed into the physicians’ quarters, flooding the house and pressing against the brick walls. Rivers of rainwater threatened to wash away the whole structure.
Realizing the dire situation, our Physician Associate and Engineering Technology students abandoned their studies and grabbed their shovels. While clinic staff saw to the needs of patients, the students spent the next 2 days excavating the building from its muddy prison with wheelbarrows, hoes, rice bags—anything they could get their hands on to remove the debris.
Day 3: As the house situation came under control, some students peeled off to rescue stores of medications in the new operating room, which had filled with 6 inches of standing water.
Day 4: More landslides started toppling trees all across campus. Two fell on the inpatient building, hitting the power line and sparking a fire. The students evacuated everyone from the building, extinguished the fire, and settled the unharmed patients in the maternity building.
Day 5: Another mudslide hit the outpatient building. Again, students went out in full force to remove the masses of earth threatening the structure.
Day 6: The schoolhouse was hit by a tree and yet another landslide. The students and their shovels were back at it!
Along with the 5-day campus rescue being the filthiest job imaginable, it was also very cold! Enduring the drenching rain for hours on end, covered from head to toe in cold mud, the students were left absolutely frozen by the time they finished the job. And all they had to look forward to afterwards was a frigid bucket bath.
Beyond the crisis on campus, the relentless rain quickly transformed the area’s rivers into roaring vehicles of massive destruction. Surrounding villages nestled into a hillside just above the rivers were quickly devoured. A nearby town lost 11 houses. Six houses in another village were swept away by swollen rivers. When the river took their homes, it took their clothes, mosquito nets, pots and pans, animals—everything they owned in the world.
Rivers that could normally be waded across to travel from village to village became sinister torrents of unknown depths, cutting new paths through the mountains and valleys with their force—and cutting our hospital off from the surrounding villages.
We were an island in the storm.
Once the 12-day storm ended and rivers receded, our students set out to help as many villages as they could. Reflecting the love of Christ, they gave families who had lost everything some supplies, food, and money to start their lives over again.
Our clinic campus buildings—though battered and in need of repairs—remained structurally sound and continued providing healthcare to those in need.
At Earth Mission, we often say that our students are the mission. This disaster perfectly demonstrates why.
In the mountainous jungles of southeast Myanmar, most people scratch out a living as subsistence farmers. There is little margin to access education or healthcare. In spite of these circumstances, the people are strong in spirit, woven together with loyalty and joy, and driven to better the lives of their people.
These qualities are deeply ingrained in our students.
While rainy season challenges are normal, our students’ response to this unusual disaster reminds us we’re on the right track. Enduring harsh conditions to preserve the teaching hospital campus was simply an outward demonstration of their inner desire to build a better future for their people as the hands and feet of Jesus.
If that means digging a clinic—and their country—out of destruction one shivering shovelful at a time, so be it.
These servant leaders are making God’s love tangible in the midst of suffering.
Their purpose is to bring healing in destruction.
They are light in the darkness.
Hope in the impossible.