Saw Eh Soe

[Written in 2013]

I want to write a little about my life.

We had a peaceful family; my father came to Thailand to work; he worked in Oh Thu Glow.

I was a baby, so I did not know or understand anything; but my grandmother told me everything when I got older.

When the second battle started my father was in the hospital, because he had problems with his legs. So my mother went to take care of him in the hospital.

My mother was holding me in her arms and feeding me. My brother was with us; we were in front of the hospital when a battle started in Burma, and a bullet shell from a big gun landed in front of the hospital. There were many people sitting in front of the hospital, but my mother was the only one who got hit. I was in her lap when she died, but I did not know anything because I was only five months old. My brother was two years old. Because of my mother’s death, our family was no longer a peaceful family.

After my mother’s death my father had no money to buy milk for me, so my father walked around holding me in his arms looking for someone who would feed me; and he found someone here and there who was willing to feed me. This continued for about two months.

My father had an older sister who was in Burma, in a village called Naw Nee. She asked to take care of me and my brother; so I grew up with her and I called her mother. She tried to send me to school but I became so sick that they thought that I would not live. But I did live, and I grew up well. But while I was growing up I did not listen to my mother who was caring for me; I just did what I wanted to do.

I began to be with some older people, and learned to drink and use drugs.

I was very naughty. My mother who was caring for me tried to teach me, and spanked me so that I would be good, but it did not work.

I grew up with many friends, and I hated Christians. In my village that I grew up in, there were some Sunday Christians, but I did not want to listen to them.

When I was 15, I was not on the right path. What I wanted to be was not a good thing.

In 2010 I was attending a school, and my future goal was to become a gang member.

My brother was going to school in Thailand, at Sunshine Orchard school; I had only heard of the school, and all I had heard was that it was a Seventh-day Adventist school. My brother came home and asked for permission to get baptized. I tried to keep him from getting baptized– I said, “Don’t get baptized! We will have to be separated and I’m naughty and wicked”….

Our mother who was caring for us was very heart-broken, because I was so naughty; she did not know what to do.

At that time I did not want to attend school anymore. I wanted to come to Thailand, and went to live in Mae Salit, where I found a job. But it was hard as I didn’t want to work. All I wanted was free time, doing my own thing.

My uncle registered me to start school at a school called Noe Bo; but I did not want to go there, instead I asked to go to school with my brother at sunshine orchard. So in 2011, I started school here at Sunshine Orchard…. But I was not happy, because my brother had decided not to go to school anymore. So that meant that I would have to find my own new path at the school all by myself.

When I first arrived, I did not want to listen to the rules of the school, and I always tried to do the opposite. So during my first year I drank and used drugs; later the teachers found out and I was punished. I had to work extra for three months, and while I was doing my punishment I thought back on my life. I thought about being an orphan, and why I was such a bad person. These were the thoughts that I was thinking about the whole time. I tried to be faithful in my punishment, working hard.

At that time, our school principal was giving Bible studies in the evenings for one year, and I went to each bible study; and I experienced a feeling like a new heart had come in me.

There was one Bible topic that I felt was a little bit different, and that topic was about how we need to ask for new hearts from God. At that time I did not really know God.

I thought “I am such a bad person, how can someone change me? My mother could not change me, my father could not change me. Who will be able to change me?”

But I did want to change, and I wanted to ask God for a new heart. Although I was a little afraid, I tried very hard to get in to the habit of praying to this new God; I did not ask for anything special, all I asked for was what I really needed– a new heart.

And I know for sure that God answered my prayers, and that He can do anything, and that He showed me the truth and helped me to be able to listen and be obedient.

At that time I wanted to be baptized, but I was afraid of my mother and father who had taken care of me and my brother.

I went to church in Mae Salid one Sabbath, and there was a baptism; I went and sang with the choir for the baptism; I saw the baptism, and I was very heart broken… A struggle started inside of me, because I had not yet allowed Jesus Christ into my life like these people had.

So that night all I could think about was, What if Jesus is calling me to become his child?… I thought about me being his child, and every one in my family learning about Jesus the One who created heaven and earth.

So I decided that I would follow Jesus Christ. I did not want to have to be afraid in this world anymore.

I had learned all about Jesus who loves sinful men and came and suffered so much for sinful men, and we as sinful men have the right to suffer for him; at that time the Holy Spirit was really working in me, so that I would choose to follow Jesus Christ; so on march 9th, 2012, I was baptized, and chose to follow Jesus Christ with many brothers and sisters in Christ.

My mother and my father and my brother did not know that I had been baptized, because I did not tell them… I knew they would not let me be baptized.

But I was already baptized, so in the summer on the summer school break, I went home to tell my family the news.

In my village there are no SDA Christians like me.

When I went home, I was newly born in Christ, and so my faith was not so strong; but I tried to work and help at home as much as I could, like with firewood and laundry. While I was back at my home my father and my brother were not there, but they came home later. And my father already had heard that I was baptized. So my father was very angry, and he threatened to kill me or to hurt me, and then he went and drank and came back drunk and threatened more.

Also at that time my mother developed heart problems from me getting baptized and all the stress that came with it.

But I tried to stand for God the best I could, and to show a good example for my family. There were many temptations while I was home but I prayed to God for help, and he did help me. When I got back to school, I was encouraged, and I decided I needed to keep working for God. Now I am trying to learn to work for God better.  I have a heart for missions, because I was in the dark for 15 years. Right now because of the missionaries here, I have found the true light.

I want to thank Paul and Lena Adams, and their children, for starting and keeping this school going, giving themselves to the Karen people in His service.

I also want to thank Harvey Steck for teaching us the Bible and his family too.

Now I want to show my thankfulness, by sharing my testimony with you all. And I hope that everyone in the dark will see the true light.

Thank you all!