SHAWNEE, Kan. (ABP) – As refugees from Myanmar’s military government pour into the United States and fan out across the country to resettle, a Baptist seminary is working to provide for one of their many needs: ministry training for leaders of Burmese Christian communities.
A ministry-ethics course was taught in Burmese, which could be understood by the majority of the pastors who attended the course at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Attendees were pastors of refugees from Karen and Chin tribal groups. (CBTS photo)
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Kansas-based Central Baptist Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, recently hosted 26 Burmese refugee pastors for three days of classes. They included courses on ministerial ethics and Baptist polity, tailored for the contexts in which the pastors are serving.
The school’s leaders hope the courses will be the first in an ongoing program for refugee Burmese ministry leaders in the United States. Approximately 16,000 refugees, mostly from the Chin and Karen ethnic minorities in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, were re-settled here this year. About half of them are Baptists.
“It was one of the most productive short-seminars we ever had, enriching and relevant,” said Stephen Hre Kio, a pastor in Indianapolis. “The teachers were excellent and the subjects are needed both for long-term and short-term perspective in our ministry.”
Fellow participant Saw Josiah, pastor of First Karen Baptist Church in St. Paul, Minn., agreed. “It was such a privilege to get to attend the classes at Central Baptist Theological Seminary,” he said. “Even though the time was too short, for me I got opportunity to learn many things.”
The classes were conducted in late August in partnership with the American Baptist Home Mission Societies and with sponsorship through a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. The grant supports joint programs between Central and the Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT).
The Burmese seminary’s vice principal, Maung Maung Yin, taught the ethics course to culminate his Central Seminary-supported sabbatical. Central’s dean, Robert Johnson, taught the polity course.
Central Vice President John Gravley said the courses were “rekindling” a historic relationship with the MIT.
“Central has always had a connection with and involvement in Christianity around the world,” he said. “Some of our earliest students were from overseas, we have trained over a hundred missionaries and in the early 1950s Central granted the degrees for the Myanmar Institute of Theology while MIT was working on their accreditation following the devastation of WWII.”
Central Seminary President Molly Marshall and Dean Robert Johnson award a certificate of completion to one of the leaders of Burmese refugees during a community worship time. (CBTS photo)
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In 2007, Central and MIT officials begin re-exploring their historic partnership through exchanges and trips. This spring, a group of 14 Central students, faculty and staff spent 10 days traveling across Myanmar and experiencing what life is like for Baptists and others there.
“We believe that global immersion experiences are transformative for both faculty and students,” Gravley said.
Because of American Baptists’ historic connection with Burma — the place where missionary Adoniram Judson traveled to begin his historic ministry in the 1813 –- many of the Burmese refugees moving to the United States have gravitated toward ABC-affiliated congregations. “These [Burmese] Baptists often form ethnic congregations within local Baptist churches. Some of these leaders have ministry training and some do not,” Gravley said.
This spring, Central hosted a meeting of the Association of American Baptist Seminaries at which educators discussed the influx. “The question was put to the seminary leaders, ‘How can you help?’” Gravley said. Central “President [Molly] Marshall shared the varied connections of Central and offered to do what we could.
”Mang Sonna, a Central Seminary alumnus and director of a neighborhood center that has been helping new Burmese refugees in nearby Kansas City, said the needs for the refugees go far beyond theological training. Many of the Karen and Chin refugees coming to America have virtually no possessions and little acquaintance with how to go about daily life in the industrialized world.
Besides English classes, Sonna said, needs are as varied as training in basic financial literacy and management skills, the importance of abiding laws such as traffic regulations, the risks associated with signing legal documents and how to use the U.S. health-care system.
Central Seminary officials hope to address some those problems more directly as the program progresses and expands.
“These pastors have suffered as internally displaced persons within Myanmar, moving from camp to camp along the border with Thailand,” a seminary press release said. “Their villages were burned; their homes and personal belongings destroyed (including records of their academic work); and they were forced into servitude as porters for the military. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is common as they seek to recover from inhumane treatment. The next series of courses will address this reality more specifically.”
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Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press. This story included information from a Central Seminary press release.