FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — Several Baptist groups are pooling resources for aid after receiving news that a Baptist church in Myanmar collapsed during a March earthquake, killing 24 and injuring 57.
According to the Myanmar Times, about 200 people were inside the Baptist church in the remote Kyankuni village in the northeastern Shan State when it fell in during a 6.8 quake March 25. The congregation was reportedly holding a consecration service for young people trained for ministry.
"There are many teenage children among the dead,” a village official told the newspaper. “The earthquake hit when they were praying."
The Baptist World Alliance sent $10,000 through its relief-and-development arm Baptist World Aid, while the Asia Pacific Baptist Federation, one of six regional BWA fellowships, sent $5,000.
The Myanmar Baptist Convention collected about $11,000 from local churches for emergency relief. The convention's goal is to help more than 1,200 families or approximately 6,000 persons in 26 affected communities.
Formed in 1865, the Myanmar Baptist Convention is the largest Christian organization in Myanmar. It works with 16 regional language conventions around the country.
The village where the church collapsed is located in Myanmar’s easternmost and largest province, which borders Thailand, Laos and China. Most of the villagers are Lahu, one of three people groups in the area that are mainly Baptists.
Baptist work in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, dates to the beginnings of modern missionary work. Adoniram Judson, an American Baptist missionary, entered the country in 1813. Today, many Baptist churches work with Burmese refugees in the United States, who have left their homeland to escape persecution by the country’s military dictatorship that seized power in 1962.
Reports vary about the death toll from the March earthquake. Myanmar’s government generally discourages releasing such information to outsiders. In 2008 the junta delayed reporting on and asking for help from Hurricane Nargis, which killed 130,000 people, bringing criticism that the government acted too slowly.
Rural Myanmar is one of Asia’s poorest and most underdeveloped countries. The Kyankuni village is accessible only by bicycle and is one hour from the nearest town on a good day. The area’s greatest claim to fame is the Golden Triangle, which once produced the bulk of the world's opium and heroin, but even that dubious distinction has declined.
Despite needs in their own country, Baptists in Myanmar recently announced a $10,000 donation for tsunami and earthquake relief in Japan. Stan Murray, area director for Southeast Asia and Japan for International Ministries of American Baptist Churches USA, called it “a great witness to the mercy and grace of God.”
“Facing significant earthquake recovery in their own country, and given the state of the economy in Myanmar, our Baptist brothers and sisters have pulled together to make this generous offering to the Baptists in Japan,” Murray wrote.
On top of mounting need from a series of tornadoes and catastrophic flooding, the U.S., Baptists also are meeting human needs in Spain, where an earthquake May 11 caused severe damage to buildings of First Baptist Church of Lorca and left a number of Baptists homeless.
American Baptists sent $10,000 in One Great Hour of Sharing funds to the Unión Evangélica Bautista de España in Valencia, International Ministries’ partner organization in Spain.
Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.