Action Report: Emergency Corona Virus Aid
Victory Bible Academy is Christian Freedom International’s school to equip Christian refugees from Burma in ministry and life skills.
We are training persecuted Christians to serve their people.
The class of 2020 graduated days before the corona virus shut-down. Their training prepared them for ministering during a pandemic.
Action Report on Corona Virus Relief
Situation:
- Burma and Thailand shut-down due to corona virus.
- Thousands of refugees and migrants without daily wages, food or supplies.
- Border sealed. People stranded. Christians isolated.
Threat / Crisis:
- Global pandemic.
- Burma cuts off internet and attacks villages while world attention is on combatting virus.
- Economic crisis devastating the ultra-poor, including ethnic minority Christians who already face discrimination.
Mission: Get Immediate Aid to the Destitute in Remote Areas
Logistics:
- Coordinate trained volunteers, supplies, transportation.
- Locate clusters of refugees and migrants in remote villages.
- Obtain permission from authorities to travel.
Assets:
- CFI’s Victory Bible Academy staff and students: trained in relief aid and ministry.
- Allies: Victory partners with experienced Christian group.
- Victory school building: to prepare, coordinate and stage large relief effort.
- Victory vehicle: to transport aid and volunteers.
Supplies:
- Rice, canned fish, beans, salt, cooking oil.
- Water filters, feminine hygiene products.
- Masks sewn at Victory Bible Academy.
Incident Reports:
- Lone Christian family in a village asked for prayer for enough food to share with their neighbors who are Muslims and animists.
- Family asked for prayer that God would use them in this crisis to share the Gospel with their unbelieving neighbors. This village has 100 households and only 9 are Christian.
- Women and children had to leave Christian shelters during the crisis. Their dangerous community permits women to be Christian, but they cannot practice their faith in their homes.
- Discovered a group of Rakhine Christians (10 families) forcibly segregated from the rest of the community of 70 other families.
Top Prayer Asks:
- Health and job.
- COVID-19 to be gone.
- To know more about Jesus and for children to go to church.
- Relationship with God.
- Stronger in faith and more confidence to share.
- Family will be back together and healthy.
Results:
- Over 2,000 people reached with aid, prayers, and good news of Jesus.
- Instructed on how to prevent spread of virus.
- Data collected for follow-up and long-term ministry.
Next Steps:
- Victory Bible Academy’s new term begins on July 20, 2020 with 20 new students and 20 second-year students.
- New challenges of training persecuted Christians to be missionaries during a pandemic.
Victory Bible Academy’s two-year intensive program combines classroom study, discipleship, outreaches, and hands-on leadership – along with business, agriculture, English, nutrition and culinary skills.
Students lead Sunday School classes at local churches, and Friday night youth group at the school in four languages (English, Karen, Thai and Burmese).
A bag of rice feeds one
person for one week
Victory staff (and family) prep aid packages
Detailed reporting: from initial assessment in villages, to shopping, to follow-up.
Many women and children had to leave Christian shelters during crisis. Women in this dangerous community are permitted to be Christian but cannot practice their faith in their homes.
A Rakhine Christian community (10 families) of farm hands who are currently out of work. They are a home church plant who are forcibly
segregated from the rest of the farm hands (70 families living across the street) because they are Rakhine and Christian. Christian families asked for prayer that God would supply them with enough to share with their neighbors (Muslim and animist).
Victory graduate who is now employed with a Christian organization
The team shares lunch given by a villager (broth with a few vegetables and noodles)
The team prays with villagers
One family in this village asked for prayer that God would use them in crisis to share the Gospel with their unbelieving neighbors. (Over 100 households and only 9 are Christian.)
Idols placed at gates of animist villages to ward off evil spirits.
“No outsiders.” Villages ban entry with idols to guard against corona virus.