~THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU~
101,800 Baht (over $3,000 USD) have been raised, and now your donations are turning into blankets and food as I write this, soon to be into the hands and hearts of the most vulnerable.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the logistics of purchasing and delivery is sorted, but transport needs to be in one caravan for everyone’s safety. The tragic situation on both sides of the Thai/Burmese border has dramatically intensified over the last 5 days, with a tumultuous uprising Tuesday night in one of the Refugee Camps we’re supporting, and a striking increase in fighting in the spreading war zone in Burma. With large International NGO’s currently cut off, it is the resilience and skill of multiple Community Based Organizations that are able to maneuver supplies within the closures created by both war and Covid. It is because of DARE and the Border Emergency Response Team that your active love will soon be warming shivering bodies and filling bellies, and demonstrates why, once again, I believe so strongly in the powerful necessity of collaboration and relationship.
There are currently over 90,000 refugees living in camps along the Thai/Burmese border, and over 2,000 more innocent people who crossed the river into Thailand over the last few days, fleeing the bombing of their villages—they are currently living rough on the edge of both countries. It is impossible to say how many IDP’s (Internally Displaced Persons) are currently trying to survive in the jungles of Burma as they run for their lives with their villages, homes, and crops being destroyed. The atrocities of war grows, with woman and children used as Human Shields, and generations of families hunkering down anywhere they can hide.
With that, one might scoff at working so diligently to get “just” 600 blankets and food delivered on both sides of the line. But that is 600 children, pregnant women, grannies and grandpas who will feel your love and be given strength from that love to help those around them. Just wishing you could help them all pales in comparison to helping who you can, keeping the flame lit in the hearts that you can reach, believing they will fan that flame to spread out in ever-widening circles of compassion.
Thank you again to everyone who helped make this happen. More to come after the deliveries have been completed, but until then~
May you be kept warm, fed, and safe, and may we do what we can with what we have to offer the same to others.
To a kinder world,
with love from Northern Thailand xoxo
