Legacy Institute

May 6, 2012

In order to travel to Burma for the Spring Holy Days, I asked Mr. Brian Drawbaugh if he would be willing to come over and hold services at the Legacy School for COG members and students who might have remained at Legacy for the school break.  He kindly agreed and flew over to help.

Here is a brief write-up about the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread in Thailand:

Leon Sexton

Left to Right: Katrine, SeyNeeSey, SeyNeeHtoo, SawSeyHtoo, NawMya, EkaNeyHtoo, SeyNeePaw, HtooMyaShwee, NeyBlooHtoo, Nathan Albright, Utaiwan Han, Abigail Syltie, Austin Mangels, JaJu, Brian Drawbaugh, Matee

Passover and Unleavened Bread at Legacy

by Brian Drawbaugh

To make it possible for the Sextons to make the Passover trip to Burma, they invited me to come to Thailand for the festival season and hold services at Legacy School.  It is the HOT season in Thailand, so the fans at the school were greatly appreciated.

Since it was the time between school years, all but about 5 of the Thai students were home, so for the festival we had about 19 or so at the most, with 15 taking the Passover.  As always, the language barrier is an issue, since I speak no Thai or Burmese. We were all very blessed, however, that a graduate of Legacy, Jeh Pabolaw, was on break from university studies, and was able to be there for the whole time, except for the last day.  Jeh is a Thai national, but he is a member of the Karen tribe, and the Burmese refugees at Legacy are also Karen, so Jeh was able to translate into the Karen language for them.  Matee, a Legacy student of the Lahu tribe translated into Thai.

For the entire festival, we had a service and a Bible study every day. The refugees, especially, wanted to meet together and learn as much as possible.  It was a challenge for me to simplify my vocabulary and try valiantly to remove as many idioms as I could recognize. For each presentation, I developed a PowerPoint presentation to help bring the concepts to life.  This preparation kept me fully occupied until the last day of the festival.  Since Jeh was not able to be there for the last service, I had him record his translation right on the PowerPoint I had prepared for that day.  Therefore, we had the translation before the original—unusual to say the least.

Nathan Albright, a Legacy teacher from Florida, also spoke a few times during the festival plus Sabbath, and the Saw Htoo family from Burma treated us to several pieces of special music.  Those of us from the West may not think about this, but I found that I needed to give an entire message about how “bread” is used as a symbol in the Bible. As important as bread may be to us, or to someone from the Middle East, it has no significance to people who eat rice at every meal and have no idea how bread is made or what leaven is.  As always, the twin goals of simplicity and clarity serve to make teaching in Asia as educational for me as it is for those to whom I speak.

Brian Drawbaugh

View on Blogger: Passover and Unleavened Bread at Legacy

Since my arrival here at Legacy I have tried many new and interesting types of fruit.
Some I had already tried in the US but this fruit tasted sweeter and more delicious than I recall.

Jack fruit from the farm.  We are waiting for it  to start smelling good and then we will  know it is ripe.

Below are some of them from the school, farm, and surrounding areas here in Thailand!

Dragon fruit are very fun and colorful fruit.  There are two kinds, one white and one pink inside. Next time I will try the pink because I was told it is sweeter.

Enjoying the nameless fruit grown on a tree at the school. It is very  sweet and jelly like  inside.  So far my favorite!

We also named this martian fruit

The sweetest strawberry I have ever eaten from the King’s Project in the mountains about an hour from the school.

Guess what type of fruit this is…if you guessed star fruit then you are correct. These  were very sweet  unlike the ones I have tasted from the grocery stores in the US.

Guava fruit cut by Legacy student because of the large knife involved.

Don’t be alarmed…its just a mulberry

The spoils after a hot season downpour.

So we had to eat them the the local way…sour green mangoes with chilies.

Ripe mangoes are my favorite!

The brownish reddish spiny thin skin of the lychee  is peeled to eat this sweet white fruit.

Unripe bananas and flower at the farm.  In a couple weeks we will enjoy them!

Posted by Aj. Abigail

View on Blogger: http://legacythailand.blogspot.com/2012/05/tutti-frutti.html

Below is a map of the area where the fighting in Kachin State, Burma is taking place. Myitkyina is the capital of what is called the Kachin State of Burma. The Chinese want to build a dam on the Meka/Melika River that flows through Myitkyina so they can develop hydro-electric power to feed the power-starved Chinese economy located across the border. The Burmese central government wants to clear out opposition in the area (RED below) and the Kachin army opposes the building of the dam. The fighting has escalated and soldiers on both sides are dying every day. It is a fight about who will control the economic benefits of the proposed dam more that anything else.

Map showing area of fighting near the Kachin border with China

The young Legacy graduate who came to visit us in Taungoo for Passover had to cross into China and come around the area of fighting in order to reach Myitkyina and then come by train to Taungoo. Taungoo is located further south in the center of the country between Kachinland and Yangon (Rangoon). Few COG members live in this RED area. So far, we have heard no negative news concerning their safety.

Such are the challenges of life for those who live every day with war in Burma.

Leon Sexton

View on Blogger: http://www.legacyinstituteorg.blogspot.com/2012/04/area-of-fighting-in-kachin-state-burma.html