Discovering Myanmar with Fr Frank Hoare: Part 2

THE IMPACT OF WAR AND POVERTY ON CHILDREN

Chilean Columban Fr Rafael Esteban teaches English and computers to orphans at St Francis Xavier Sisters’ Orphanage in a suburb of Myitkyina City, Kachin State, in the north of Myanmar. Some of the 140 children there have no parents; others have been left there because of poverty or other problems. Fr Rafael was overseas when I visited.

I met Sr Nu Tsu, who was with Lumhkaw, a five-year-old boy left in the orphanage at the age of two by his mother when she remarried. Lumhkaw doesn’t like his mother and when she comes to visit, he ignores her. It is tragic to think of the trauma that he and thousands of other children are suffering from a war waged on them by their own government.

Sr Nu Tsu is Lumhkaw’s ‘mama Sister’. When she must go somewhere she must explain why to him, or he won’t stop crying. Lumhkaw had red marks on the bridge of his nose and the back of his neck caused by someone pinching him in those places to take away the heat or bad blood in his body. This is a well-known treatment in Myanmar.

There are hundreds of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in a camp behind the orphanage. Other IDPs have received land from the Church for resettlement in the front of the orphanage. Karuna (Caritas) delivers food and helps the IDPs.

REMEMBERING COLUMBAN MISSIONARIES IN MYITKYINA

It was a joy for me to see Myitkyina Cathedral, which was built by the Columban priests. It is a beautiful building but perhaps a little small now. The old presbytery (since extended) and the minor seminary behind it were also built by the early Columbans. What surprised me most was to see the photos of many Columban priests on the wall of a building beside the Cathedral. These missionaries worked in the Myitkyina diocese from 1936 until they were forced to leave in 1979. The Kachin people have not forgotten the missionaries who worked among them 50 years ago.

There is a big three-storey building to the side of the cathedral which houses many pastoral and church offices. Karuna (Caritas) has many employees there who care for the IDPs who have fled to camps in Myitkyina from their war-ravaged villages. Helen, a very gracious young lady who has studied in Germany, met us at the door of her Jesuit Relief Services office and smilingly invited us in for a cup of tea. There was a wedding just about to begin in the cathedral. Both bride and groom had worked in the diocesan offices and were pleased to have their photos taken with me. I was shown the place on the road just outside the Cathedral where one of the first people to be killed after the military coup in 2021 in Myitkyina is memorialised. I recalled the Kachin Sister of St Francis Xavier who knelt in front of a demonstrating crowd in Myitkyina and prevented the soldiers from firing on them.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD SISTERS IN MYANMAR

Sr Florence, a Good Shepherd Sister, was on the staff of the Formation of Formators course, which Columbans conducted in Myanmar between 2003 and 2015. As she couldn’t attend our formators’ gathering, which took place during my visit, I said morning Mass for the Sisters and the people residing in their compound in Yangon the next day.

After breakfast Sr Florence showed me around. First was a dormitory for poor and sick people from outside the city who were attending the large hospital across the road. The hall on its second floor was for prostitutes from the city to learn skills for making a living apart from prostitution. Next was a safe house for women and children, victims of domestic violence. The children had daily classes and the women earned some money by washing and ironing towels from city hotels. Needy relatives of the Sisters were in another house.

Sr Florence told me how army planes bombed her hometown of Loikaw while she was visiting her family. She was in an agonising dilemma about whether to return or take her parents with her. The People’s Defence Force (PDF) sent a message on Facebook for everyone to leave the town because it was unsafe. She and her parents were taken in a packed car by the PDF to the town of Taungu. The one-hour journey took five hours because of detailed questioning at the many checkpoints. Eventually, they arrived at the Sisters’ convent in Yangon. Sr Florence’s father, who was an engineer, is now beginning a course of chemotherapy for his cancer.

PRAYER

Two friends from our Myanmar Formators’ course are Servite Sisters, Josy and Xavier. After Mass in their central Yangon convent, I looked in on some English classes that other Sisters were teaching. Sisters Josy and Xavier then took me to the Yangon Cathedral nearby, which is very beautiful, outside and inside.

We then travelled through the city to their postulants’ house, which also boards girls. A few quickly gathered to welcome me with a song and presentation of two homemade flowers. I met Sr Aloysius, who is in her 80s and blind. She says 30 rosaries every day, going to bed at 8pm to wake around midnight to begin her first rosary. This convent is in the parish of St Joseph, and the Sisters have a chapel of St Joseph on their grounds, visited by many people. When the first Sisters came from India to this place, they had no money or food. They placed rice grains at the feet of the statue of St Joseph and prayed for his help. The next day a kind donor brought them a bag of rice. Since then, many come to this chapel to pray for St Joseph’s intercession.

Columban Fr Frank Hoare lives and works in Fiji. For many years he spent months at a time teaching at the Columban course for formators in Myanmar.