Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin' fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
“Mandalay” - Rudyard Kipling
On an ancient train from Rangoon to Mandalay, the Rudyard Kipling poem above kept ringing in my ears as I witnessed the most desperate, despairing, yet beautiful countryside in the world. As has been the case with most communist, police-state nations, there is little progress, if anything, everything going backwards. The smell at the Rangoon airport could never be forgotten, the despair on the faces of the people of this enslaved country could never be described.
In the hotel at Mandalay, right down the corridor from my room, a wannabe bar/entertainment area. Of course, in this mostly Buddhist/Muslim country, there was no alcohol, but a strange drink which the natives drank. I settled for some excellent Burmese coffee, and the other men in the room were playing cards or some other type of native game. One bartender, a vibrant young man about 20 years of age, immediately wanted to practice his English with me, was very curious about my visit.
My questioning started when I asked him about helping to find me a Burmese sapphire. He said, “you know that I cannot get involved in that type of thing because of the government.” As we talked, I learned the most incredulous story of my life. He said, “I have been to school, studied very much, even some contraband books. I am trying to find an answer to an image in my brain which I simply cannot erase.”
“When I was just a small baby, could have been more than three, just beginning to walk and talk, a great flood of the Tuipui river engulfed large areas of India and Bangladesh, washed away much of the population of these countries.” As those of us who have studied political geography know, 75% of the world's populations live along waterways, rivers, oceans. He said, “I can remember the great river outside of our house, the water rising, a ladder to the top of the house. It has been almost 20 years, but I still remember the rushing water, my parents clinging to the house, a metal tub coming by containing someone's laundry, my mother putting me in the tub, kissing me. The current took me away, never again to see my parents or anything relating to my home, wherever it was.” He said, “remember, I was just a baby. It was several days and nights of horror as I floated in this ocean of water, hungry and thirsty beyond words to describe, horror-stricken, bumping up against large objects, the current carrying the tub with tremendous force. At one point, a bird landed in the tub, laid an egg, and even at my age, I had sense enough to eat the egg, this is what kept me alive. Then, one day, all of a sudden the tub stopped, people were all around speaking languages unfamiliar to me. A woman took me out of the tub, fed me, washed me, raised me as her own child, and here I am.”
“Now doctor, this is something that has gnawed at my brain my entire life. You are the only one I have ever found who could give me an answer. I remember in that home, there was a cross which I now know was a crucifix, which hung on the wall. My parents seemed to worship this image, would hold me up to it. In my reading of any books I could find on religions of the world, I believe my parents had a different religion than the Buddhism, the religion of the stupas, the zongs to which I had been exposed here in Burma. Will you tell me? Do you think I was born to Christian parents?”
I had in my suitcase, in my room, a US Army military New Testament (the communists confiscate Bibles, but not military testaments). I came back with it, and told to this man, who showed the most rapt attention I have ever seen, the story of the world from its creation through the Old Testament. I told him there is a 700 year silence between the Old Testament and New Testament. I told him about the Creator of the universe, sending His own Son, Jesus Christ, to save them from their sins. I told him the crucifix he had seen as a one year-old child, was Christ on a cross, crucified in atonement, redeeming the world from sin through His own death on the cross.
I said, “you speak English well, and I'm sure you can read English. I want you to begin your study of this New Testament, which really is all you need until your studies lead you to the whole scriptures of the Holy Bible containing both the Old Testament and New Testament. Start with the Book of John, it will tell you everything you need to know about Christian salvation. Then from the Book of Romans, through all the letters of the Apostle Paul to Philemon, you will learn all about the Christian church. The most predominate religion in the world is Christianity, the largest Christian church is the Catholic church, over 1 billion members. I believe your parents, even though in a Muslim or Hindu country, were Christians-Catholics.”
“One of the greatest men of the Bible, Moses, was saved in a tub on a river by his mother, just as your were your put in a tub, in a river, by your mother. I will not be here to teach you about God's Word, creation, the Christian life, but everything you need to know is right here in this New Testament, which I will leave with you. You were saved from a raging river, from a raging flood, with a precious memory, all leading you to this moment in your life!”
God will answer my question one day, about how life has become so cheap to so many “Christians”, particularly Baptists. In school, even the doctors were too embarrassed to talk about abortion. Dr. Francis Shaffer made me aware of this tragedy. I was asked to leave one Baptist church (First Baptist Church, Goldsboro, NC) because the pastor told me that he did not want abortion mentioned in his church, that it was a medical/social problem, an intrigue to Catholics. I was asked to leave another Baptist church (First Baptist Church Wilmington, NC) because the pastor considered the evangelizing of the blacks in our community not “our” responsibility. Planned Parenthood's founder (financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, supported by 65% of the American people), founder Margaret Sanger believed in eliminating the “negro problem”, “weeds”, through eugenics.
Baptists, Protestants, most of my family and friends will split hell wide open because they have believed, without apology, in the fairy tale of make believe, playing church while the most precious of God's creation, babies, are killed by the millions. As the doctor said in Shakespeare's famous play, Macbeth, “God helps us all!”
