A graduation ceremony of the Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Bible School and College (KKBBSC) in the Mae La Refugee Camp in Thailand, which was destroyed by fire one year ago, was held recently.
The school was gutted on April 28, 2012, but was partially rebuilt in time for the start of the new school year in July. The Baptist World Alliance® (BWA) donated half the funds toward the rebuilding of the school.
“The building is completed, the students also completed their school and yesterday we celebrated the dedication of the building to God,” Saw Simon, founder and principal of the school, wrote on April 15. “I would like to say thank you very much to all of you [for] your visits, your letters, your email, your encouragement, your donations and your prayers.”
KKBBSC offers general education to refugees and training to church leaders. Simon, the recipient of the 2000 BWA Human Rights Award, said 58 students graduated. The school, he said, had an enrollment of 420 students for the 2012-2013 school year. Approximately 3,000 persons, most of whom are affiliated with the Kaw Thoo Lei Karen Baptist Churches, a group of Baptist churches founded in the refugee camps, attended the graduation and dedication ceremony.
The April 14 graduation ceremony was the 29th graduation exercise of the school.
The Mae La camp, where the school is located, has an estimated 50,000 displaced persons. It is one of the largest of several refugee camps for displaced persons from Myanmar who fled conflicts in the South Asian country.
Simon and his family fled across the Thai border after the school, which was originally located in Rangoon (Yangon), the former capital of Myanmar, was destroyed. He later restarted it in the Mae La camp in 1984.
Baptist World Alliance®
© April 19, 2013