New Myan­mar Coun­try Direc­tor Rebecca Htin will be lead­ing World Concern’s Human­i­tar­ian Aid. She’s a med­ical doc­tor and grew up in the country.

I met an amaz­ingly qual­i­fied new co-worker of mine yes­ter­day, a med­ical doc­tor who once worked in a lep­rosy mis­sion and has a mas­ters degree in pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion from the Kennedy School in Boston.

Naw Rebecca Htin is a world-class human­i­tar­ian. She begins this month as the new World Con­cern coun­try direc­tor for Myan­mar (Burma). She’s a mother of three and her hus­band is a neu­ro­sur­geon. And she also grew up in Burma, which was the name of her native coun­try until 1989, when the cur­rent mil­i­tary gov­ern­ment decided to rein­force the country’s sep­a­ra­tion from British colo­nial rule.

Naw is “Ms.” in her lan­guage. We call her Rebecca, and she’s also an answer to prayer. Our Human­i­tar­ian Aid pro­grams in Myan­mar make up World Concern’s largest oper­a­tion in any coun­try where we work. And yet for sev­eral months, we have been search­ing for a leader who qual­i­fied and able to take on the chal­le­neges in this coun­try filled with obstacles.

Rebecca told me, “Not many peo­ple in the coun­try has the oppor­tu­nity like I’ve had to study, to have this expo­sure. I think I need to give some­thing back.”

What she says is very true. I just returned from SE Asia and vis­ited some of World Concern’s Human­i­tar­ian Aid projects in the delta region, where 140,000 peo­ple died in a cyclone last year. What we need is a leader who under­stands the mul­ti­fac­eted need in a region that seems to be get­ting back on its feet, but still in a bit of a col­lec­tive shock.

Rebecca told me,”Psychologically, eco­nom­i­cally, emo­tion­ally, there are many things yet to do to con­tinue life again.”

Often peo­ple know book knowl­edge, but don’t know how to put it in to prac­tice. Rebecca used to work as a leader in World Vision Myan­mar, and more recently has expe­ri­ence in the hard-hit delta region. She has been serv­ing in a Chris­t­ian mobile mis­sion in Boge­lay, a fish­ing vil­lage where tens of thou­sands died in the storm.

Before the cyclone and to this day, World Con­cern has also worked with eth­nic minori­ties in Myan­mar, peo­ple who have gen­er­ally not had the same oppor­tu­ni­ties for edu­ca­tion and jobs. Also in this regard, Rebecca brings per­sonal knowl­edge, as she grew up in the Karen state and under­stands the challenges.

Rebecca will be off to Myan­mar today, a long cou­ple of flights back home. Like many called into the field of human­i­tar­ian aid, she says she’s been prepar­ing for an oppor­tu­nity like this, to show the com­pas­sion of Christ through action, not expect­ing any­thing in return.

World Concern’s human­i­tar­ian aid in Myan­mar includes sup­ply­ing fish­er­men with boats. They repay a small por­tion of the cost of the boat, and are able to regain their liveli­hoods after the 2008 cyclone Nargis.

Human­i­tar­ian Naw Rebecca Htin received her ori­en­ta­tion at World Concern’s Seat­tle head­quar­ters in July.

Like

Unlike