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Heartfelt prayers for Myanmar
The Zomi Catholic community at St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Southeast Portland brings together faith leaders for prayers âWe are all brothers and sisters in humanity,â Bishop Peter Smith tells the crowd. âNone are free until all are free.â (Kristen Hannum/Catholic Sentinel)
select Posters at the prayer service include images of Sr. Ann Rose Nu Tawng, a Catholic nun who begged the police and soldiers to shoot her instead of the people protesting. She has become an icon of peaceful resistance in Myanmar. (Kristen Hannum/Catholic Sentinel) Francis Kham, leader of the Zomi Catholic community at St. Joseph the Worker, admits to the crowd that his heart is broken by what is happening in their homeland. (Kristen Hannum/Catholic Sentinel)
Zomi funeral traditions remind families they are not alone Lia Elizabeth Don Tawa Nuam leads the childrenâs blessing at the funeral of her father, Peter Lian Pi, in 2015. She is the oldest of his three children. In the wake of the traffic accident that killed Lian Pi, the tightknit Zomi community came together around the family with traditions and immediate, practical care. The childrenâs mother died in a refugee camp in Thailand when the youngest child was 6 months old. The children reunited with their father in 2009. (Courtesy Francis Kham)
Francis Kham
select Francis Kham • • In the old days, the sharp report of a gun alerted Zomi villagers in Myanmar (formerly Burma) that there had been a death. If the deceased had been a Christian, my ancestors would also have heard the church’s bells either from the Catholic church or the Protestant. For animists, the gun blast