Antonio Graceffo
At an IDP camp hidden in the jungle, about two hundred children and many of their parents crowd into a central hut made of plastic tarps, which serves as the camp’s general meeting house and a Catholic church on Sundays. Along the road leading to the camp, heavily armed guards in body armor watch the skies for signs of airplanes or drones, as large gatherings of civilians are a favorite target of Burma’s military junta.
Inside the tent, if it were not for the camouflage uniforms of the entertainers, one would hardly know there was a war. Music plays and children laugh as they dance and take part in activities and games in a program called the Good Life Club (GLC), led by the Free Burma Rangers.
The Free Burma Rangers are best known for their work as frontline medics, evacuating and treating the wounded under fire. An image of the Rangers’ leader, David Eubank, rescuing a young girl while pinned down by ISIS in Iraq went viral, reinforcing the perception that the Rangers are hardened war veterans whose lives revolve around combat. While it is true that they routinely risk and sometimes lose their lives to save others, it is more accurate to say they exist in a world of war, but their lives revolve around faith and love. The first rule of being a Ranger is to “do this for love,” and nowhere is that more evident than in the Good Life Club.
Even in Burma, battles do not happen every day in every state, so between engagements the Rangers drive or walk from IDP camp to IDP camp, putting on a half-day program to bring joy to children who have been robbed of a carefree childhood.
At every Good Life Club program, the team conducts medical and dental checks so that villagers and internally displaced people can receive care. The most severe cases are referred and evacuated to a hospital. FBR also gives out free haircuts, one of those needs the rest of the world takes for granted but which displaced people often cannot access.
Throughout the four-hour program, the Rangers and foreign volunteers perform songs, skits, and other activities to engage the children. One Ranger performed a comedic hand-to-hand combat demonstration that made the children laugh. Another Ranger and his wife led the children in singing, but first had them do silly vocal warm-up exercises that brought down the house.
Two Rangers then taught the children how to play limbo. At first, volunteers were hesitant, so the Rangers went into the crowd and brought forward adults and children. Once the game began, the crowd sang and laughed as participants took turns going under the bar. In the final round, a small child was lifted up and declared the winner. He was so excited, you would think he had won the Olympics.
The program also included an anatomy lesson led by two female Rangers, as well as additional skits on malaria prevention and hygiene. In one demonstration, Rangers dressed as mosquitoes while wearing their uniform trousers, load-bearing equipment, and helmets. They removed their shirts and painted mosquito images on their chests and faces. Children acted as mosquito nets, standing around people pretending to sleep.
The Rangers portraying mosquitoes tried to enter but were blocked, illustrating the importance of sleeping under mosquito nets. When the people inside the nets woke up, they were shown to be healthy.
Before the GLC, David Eubank said, “You have to watch our malaria skit. It’s hilarious, with the most inept mosquitoes you have ever seen.” Then he added, “Like Mr. Bean.”
If you spend time around the Rangers, you find that David uses that comparison often for anything he thinks is funny. “It’s like Mr. Bean.” In this case, he was correct. It was easily the most entertaining malaria skit I have ever witnessed.
The mastermind behind the GLC is David’s wife, Karen Eubank, co-leader of Free Burma Rangers. Trained as a schoolteacher in the United States and a mother of three, she homeschooled their children on missions in war zones from Burma to Iraq, Syria, and Africa until they went off to university.
She said her involvement with children on the front line began before she had her own family. In 1999, she visited villages that had experienced recent Burma Army activity. In one village, she saw bullet holes in wooden houses and children hiding behind trees and buildings. “I tried to play with them, but I just couldn’t make any games there,” she said. She began asking what she could do to help children living in fear.
At the same time, she observed medical clinics that provided short-term care and then moved on. She began thinking about preventative health care and whether she could communicate it through a show or skit. As a teacher, she believed she could teach any subject, but she wanted to focus on what mattered most. In 2001, while traveling through Dubai after visiting Afghanistan, she reflected on a school shooting in Chechnya and asked herself what the last thing a child should hear might be. “The most important thing I need to tell them is that God loves them, has a purpose for their life, and that they are not alone,” she said.
She described the concept of “abundant life” as rooted in John 10:10 in the Bible. Reflecting on that earlier village, she said she felt unable to take the children home or change their circumstances. Instead, she sensed a call to introduce them to Jesus. “Introduce them to me, and I will give them abundant life,” she recalled. Since then, she has viewed that as her marching order.
From that foundation, she developed programs combining Bible stories with lessons on hygiene and health relevant to each village. Rangers act out skits and plays. A friend, Steve Gomer, suggested that ethnic Rangers should lead the teaching so it would have greater impact. Some Rangers were not Christian and were unfamiliar with the stories, which required distilling each message to its core. She said this built capacity among local teams rather than relying solely on outside teachers.
Today, the GLC, like Ranger School and many FBR programs, is about 80 percent run by Burma ethnic people rather than foreign volunteers. Over the years, this became central to FBR’s mission: not only teaching skills, but teaching leadership and allowing local leaders to teach and operate according to their own culture and language. Ranger training, including the GLC as part of basic Ranger School, became a force multiplier, with graduates teaching others and passing on the knowledge.
GLC events always include lessons on love and forgiveness because an underlying theme in the Rangers’ interactions with IDPs and resistance soldiers is that Burma will only heal if people learn to stop hating. Even though the resistance is fighting the junta, which at this time is the morally right thing to do, they must do so without hate.
The IDPs have suffered immeasurable loss at the hands of the generals, but the Rangers encourage them to abandon hate because hate destroys, love conquers. Part of the Ranger motto is, “Forgive, and don’t hate each other.”
The day after the Battle of Mobye last year, the Rangers attended the funeral of Benedicto, a 19-year-old Karenni Ranger who died while evacuating his wounded comrades. At the GLC the next day, David told the crowd about Benedicto and how his life symbolized living and dying for love. He shared John 15:13: “No greater love hath any man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
He then asked another young Ranger to come forward. Po-Aung hobbled up on his crutches, having been hit by the same mortar as Benedicto but surviving. David awarded him two medals, one for being wounded in the line of duty and one for bravery. They prayed for the soul of Benedicto and for Po-Aung’s leg to heal.
Although Free Burma Rangers is built on Christian foundations and led by Christian principles, members are free to hold any religious view. Many in Burma are Buddhist, and a few are animist. In the Middle East, most are Muslim. The only requirement is that they act out of love.
It is easy to say you want to serve others, and easy to tell those who suffer that they should forgive. But when the crowd saw that Benedicto had given his life for them and that Po-Aung stood wounded before them, the message was no longer just words. It was real.
At that same GLC, Po-Aung was publicly presented with his baptismal certificate, as he had recently converted to Christianity.
The GLC ends with the children receiving a colored bracelet and a Good Life Club hoodie. The children then form a parade, led by the Rangers, carrying the flags of the countries and ethnic groups represented in FBR. They march through the streets, conduct a flag run, and then share a snack together.
And after the GLC finishes, the war starts again.
Antonio Graceffo is an economist and China expert who has reported extensively on Burma.
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