REFUGEE & IMMIGRATION SERVICES:
Her nightmare started with a letter from her father.

A pro-democracy activist in Burma (now Myanmar), her father had fought for human rights for many years. He was arrested repeatedly until he finally feared for his life and fled to Thailand with his wife, leaving five grown children behind. But his concern for his countrymen did not diminish, and he sent a letter to his daughter, M Jar Htoi, asking her to distribute it to the Kachin people in Northern Burma. Respecting her father’s wishes changed M Jar’s and her family’s lives forever. She was threatened with imprisonment and she and her siblings were so harassed by the military authorities that they quit going to work, staying sequestered in their homes.

Their fear mounted until one night, leaving everything behind, they drove through the night to the refugee camp where their parents were living. There, M Jar and her husband struggled with thousands of others to survive with little food, no fresh water and infectious diseases epidemic throughout the camps. In the midst of all the suffering, M Jar became pregnant with their first child, but this blessing was not to be shared by her husband. He died four days before the birth of their son from an illness that could have been treated if only there had been medicine available.

M Jar arrived in Jacksonville with her two-year-old son in September 2007. “If I had stayed in my country, I would be dead,” she says. Lutheran Social Services helped her get medication for health problems and found a job for her as a seamstress. M Jar worked in a missionary school in Thailand and her dream is to teach in America. She worked with FCCJ to get her academic credentials recognized and this past August started working as a teacher’s assistant at San Jose Elementary School. She’s continuing her education with the goal of a bachelor’s degree in education.

The future looks very bright to M Jar. “I like it very much in the U.S. I have a future. In my country, I lost my future,” she says.

Her parents, siblings and she have all settled in Jacksonville now. Within months of their arrival, they were all working and able to pay the rent and utilities for the apartments into which Lutheran Social Services helped them settle. M Jar sums up their move to America with a shy smile saying, “We are strong Christians. God made a miracle happen for us.”