When Buddhist San Shwe Mya’s uncle, a Christian, tried to speak about Jesus Christ, he was annoyed and paid little attention.
“I told my uncle he couldn’t persuade me to convert to Christianity as I had no interest in it,” San Shwe recalled.
Living in a remote village in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, work was the first priority for the 43-year-old father of three children. “We have to rely on ourselves for our livelihood, so work was the only thing on my mind,” he said.
San Shwe belongs to the ethnic Chin tribe and grew up in a Buddhist neighbourhood in a village in Minbya town. He followed his parents’ Buddhist religion.
His Buddhist-majority village has a few Christians including some Catholics. He could see how the Christians faced daily challenges while practicing their faith. “But I had no idea about Catholicism or Christianity,” he recalled.
San Shwe remembered some radical monks and laypeople warning Christians and not allowing them to use loudspeakers during celebrations such as Christmas.
“I wasn’t involved with the group who opposed Christian celebrations but I witnessed the challenge of being a Christian in a predominantly Buddhist com-munity,” he told.
His native village was remote but it was close to where intense fighting between the military and the Arakan Army had been going on since December 2018.
More than 90,000 people had been displaced due to the conflict in Rakhine that also spilled into neighboring Chin state, home of many Christians, mostly ethnic Chin.
The violence forced even San Shwe to leave for Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial hub, looking for employment and, more importantly, education for his children.