Remembering Saw OK

I’m afraid of this document….

There’s no way to write this without crying. But maybe that’s the gift of it.

He walked into the jungle a few weeks ago with a rope in his hands.

Some people asked him where he was going and he casually replied, “I’m going to go hang myself”. They laughed. They laughed because Saw Ok was always ok. He was just a steady guy, he was solid, nothing ever phased him. So when he said he was going into the jungle to hang himself they laughed not because they were callus or cold, but rather because they thought the same thing I thought, they thought it was impossible.

They found him two days later swaying from a tree branch.

It was 2019 when I first met Saw Ok. He was a small guy, but solid muscle. Not an ounce of fat anywhere on him. He didn’t ever talk and was determined to never do something poorly. I was teaching swimming for the Free Burma Rangers training and Saw Ok was in my non-swimmers group. When he would get into the water, he would charge forward on the sandy bottom, thrashing his arms as hard as he could, and slowly as it got deeper and his feet lost their ability to touch bottom, he would thrash along for a few strokes and then like a big boulder, go right to the bottom. On the first day of the swim training I had to dive in and lift Saw OK off the bottom of the river.

         When I got under the water to where he was, he seemed so calm, almost resigned to the fact that there was nothing he could do to get to the top of the water and he’d just have to sit on the bottom and wait until someone came and got him. I remember it so clearly. I had my eyes open under the water to find him and so did he, we made eye contact underwater and the serene look on his face was not of panic, but rather a look wondering what took me so long. I swam around behind him, put my arms around his torso and pushed off the bottom with my legs. We shot up out of the surface of the water, he coughed and spit and now looked a bit more like a drown cat, but then once he caught his breath, started thrashing forward again, determined to get across the 15 meters of our swimming hole. I swam alongside him, my hand under his chest keeping him up as he thrashed his way down the river. When he got finished the 15-meter length he was totally exhausted. He sat on a rock in the water panting and looking defeated.

The pink Karen bag Saw OK gave me over my shoulder, moments after he presented it to me.

The next day I was in my house puttering around, and suddenly Saw OK came walking up the steps. He didn’t make eye contact with me, but he reached out his arm and handed me a pink Karen bag. These are hand sewn shoulder bags that the Karen people wear everywhere. I took the bag from him and he looked up, his eyes almost reaching mine, and he mumbled, “dah-bloo” which means thank you in his language, and then he turned and walked away. He was thankful after all that I had pulled him from the bottom of the river.

Saw OK and I became friends after that. Each day we’d go down to the swimming hole and he would find me in the water and wait until I made eye contact with him and I’d give him a short nod, signaling to him “I’m watching you, I won’t let you drown.” And then he’d leap in and start thrashing his way. He would make it one of two strokes further than the day before but eventually end up down on the bottom of the river, waiting for me show up and pull him up.

It’s amazing the things you can say through your eyes. It’s amazing how the language of the eyes is universal and doesn’t require a vocabulary, only a heart behind the eyes. As Saw OK would swim, he would fix his eyes only on mine, nowhere else. He wouldn’t blink, he wouldn’t glance to the side, he’d lock eye with me and as long as I maintained eye contact with him he would give it everything he’s got.  Through my eyes, I could tell him he was doing ok, that he’s got this, I could tell him that I’m proud of him. Saw OK never became a great swimmer, but we did become great friends as he tried to learn how to not drown.

He passed Ranger training and we went on a mission together. It was an uneventful mission and once it ended we parted way. I remember saying goodbye to him and dropping him off at a house in a village he was staying. I didn’t see him for years after that but every time I would drive through that village I would slow down and look for him.

Years passed without any contact from Saw OK. I heard he did one or two more missions with FBR but then he eventually stopped and disappeared from them as well. He is a jungle boy, wild as they come, there is no taming him. I accepted the fact that I wouldn’t see my friend anymore.

In 2023 I got a message on my phone from an unknown contact, I couldn’t understand what they were saying but then they sent a photo of themselves and it was Saw OK. I was overjoyed to be connected to my friend again. I don’t know how he found my contact information, but I felt so blessed that he hadn’t forgotten me and when he needed help, he reached out to me. This may seem normal, but in Burma, for a shy Karen boy to reach out to a foreigner first is not very common. He was in Bangkok – how he got there I don’t know – but he was trying to find a job. I told him I’d fly down and meet him the first chance I got.

A few weeks later I was down in the concrete jungle of Bangkok, skyscrapers towered above like the massive trees in Burma. I felt disoriented and could only imagine how Saw OK must feel in such a busy city. We found each other in the heart of Bangkok and he embraced me as if he had just seen me a few weeks before instead of the four years it had been. We sat at the first food vender we could find and ordered a beer and some food and did our best to talk. We laughed a lot and I was thankful that my ability to speak Karen had improved enough to be able to carry on a conversation with him. He was trying to find a job in the city. We spent a few days together and I made sure he was ok before I flew back to Chiang Mai.

Me and Saw OK having our reunion in Bangkok

We would stay in touch regularly and I’d visit with him every time I passed through Bangkok, always taking an extra day in the city to spend with him. We spent Christmas together in the city and had a wonderful time staying a fancy hotel. He had never seen anything like it before. I shared with him that I was leaving the Free Burma Rangers to start my own school and he asked if he could join me. Of course he could. In March he came up to Chiang Mai and moved into my house. He took the train up as if it was no big deal. He is completely illegal, undocumented, but fearless. He just asked, “which train goes to Chiang Mai” and they pointed to the train, he walked over, got on, put his hood up on his hoodie and fell asleep. He woke up 8 hours later in Chiang Mai with me standing on the platform waiting for him.

Saw OK at a fancy hotel in Bangkok during Christmas together.

Leaving the Free Burma Rangers and starting the Jungle Discipleship School was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Saw OK was there beside me as I did it. As I took steps, as I met leaders, as we went to find the land for the school, as we went on missions and did building projects to prepare for the school and the team, he was there. He told me that he didn’t want to be a student at the school but wanted to be our groundskeeper, I told him I would love it. He had a wife and a baby who were living in an IDP camp, and we talked about moving them to the school ground. He seemed to like the idea of building them a small house on our campus and just living in our community. I liked the idea too.

When we parted ways last it wasn’t a goodbye, but a “see you later”. Things were a mess. The land we had found together to build the school on wasn’t approved, I didn’t know what to do. The Burma army was bombing and attacking heavily in his area, and he needed to go check on his family. We gave him a radio and a couple tarps. We told him to go build a temporary shelter for he and his wife. When we finally figured out our plan and came back to the area, we’d send a radio message to him to come.

I never saw him again.

A few weeks before that we had been on mission in his area of Burma. We were in a village, and he asked me if he could take a motorcycle and go for a day to his village and see his parents and brothers who were nearby. I sent him and he was excited to go see them. When he returned the next day, he brought his family with him. His younger brother came over to me with a cute puppy and handed it to me and said, “this is a present for you.” I was surprised, but how can you say no to a cute puppy. “What’s his name?” I asked in Karen, and blurted out with laughter when Saw OK’s brother said proudly, in perfectly clear English, “his name his Lancelot.” Lancelot followed us all the way to the end of the mission and back to Thailand, eventually finding a great home in the refugee camp where he lives today.

Me and Saw OK with his brother and father. He was proud to introduce me to his family.

Me and Lancelot!

Saw OK had a wonderful sense of humour. Anytime I would be flustered or talking and say something like “ok ok ok”, he would interrupt the conversation by saying, “yes, I’m Saw ok.” On mission one time he wanted to show me how to pick beetlenut from the trees. He took his longyi and wrapped it around his bare feet to help him brace against the tree. Then he shimmied up the tree to the top and started dropped down clumps of beetlenut. Once he had harvested that tree he started to rock the tree back and forth. Once the tree would be swaying enough he would leap off and grab hold of the next treetop. He’d harvest the beetlenut, rock the tree, then leap to the next. Like an orangutan he’d leap from treetop to treetop. It was incredible to watch. Another time he wanted to get me a coconut to drink and eat. Barefoot he climbed up the 40 foot tree as if it was no big deal. Any misstep or slip from that height and it could be fatal. He didn’t care. He pulled the machete out from his belt and whacked a few coconuts out of the tree. They landed with a heavy thud. He climbed back down and then went to work peeling them and preparing them for me. He loved me a lot. I know he did. And I loved him. He was such an amazing human.

Saw OK getting coconuts for me.

We didn’t end up going back to his area because we never got the approval to build our school on the land we had found. Instead, we moved the school to a new area, far from him. I did try to reach out and send a radio message, but there was never a response. He would have liked our school ground. He would have liked JDS.

A friend of mine reached out to me about a week ago and told me that he was dead. I didn’t believe it. “How?” I asked. “He hung himself”. I actually didn’t feel sad at that moment because I really thought it was impossible. They must have the wrong guy, they must think it’s someone else. They must have their information confused. Saw OK is always ok. He wouldn’t do that. I needed second and third confirmation from other sources. I started sending messages out to some of the leaders that I knew in that area. After a couple days the responses started coming back and they were all confirming the message. It wasn’t a mistake. He was gone. Eventually I got in contact with his brother who confirmed it. I was stunned. Saw OK’s wife had already moved from that location back to her family, bringing her toddler with her.

I don’t understand why he would do that. I feel so angry that he would have such a deep level of pain and wounding inside of him that he would think that is his best option. I feel so sad that in his moment of desperation he didn’t think of me and try to find me. I would have made eye contact with him one more time and spoken through my eyes, “it’s going to be ok, you got this. I’m not going to let you drown…”

I need to tell the rest of the JDS staff and students who knew him and loved him, but I know they will be crushed when they hear the news. In reality, he is the first JDS team member to die. When I was working for FBR we lost many team members, and they continue to lose team members regularly, one just yesterday. I’m so sorry to write this memorial for my friend, my teammate, my brother, Saw OK. He was a beautiful beautiful person. I can only pray that dear Jesus would catch my heart, catch all of our hearts at JDS and FBR as we grieve, and that King Jesus would have mercy on Saw OK’s soul. That Jesus would get to look into his courageous eyes and speak to him, “It’s going to be ok now…”

Saw OK during a children's program.

Saw OK with Thit Sar Lin finding land to build the JDS school.

Saw OK was proud to wear his JDS patch on his uniform.