Housewives and Superheroes: Laurie Dawson

Laurie Dawson is a typical housewife in about the same way as Clark Kent is a typical journalist. Much of the time she is at home in Seabeck, cooking and cleaning and caring for her three children. But every so often she puts on her Free Burma Housewives cloak, figuratively speaking, and goes tramping through danger-filled jungles to bring relief and the hope of freedom to Burmese people groups like the Karen.

 
Laurie and her brother David Eubanks, raised as missionary kids in Thailand, have worked tirelessly since the mid-1990s to uphold the freedom of small ethnic groups in neighboring Burma against the overwhelming force of the oppressive, government-backed Burma Army.

David, his wife Karen, and their three children are in Thailand and Burma full-time as missionaries, coordinating relief teams. Laurie mostly supports them from the U.S., raising awareness, interfacing with the U.S. Government on their behalf and raising support through events like the Run/Walk Relief for Burma held last month at Chapel Hill. Karen and Laurie nicknamed themselves the Free Burma Housewives after the government labeled opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent years under house arrest, “just a housewife.”

But every so often Laurie heads back to the land of her childhood to lend her support in person. She recently returned from a five-month stay, in which she was accompanied for the first time by her two-year-old son Gideon. It was a time of testing and trusting, beginning long before she ever set foot in the country. A time to realize that, though she shares some traits with Mr. Kent, she is really more the housewife than the superhero.

“I thought, Okay, I’m going to take Gideon in there,” says Laurie, “but I didn’t have a real sense of peace or affirmation that this is what I was really supposed to do. I’m not a full-time missionary. I’m just going as support. I don’t have any great medical skills. So I thought, Am I really supposed to do this?”

Laurie continued to worry about this for some time. Then one day she got a surprise in the mail.

“I received a package from the TLC group here at Chapel Hill that supports me. I opened it, and every single item in the package was something that was to be used on my trip. I looked at each little gift that was given and I said, ‘Wow!’ I had a sense that God was using this TLC group to affirm that this was what God intended for Gideon and me to do.”

Once in Burma, Laurie hiked for three days, often at night, carrying Gideon on her back, to reach the group of Karen people with whom she was to stay. She had little control over her circumstances, and again she began to wonder what she was doing there. She thought, I’m running after this toddler. I’m not much help. Everyone has to look after me.

Again God spoke to her. This time he used a couple of top Karen leaders to reassure her that she was indeed in God’s plan. They told her the fact that she had come all that way with a young child just to pray with them and stay with them was the most encouraging thing she could possibly have done and meant more to them that she could ever know.

Being told that, Laurie was able to relax into her role. But then Gideon got sick.

 
Sickness in the tropics is serious business. Malaria, TB, Typhus, cholera—all are distinct possibilities. When Gideon fell ill Laurie and Karen did what they could. They prayed. And they sought professional help, which in their case was a book titled Where There is No Doctor. They determined that Gideon suffered from an infected insect bite and were able to treat him successfully with the antibiotics Karen carries with her everywhere she goes.

Again, though, Laurie had to listen for God’s voice, to surrender to the God who has far more power than Superman but who doesn’t always use it quite as dramatically as the superhero does.

“When God opens the door,” she says, “you can trust Him to go right through it and He will take you all the way. Now your life is in His hand. You don’t know what will happen, but you can go and He’ll take you.” That’s good advice.

Whether you’re following a jungle trail with a toddler in a backpack in Burma or a trail of dirty fingerprints down the hall with a wet rag and a bottle of Formula 409 at home, God is there. The good news is, you don’t have to be a superhero to find Him.