Hsin Family September Update

Howdy friends,

Thank you all so much for your support and your prayers. Since this is our first newsletter, I wanted to take some time to catch y’all up on what has been a very full year for Nyo Chaw and me.

It is difficult to know where to begin, but December 2025 feels like the right place.

After a long and difficult season with Thai immigration, I was finally getting back on a plane to Thailand. I was extremely excited to return to Asia, to serve again with Free Burma Rangers, and most importantly, to finally be reunited with Nyo Chaw. Because of the amount of frontline activity throughout the previous summer, followed by my immigration problems, I had seen her for only three days in about nine months. For much of that time, neither of us knew when we would be together again. When my visa was finally approved, I felt an incredible amount of gratitude—to all of you who had prayed for us, and most of all to God.

There was not much time to settle in. Within 24 hours of landing, I was hiking to our Ranger camp in Karen state.

Christmas in Karenni

After spending several weeks supporting David Eubank and our team in Karen State, I traveled north to Karenni to work alongside our Combat Medic Course cadre during an instructor development course.

It also gave me something I had been looking forward to for a long time: Christmas with Nyo Chaw and her family. I’ve only spent one other Christmas away from my family before, and this one was about as far from Colorado as I could get. Christmas in her village centered around the church. The evenings were cold, and the young people gathered to worship, decorate the church, sing in people’s homes, and go caroling around the village. On Christmas Day, I cooked and ate alongside her family and the Rangers and worshiped with them in church.

Only a few kilometers away, fighting continued along the front line. The sounds of war were a normal part of life there. Yet the joy of Christmas was as real and bright as anything I remembered from home.

There was no snow, and I missed my family, but I was deeply grateful to be welcomed into hers.

Around this same time, Nyo Chaw was serving with Karenni Humanitarian Pathway, an organization caring for people with disabilities in the community. Their work included visiting families, providing encouragement, and teaching practical skills—things like mushroom growing and soap making—that could give people greater independence and ways to support themselves. It was a joy to get to accompany her a few times on KHP visits. She really has a way to connect with anyone and make them smile. She served with KHP from the fall through the end of February before returning more fully to work with the Rangers.

A Hard Winter

After New Year’s, our mission moved into some very difficult fighting.

For several weeks we supported forces attempting to stop a Burma Army advance before being called south to support a major operation in Karen State.

The morning of that operation began quietly for us.

Aung Gyi, Ming Ye, and I were sitting in our casualty collection point waiting for the first wounded patient to arrive. When he came in, the three of us crowded into the bunker to work on him. He had taken shrapnel directly into his left arm.

It felt like we had only been working for a few minutes when we stepped back outside.

Suddenly, casualties were flooding down the mountain.

From that point on, the day became sustained chaos. Rangers, villagers, and members of our foreign team carried wounded men from our CCP to a Forward Surgical Unit about an hour from the front. The buzz of drones and aircraft seemed constant overhead. When planes or mortars came in, we would dive back into the trenches and bunkers, then climb out and continue working.

The morning was loud, very dirty, and exhausting.

By noon, our team had treated 56 casualties.

Despite the chaos, I was struck by how well everyone worked together inside of it. Our Rangers carried patients, moved equipment, organized evacuations, and helped us keep working. With only three primary medics at the casualty collection point, the coordination of the entire team was what made it possible.

By God’s grace, only one of those casualties died. Farther behind us, a surgical team was waiting to receive those who needed operations. Unfortunately, the fight ended with no ground being gained and a dozen PDF (Peoples Defence Force) soldiers killed inside the enemy camp.

It was one of those days that reminded me how much I trust the people I serve beside.

Later in the mission, we returned north and eventually withdrew from an area we had fought hard to defend.

That withdrawal carried another memory with it.

The previous summer, we had treated more than 300 casualties in fighting around the same area and lost 28 soldiers, as well as one of our Rangers, Oo Reh. He had been driving our evacuation truck while Pete and I worked on a casualty in the back when an airstrike hit us. The truck crashed, and the memory of trying to work on him outside that truck is one I will never forget.

Half a year later, we were walking away from the ground that so many people, including oo Reh, had sacrificed to hold.

There is a weariness in Burma right now that is hard to describe.

Five years after the coup, many of the young men and women around us have spent a large portion of their adult lives at war. Many believed it would be over quickly. Instead, they have watched friends die, families move again and again, and years of their lives disappear into fighting.

I see that exhaustion in them. I have felt some of it myself.

Please continue to pray for Burma.

Spring, Training, and a Proposal

March brought a very different kind of season.

Nyo Chaw was finally able to spend more time in Thailand working through the long process of obtaining legal documents and her passport. During our annual meetings, she also had the opportunity to meet my mother for the first time.

She had already served alongside my dad inside Burma on previous medical missions, but seeing her meet my mom was incredibly special to me. After so much time separated from my own family, getting to have those parts of my life finally come together was a gift.

Shortly afterward, I became consumed with preparations for our Combat Medic Course.

The course ran for seven weeks and graduated 20 medics. They were trained by an experienced group that included former U.S. Army Rangers and special operations personnel, along with our local cadre. My primary responsibility was keeping the logistics and finances moving so the instructors could focus on training.

It was rarely simple. We dealt with changes in location, interruptions from fighting, supply problems, and constant adjustments to the curriculum. But we had a patient and flexible team. Since graduating, many of those medics have returned to their own organizations and begun establishing higher standards of medical and security training within their ranks. Watching them carry that knowledge outward has been one of the most encouraging parts of the year.

At the same time, Nyo Chaw finally received her passport—another major answer to prayer.

Before heading back inside Burma, I joined her near the border. We had been talking a great deal about our future, and somewhere in those conversations I became certain that I had no holdups. I want to be her husband and serve God alongside her.

So, with no ring and no clever plan, only a small gold necklace and a beautiful sunset, I asked her to marry me.

She said yes.

Wedding and Mission

As summer approached, I returned to Karenni to help our Ranger teams prepare for relief missions and, at the same time, prepare for our wedding.

Those weeks gave me a chance to know her village and family in a deeper way. We took part in a village engagement ceremony, where we committed before her family, church leaders, and God that we intended to be married.

I also got to see a side of Nyo Chaw that war and responsibility do not always leave much room for.

For a little while, she could simply be a young woman getting ready for her wedding—looking for the right dress, choosing flowers, taking photos, and preparing decorations.

We were married on June 23, 2026.

The night before the wedding was difficult for me.

Rainy-season travel had made it impossible for my family to come, and our mission team was unable to reach Karenni. The village was almost completely asleep, apart from a few people preparing food for the 6 a.m. ceremony. Around her family’s house, the night was calm, with only the occasional sounds of cows, chickens, and pigs nearby.

I tried to lie down several times, but I could not sleep.

So I paced and prayed.

I knew my family loved me. I knew the Rangers were there beside me. I knew Nyo Chaw’s family and village had taken me in.

But in the middle of that restless night, God reminded me of something much simpler: He was with me.

And if He was with me, I was not alone. That peace stayed with me into the morning.

Our wedding was one of the most joyful days of my life.

And then, naturally, we began married life with a five-day trip through the jungle.

With Nyo Chaw’s sister and three Rangers traveling alongside us, we pushed motorbikes through the mud, dug them out when they became stuck, walked through beautiful hills, got soaked by the rain, slept in the jungle, repaired bikes, and slowly made our way back toward Thailand.

Not a normal Honeymoon.

Back to Work

After less than a week of rest, we headed south again for another relief mission, this time serving communities displaced by fighting in southern Burma.

During the mission, we conducted several relief programs for displaced families. Nyo Chaw worked alongside our other medical volunteers to run mobile clinics in communities with very little access to healthcare.

This is the work she has spent the last six years doing.

She began serving with the Karenni Ranger teams in 2020, first through children’s Good Life Club programs and humanitarian relief. In 2022, she trained as a medic at the Jungle School of Medicine and has continued serving displaced communities and patients on the front lines ever since.

She was seriously wounded by the Burma Army in 2024, survived after surgery in Chiang Mai, and returned to serve.

Marriage has not changed her calling.

Now that we are settling for a season in Chiang Mai, she is focusing heavily on English so that she can continue developing into a larger role with FBR’s medical department. I am studying Burmese for much the same reason: to communicate better with her family, our teams, and the communities we serve. Additionally, I have now taken on the responsibility of area coordinator for our Karenni teams. Primary tasks are, coordination of supplies, personnel movement, leadership connections, and financial clearing, for our Karenni Rangers; with the added blessing of joining them for both frontline relief missions and IDP (Internally Displaced Person) programs.

After spending most of the period since November either on a missions or preparing for one, we are also intentionally taking some time to rest and begin building our life together. We plan to return to Burma this fall to continue serving alongside the Rangers in whatever areas the FBR leadership asks us to serve.

Please Pray With Us

More than anything, we ask that you continue praying for the people of Burma.

Millions have been displaced by this war. Families continue to live without reliable medical care, stable homes, or any certainty about what tomorrow will bring. Those who have carried this struggle for years are tired.

Please pray for endurance for the young people who have given so much of their lives to this conflict. Pray for wisdom for leaders. Pray for protection for civilians, medical workers, and relief teams. Pray for the displaced, and ultimately pray for peace and freedom for this country.

We would also appreciate prayer for our own family.

Nyo Chaw finally having a passport was an enormous answer to prayer, but current U.S. visa restrictions affecting Burmese citizens have made the possibility of traveling together to America extremely difficult. We would love for her to someday meet the rest of my family and many of you who have prayed for and supported us from afar. Please pray that God opens a way. And if any of you have experience or contacts who may be able to help us understand possible paths forward, we would be grateful to hear from you.

Most of all, thank you.

Your prayers, encouragement, friendship, and financial support have carried us through an incredibly full and difficult year. Whether we were treating casualties in a muddy bunker, celebrating Christmas in a village in Karenni, training new medics, pushing a motorcycle through the jungle, or standing together on our wedding day, you have been part of allowing us to continue serving here.

We do not take that lightly.

We firmly believe our hope is not ultimately found in governments, armies, money, or circumstances. Our hope is in Jesus.

Thank you for helping us continue to share that hope while also doing everything we can to practically help the people around us.

With love and gratitude,

Coby & Nyo Chaw