All of us have life stories, filled both with good times and challenging times.

One of our newer residents has a very dramatic life story, filled with many very difficult times as well as those times she calls wonderful blessings from God.

Maylary Htoo Apolo was born in Burma (now know as Myanmar) in 1969.  She is Karen, an ethnic minority group which has long sought their own state separate from Burma.   Her father was a pastor in the Karen Baptist Church and her mother was a nursery school teacher.  They first lived in a provincial town and then moved to the capital, Rangoon, when Maylary was in eighth grade.

During her school years, she was a piano student and music was her great love. When Maylary was 19, persecution of the Karen people grew, and her father was under much suspicion because of his church work.  The family decided to flee to a Karen area of the country.  That decision led to an extremely arduous and dangerous two month long journey, mostly by foot, thorough jungle and mountainous terrain.  They stayed for ten months in a Karen village, but when it came under attack by government forces they had to flee again, this time to a Karen refugee camp in Thailand, where they stayed two years.  Maylary was able to complete a teacher training course while there. The family then moved to a larger refugee camp, where opportunities for work and education were minimally better, and where Maylary spent the next 20 years of her life.    

In 1993, the man she was to marry stepped on a land mine and  lost a leg.  They were married when he had sufficiently recovered for the ceremony.  During the time in this camp, Maylary taught piano lessons to many, taught music in a nursery school and continued to study English. Sometimes she was paid and sometimes not. Her husband had a job making prostheses for others who had suffered loss of limbs.   On top of the five children of their own the couple took in three young women who wanted to study piano with Maylary.  Life was very hard and the lack of freedom to ever leave the camp was a very heavy burden.  Having no citizenship, they felt that they were without a place in the world.  Depending on her deep faith at every turn, Maylary prayed often for God to show her a way forward, and feels her prayers were always answered, although not always as she might have wanted.

When an opportunity came for the family to come to the United States, they were very pleased to be able to provide better opportunities for their children.  They first came to South Carolina where Maylary worked in a Chick-fil-A restaurant while learning a new culture and language, all of which was a huge trial for the family.  A friend suggested that the family move to Minnesota, which they did, first to Worthington and then to Austin. In Worthington, the family was known for their generosity and volunteerism. Maylary was able to work as an interpreter in the court, school and hospital, as well as in an afterschool program for Karen students.  Her husband’s health problems prevented him from having full time employment.  The entire family was eventually able to get citizenship, which Maylary describes as such a great gift.

Last year an opportunity for her husband to work in business with k’Nyaw Grocery in Austin miraculously coincided with her finding work as a legal assistant with the Austin office of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.  In this capacity she helps people to get green cards (legal permanent residency) and to work toward citizenship.  Besides this, she works in developing leadership skills for women in the 52 churches of Karen Baptist Church in the USA.

Maylary has lived these words of wisdom she shares with us.” Never give up when faced with trouble.” And “Believe in God and let Him show you the way forward.”