Nashville, TN (October 25, 2019)
LifeWay Films and Deidox Films announced today the forthcoming release of a new documentary film, Free Burma Rangers, the remarkable true story of one American family that has dedicated their lives to training and leading dangerous rescue missions with people groups in Burma and Iraq oppressed by war and terrorist attacks.
Directed by Brent Gudgel and Chris Sinclair, Free Burma Rangers follows David Eubank, a former missionary-kid who spent 10 years in the U.S. Special Forces. When his father, who was serving on the mission field in Thailand, called David in 1993 to ask him to come and help the nation’s ethnic people caught in a civil war, David knew God was calling him to go. He asked his then-girlfriend Karen to marry him and follow him on the adventure of a lifetime.
“When David asked me to marry him and move to Burma, I knew that I needed to say no and let it go, or say yes and go all in,” said Karen Eubank. Karen and David married and went to Burma in lieu of a typical honeymoon with one mission in mind: to free the oppressed and rescue victims.
Using his military experience, David began training ethnic groups to administer rescue missions to help those in need while ethnic medics set up medical clinics and Karen developed children’s programs. As the groups did the relief missions, running toward the height of conflict to rescue and bring aid to all the victims they could find, more and more ethnic groups joined in. Soon, the indigenous leaders asked if David would train teams for them, and in 1997, the Free Burma Rangers were officially founded.
More than two decades later, the Eubank family continues to serve the people of Burma. They have raised three children in the country, and the Free Burma Rangers have today accrued and trained more than 4,500 members.
For David and his Rangers, it doesn’t matter which side of the war the injured come from; they help whoever is caught in the middle of violence and devastation.
“It’s all about loving people,” said David. “It’s saying, ‘here is everything I have; it’s yours. How can we serve you?’ and giving them immediate medical care, all the food we can give, and to do it bravely and boldly, while becoming a family.”
In 2014, after years of living with and helping those caught up in war in Burma, the Eubanks heard about the horrible conditions in northern Iraq, which had recently been taken over by ISIS. One hour after praying about whether to help the Iraqi people, the Eubanks received a phone call from an organization inviting them to go into the war-zones of Mosul to deliver food and aid. Taking along the whole family and a few members from Free Burma Rangers, they moved to Mosul in 2016, the city considered to be modern-day Nineveh.
In Mosul, the Free Burma Rangers administered the years of training and preparation they received helping the war victims in Burma to rescue those who would have otherwise been left for dead, literally putting their own lives in the line of fire. At every step, David and his family looked to God for direction on where to go, who to help and how to serve them.
Because of the Eubanks’ 24 years of rescue-relief mission work as shown in the documentary, Free Burma Rangers, more than 1.5 million displaced individuals have been served by the Free Burma Rangers, and their work continues to expand throughout the Middle East, most recently to Syria.
“Everywhere, every person in the world has something good and wonderful that we can love, learn from and build up,” said David. “When we stand together in Christ and love others, we form the antidote to evil. That is the story I want to be told.”
Free Burma Rangers will premiere at the Justice Film Festival in New York on Nov. 16, 2019, before releasing in theaters across the nation on Feb. 24 and 25, 2020.
Visit: https://fbrmovie.com
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