Pro Mundo Medal of Service – Biak Nu Sung, M.S.W. ’12

Growing up in Chin State of northern Myanmar, Biak Nu Sung, M.S.W. ’12, is familiar with villages that were almost exclusively Christian and spoke in their own dialect. After primary school, her family moved to the middle of the country to follow her father’s missionary work. Being suddenly surrounded by devout Buddhists speaking Burmese was a culture shock without leaving their home country. Biak’s global journey was just getting started. 

While completing her undergraduate theology degree in Singapore, she met Pastor Tom Ogburn, D.M. ’05. Ogburn highly recommended the Global Missions Leadership Scholars Program, a master’s program within the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work. Without knowing anything about Texas, Waco or Baylor, Biak came to attend and flourished. 

“Every course, every professor, I felt seen,” said Biak. “I didn’t have a textbook grasp of what social work was, but each class felt like an ‘aha!’ These were the topics I really wanted to study.”

Biak is devoted to children in her community. She earned a master’s with a concentration in children and family practice and connected theory to practice by checking on her niece’s developmental milestones. It also allowed her to reflect on the development of her own family, growing up in a dictatorship and with her and her sisters treated as equal to their only brother — a cultural anomaly. 

After graduating from Baylor, Biak returned to Myanmar for mission work, utilizing the frameworks she had acquired. Still, something was missing. She asked God for a sign, for passion and zeal and for job satisfaction. When it never came, she started looking elsewhere and found a role as a child protection specialist with UNICEF.

“All I knew about UNICEF was that they provided aid. I didn’t even realize that it was part of the United Nations,” Biak said. “But during the final interview, I felt a deep sense of peace — like divine intervention.” 

Child protection and child development are two sides of the same coin. In order for children to develop appropriately, they need to be safe and protected from harm, abuse or maltreatment. This includes informing and teaching parents to understand how raising their children will affect them. 

“We can do a lot of prevention at the family level,” Biak said. “We don’t always need to respond with case management.”

Many of the families Biak educates in the rural villages don’t have much, but they have farms, plants and community. She encourages them to use what they have to learn about science, math, structure and faith. 

“If we sow the seed of the gospel when they are children, God may continue to work and show them as they grow,” said Biak, echoing her father’s life mission. “All people, regardless of if they are in poverty or not, are shaped and formed by their environment and what the people around them believe. For places that are predominantly one religion, there is an expectation to conform without conversations or questions about what else may be out there.”

With the addition of Pro Mundo to Baylor’s mission, many may assume graduates are simply taking what they learn from Baylor and then dispersing to the corners of the map. For Biak Nu Sung, it means embodying the role of a true scholar of the world, with Baylor as one of her many stops. Her Christian faith calls her to return home to a place many of us may never experience ourselves and encourage the growth of the next generation. 

“I feel responsible for the people in Myanmar,” Biak said. “I’ve been fortunate to visit and work in beautiful places, and I hope I can share just a little bit of that with them. How can I bless them with what I have been blessed with?”

“Jesus was the first social worker because he cared not only about the soul but also physical and emotional needs,” Biak said. “Following in my dad’s footsteps, I think I would’ve made him very proud.”