Free Burma Rangers · Cole Family Missions
Tah U Wah Camp
Training 2025
October – December 2025 | Karen State, Burma
205 Students · Three Months · One Mission
Free Burma Rangers · Cole Family Missions
October – December 2025 | Karen State, Burma
205 Students · Three Months · One MissionThe Training
Tah U Wah Camp Training launched on 16 October 2025 with physical training assessments that set the tone for everything that followed. Approximately 142 basic students entered a rigorous two-and-a-half-month program encompassing climbing, rappelling, leadership development, land navigation, swimming, operation orders, reporting procedures, security operations, medical skills, Ranger First Responder training, and Good Life Club facilitation.
Concurrent with basic training, 37 advanced students completed refresher coursework in October before transitioning to specialized training through November and December. The advanced curriculum placed particular emphasis on the Good Life Club program, with advanced students taking direct leadership roles over GLC activities and assuming responsibility for basic students during field exercises. Advanced students also completed Advanced Ranger First Responder training and Ground Combatives — developing both the medical proficiency and hand-to-hand capability required of leaders operating in austere and hostile environments.
Students training to evacuate casualties under field conditions
Eight chaplain students completed a specialized track focused on biblical foundations from the Gospel of Mark, mental health care techniques, and worship leadership. Four graduated as relief team chaplains; four as advanced trained chaplains — charged with advancing the gospel in frontline areas. Twenty-six JSMK (Jungle School of Medicine Kawthoolei) students completed a specialized medical training track, equipping them to provide frontline healthcare in austere environments across Burma.
Four Field Training Exercise rotations tested students across multi-station challenges under pressure. Physical training ran twice daily, six days a week. Sundays were protected as rest days. Weekly Bible studies drew consistent attendance and deep engagement across all nine ethnic groups.
Nine peoples represented — Karen, Karenni, Pa-Oh, Tavoy, Shan, Biek, Mon, Chin, and Burman — a hopeful sign of growing unity across Burma against the February 2021 coup.
23 students were baptized during training — Rangers and foreign volunteers alike
Graduation marked not an ending but a beginning. Rangers deployed immediately into real missions alongside instructor cadre. They returned to their regions as prepared leaders — equipped, tested, and ready to stand for their people.
Cole Family Missions
A retired U.S. Army First Sergeant (Ranger and Sapper qualified), Jeremy serves as Training Coordinator for the Tah U Wah Camp cycle, personally leading advanced students in mission planning, land navigation and map reading, survival skills, security operations, and logistics.
His work requires bringing together fighters, medics, and leaders from nine different ethnic groups under a single training framework — building not just tactical competency but the trust required for unified action in the field.
Every day at Tah U Wah begins and ends the same way — in prayer and devotion. The skills are essential. The foundation is Christ.
A retired Army Sergeant First Class with extensive combat experience, Johanna manages field supply and logistics operations for Cole Family Missions from Chiang Mai, Thailand. While Jeremy coordinates training inside Burma, Johanna ensures that the supply chain supporting those operations remains functional every day.
The mission runs because both of them show up.
The Cole daughters did not watch from the sidelines. Josaphene and Jerrah were present throughout the training cycle, participating in Christmas programs alongside Karen students and serving in Good Life Club activities — sitting with children, drawing, playing, and doing what kids do best across every language barrier: connecting.
Josaphene learned photography from Ranger instructors and helped document the training. Jerrah embraced camp life with fearlessness, building friendships across ethnic lines and caring for the youngest children as naturally as if she had always belonged there.
There is something significant about children growing up this way — not sheltered from the world's hard places, but formed by them.
The Cole family — on mission together in Burma
Cole Family Missions exists to serve the people of Burma and beyond — training Rangers, supplying frontline workers, and advancing the gospel in places most people will never go. Your prayer and support make this possible.
colefamilymissions.org