The Burmese Christian congregations

First Burmese refugees 1991 — congregations from the 1990s on

The arrival: The refugee resettlement that remade Fort Wayne's religious map ran, from the start, through its churches. The Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend's Catholic Charities established its Refugee Resettlement Program in 1975, after the fall of Saigon, and became a Bosnian resettlement site in 1993; the first Burmese refugees reached Fort Wayne in 1991, and in 2008 Catholic Charities resettled 1,469 refugees, primarily from Burma. The congregations followed the people. By 2005 the Journal Gazette was reporting Burmese-language worship across the city: the Burmese Christian Fellowship meeting at First Baptist Church — Isaac McCoy's congregation, hosting refugees from the mission field McCoy himself had dreamed of reaching — and Burmese services at Christ's Church at Georgetown and New Life Lutheran.

Their own churches: The Myanmar Indigenous Christian Church was founded in 2003. The Fort Wayne Karen Baptist Church bought the building of Grace St. John's United Church of Christ after that German-founded congregation's 175th anniversary; the building is today Living Stream Karen Baptist Church. Burmese Catholics — about two hundred people, some fifty households — have been served since 2012 by Father Peter Dee De, a priest of the Diocese of Loikaw in Myanmar, with Mass celebrated in Burmese twice a month. The Burmese people's own story is in the Communities record; their mosque is in the widening-circle entry below.

Sources:

1. Journal Gazette, "A religious journey: Burmese seek enlightenment" (5 July 2005) — the Burmese Christian Fellowship at First Baptist, services at Christ's Church at Georgetown and New Life Lutheran.
2. Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend (ccfwsb.org) — the Refugee Resettlement Program from 1975, Bosnia 1993.
3. Sandy Roak, "Fort Wayne's Burmese Catholics finding their way," Today's Catholic — Father Peter Dee De and the Burmese Catholic community.
4. Getsemani Moreno and José Tobar, Koinonia: The Black and Latine Roots of Blackhawk Christian School (2026) — the 1991 first arrivals and the 2008 Catholic Charities figures; Grace St. John's and the Karen Baptist building.