The Karen fighters are seeking independence from the military dictatorship that rules Burma. Originally a British colony, the military overturned the democratically elected leadership and have imprisoned the country's dissidents, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

"We left our country, me and my aunt's family. My younger sister was already in a refugee camp and my parents had left already and were working in Thailand. The situation was not safe for us because we had civil war around our village. After my parents left, I studied in the city and then my aunt said we had to leave; and we came just by a truck to the refugee camp."

Some 20,000 Karen refugees lived at the camp that ThiRi was to call home for the next six years. They lived in a simple bamboo hut, with no electricity or running water, outside which they grew their own food. This camp was one of five housing Karen people.

"In Thailand we were forbidden to leave the camp. If we wanted to go outside, we could be arrested at any time, even if we wanted to go to the hospital in the city. Sometimes it really depressed me.

"The UN refugee agency came to the camp and said we could apply to another country. At first we said no, but then we decided we would leave. The camp system got worse and worse, so we applied together, my aunt and I, for the United States," says ThiRi.

By this time, ThiRi was an adult and her application had to be made separately from that of her aunt and her two cousins, while her sister won a scholarship to a school of nursing in Canada. Her parents decided to remain in Thailand.

Courtesy of Ace Clipart

As she waited for her application to be processed, her aunt Naw Eh and cousins Myint Soe, 20, and Lar Lar, 18, were accepted for the U.S. They arrived in Roanoke in 2008. During her wait, ThiRi helped her fellow refugees by working for a Norwegian psychiatric doctor and his wife in the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which was assisting the Burmese.

Finally, in June 2009, she was able to leave the camp for good. Thanks to her schooling in Burma, she could already speak some English when she arrived and was able to rejoin her family in a Roanoke apartment.

"RIS knew me before I came here. They came and picked me up at the airport and brought my aunt and cousins to see me. I was really, really tired. They had $20 for me, and the next day we went to the social security office and got food stamps and Medicaid. They send me clothes and blankets and call to see if I need things. I really thank God we have the RIS. They helped us a lot," says ThiRi.

RIS assistance has included helping to get ThiRi out of an expensive cellphone plan that she was talked into because her English wasn't fluent enough to understand the sales pitch.

ThiRi and her family have benefited greatly from English lessons given by volunteer tutor Adam Stevens. All three of the adults have found employment; her younger cousin is still in school.

"I work in a beauty salon. The owner paid for me to attend cosmetology school for a month in October, and now I work in her salon. I had never worked with beauty before, and I was worried I wouldn't like it, but I like the job. Laura (the owner) helped me a lot and I have friends there," ThiRi says.

Roanoke office of Refugee and Immigration Services

ThiRi's ambition now is to get a Nursing Science Degree, and RIS has already helped her to register at Virginia Western Community College for a nursing course in the fall. With that degree, she hopes to be able to go back to Thailand to help the refugees who are still there.

"I know how refugees suffer, how they do, what the system is like. My people at the refugee camp need people like me if I become educated," she explains.

Raised as Christians, ThiRi and her family attend a local church and are in regular contact with other Burmese families and refugees from other countries.

"We are all very happy because we can go wherever we want. In Thailand they will just arrest you. It's not just more freedom here. It's total freedom."