The sounds of a Sunday afternoon in the South Australian city of Mount Gambier.
The Karenni language service is underway at the Baptist church.
Dozens of families have gathered for prayer and lots of singing.
On the floor, small children in bright traditonally woven garments toddle freely through the pews.
It's a cheerful scene and one that didn't exist in this city ten years ago.
Thoo Lay Paw Eh and her family were among the first to be settled in Mount Gambier under a regional resettlement pilot program.
They had hoped to move to Brisbane where they knew of other migrant families.
But they weren't given the choice.
"Yeah, it was scary. We cried. We cried and thought, are they coming to kill us? Because we had no friend. Nobody. We had no community."
Thoo Lay Paw had grown up with fear.
She was born in a village in the Myanmar jungle.
Forced to flee with her family at age 8, to avoid persecution from the Burmese military.
The family sought aid at a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border -- and stayed there for more than a decade.
To this day she lives with a bullet embedded in her leg.
It's part of her and she carries it along with memories she prefers to forget.
"We're always scared when we live in the camp, at nightime, what gonna happen? Are they gonna drop the bomb or they going to shoot? Sometimes they come and shoot in the camp."
Anelia Blackie of the Mount Gambier Migrant Resource Centre says it has been a big adjustment for many families.
"They either lived in jungles or in bamboo huts, they're not used to vacuuming carpets or using electricity, or paying bills, so we have to take them through the process step by step to teach them that."
It was an adjustment for the people of Mount Gambier, too.
Back in 2007 the city's experience with migrants was largely limited to those who settled in the post World War Two era.
Jane Turner, principal of Mount Gambier North School, remembers being told, rather than asked, to take on the task of helping the children make a monumental adjustment.
She says it's not that she didn't want to help -- but that she, too, was scared.
At the time, no one in the school had any experience teaching English as a second language or ESL, for short.
"I don't know how to teach E-S-L, so I don't know how to do this, I don't understand the culture. But children are much more natural. And it doesn't matter if you can't say anything, if you know how to kick a football, or in this case a soccer ball, everything else will sort from there."
The new arrivals and those who supported them -- each found ways to navigate their new community.
"Probably the first thing is, it's not so hard. All you have to do is be welcoming. Smile a lot, laugh a lot."
In just ten years, this community has grown from just a handful of families to around 400 people, and according the latest census results, Karen has overtaken Italian as the most spoken foreign language in the region.
Thoo Lay Paw Eh now has a house, many friends and a job she loves in aged care.
But she says not everyone is welcoming.
"When you walk on the street, the people sometimes shout at you and say 'go back to where you come from!' And they throw us, with a bottle or beer or can."
Despite that, Mount Gambier feels like home.
"Because I have already decided, I'm not moving anywhere. Just go for a visit. I will be here forever. [laughs] Yeah."
As the community continues to grow -- the fears that plagued the early days of settlement are fading.
