A and E squads sat together on the faux-marble flooring of the 4th floor of our hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia this morning and listened to a re-cap of this nation's history and current religious standing.
This is a nation that has been torn apart in the wake of being fought for. It's been colonized by the French, invaded by Vietnam and Thailand, bombed by the US, liberated by the US, assisted by the UN, terrorized by the Khmer Rouge; and what's left is a nation where 80% of its citizens are under the age of 30, and less than 3% are over the age of 60.
Land mines still injure about 100 Cambodians per year in the far northern and southern regions because they were so widely spread during the Khmer Rouge reign.
Most of the people alive in this nation, most of the people walking past me on the streets of Phnom Penh, don't remember the Tuol Svay Pray High School-turned-S-21 Prison where 14,000 Cambodian men, women, and children were tortured and only 7 survived.
93% of Cambodia is Buddhist (infused with ancient Chinese and Hindu influences), 4% is Muslim, 2% is Christian, 1% practices an ancient Chinese religion.
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, you were bought at a price; therefore honor God with your body." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Apathy is rich in the air.
As I walked through a street market this morning past woven baskets displaying every kind of edible fish (including small sharks), every kind of fruit, and small trinkets from cell phone accessories to cookware are laid out on the ground; every person I made eye contact with made me feel as if I was like looking into an empty tomb, which I guess is what a temple becomes when it's vacant.
But nothing is vacant.
C.S. Lewis said, "there is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counter-claimed by satan."
The tombs I saw as I passed by were full of hopelessness, full of complacency.
The culture combined with the Buddhists' cyclical view of life through reincarnation based on karma has left the nation without a sense of identity. I don't feel a fight to better circumstances or to work for individual success in anyone here.
I'm pretty sure I don't feel it because it's not here, and I'm pretty sure it's not here because…no, Apostle Paul, they don't know their bodies are not their own. They have no idea what a great and majestic and gruesome price was paid so that they would know freedom and joy and hope. They haven't met the God who asks them to honor Him because His desire is to be glorified by their delight in Him…
But they will.
Both A Squad and E Squad are in Cambodia for the month, many of us will be in "the sticks," as they say, so we may not be updating a lot – but God is passionately hungry for the nation of Cambodia to seek His face and His truth.
Please join us in ministry this month and pray for the nation of Cambodia and for A & E Squads' ministry, "for we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, captives of various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another. But…"
And this is a BIG "but,"
"when the goodness and love for man appeared from God our Savior, He saved us – not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy,
through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit."
And that same Spirit is available to the Cambodian people! and it WANTS to come and reside in their temples – their bodies and lavish on them abundantly because this source of hope, "this Spirit He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life."
Titus 3:3-7
Most of us will be "in the sticks," living in tree houses without power or internet for the month, so I'd like to think I'll be able to update more in the coming weeks, but in the likely event that I wont be, please:
pray LIBERATION, HOPE, and JOY over this nation!!!
