This past weekend my team decided to go to Siem Reap, which is a smaller city about 6 hours north from Phnom Penh. We left Friday and as some of you may know, Friday was my birthday. And what an amazing birthday it was! It started off with my team surprising me with a small cake and gummy bears (which happen to be my favorite) during our morning team prayer time. And throughout the day as we went to our ministry and then drove through the Cambodian countryside, my team gave me note after note with encouraging words, scriptures, song lyrics, and one ridiculous poem. There ended up being 23 letters in all, before we ended the festivities with Mexican food and gelato (both again being my favorite)!
Sunsrise at Angkor Wat
The next morning we left our hostel at 5am to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat and then trek around the surrounding temples. A massive Buddhist temple surrounded by a moat, the temple at Angkor Wat is the largest religious building in the world. The temple was absoultely beautiful with intricate engravings on every wall, but it made my heart sad at the same time. The air was filled with a sweet aroma as people bought incense and layed money at the feet of statues, hoping for the chance that Buddha would bring them good luck.
Incense and money for blessings
Walking through the temples I was reminded of Isaiah 44:
“…from the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and says, “Save me; you are my god.” They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand.” -Isaiah 44:17-18
My heart ached for these beautiful people and this country where less than 2% know the love and assurance of the one true God, while the rest bow down to lifeless idols that were made with their own hands, seeking the uncertainty of good luck.
After Angkor Wat, the girls on my team had the privelege of visiting a safe house that my team leader Kristen had worked with last April. This safe house is home to teenage girls between the ages of 13 and 17 who had been trafficked from their homes and forced to work in the indsustry of sexual exploitation. As Kristen reminsced with the girls she knew from last year, we got to play soccer, hula hoop, talk, and just laugh with all the girls. They invited us to church with them the next morning, and so we piled into the back of a pickup truck with ten of the girls and spent the morning praising God in Khmer.
Seeing these young children laugh and play was quite possibly the most beautiful work of healing and restoration I’ve ever seen. They have been through more trauma and tragedy than I could imagine, yet they are still smiling and filled with abundant joy. They are just kids being kids.
One of my teammates summed up Saturday perfectly by saying it was a day of ruins and restoration. The morning may have been filled with ruins, but the rest of the weekend was exploding with restoration. God is faithful and I’m praying for continued healing in that safe house and that God would make beauty from the ashes throughout all of Cambodia.
