CAUTION: this blog contains material that may be
highly disturbing.
“The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has
dawned.� -Mt 4:16
In light of how pathetic my understanding of heaven and hell
is, I began praying this week, “God, help me to know what we are saving people
to, and help me to know what we are saving people from.�
The answer came in an unexpected way. At first I was thinking, “okay, this means
some good time in the Word, doing some careful study.� However, sometimes we have a hard time
understanding the realities of scripture without some experience of it.
“So help me understand hell, Lord?� The sobering answer came back, “Look around
you.�
I was told Cambodia was a dark place, that there were very
few Christians. I was told there was a
massive genocide in the recent history. I
was told that poverty has invaded countless families. I was told that prostitution and sex slavery
were rampant, and at an unimaginable rate among children. But did I believe it? In my head, yeah, but my heart had yet to
experience it.
Upon arriving in Phnom Penh, the capitol city, we traveled
to S-21, a high school turned into a brutal prison of torture and death. Previously, I knew nothing of the
atrocities. Now it was thrown in my
face, or rather, I was thrown in it’s face.
“In
the late 1970’s, Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, overthrew the government
and embarked on an organized mission: they ruthlessly imposed an extremist
program to reconstruct Cambodia on the communist model of Mao’s China.
All
political and civil rights were abolished. Children were taken from their
parents and placed in separate forced labor camps. Factories, schools and
universities were shut down; so were hospitals. Lawyers, doctors, teachers,
engineers, scientists and professional people in any field (including the army)
were murdered, together with their extended families. Religion was banned, all
leading Buddhist monks were killed and almost all temples destroyed. Music and
radio sets were also banned. It was possible for people to be shot simply for
knowing a foreign language, wearing glasses, laughing, or crying.
Also
targeted were minority groups, victims of the Khmer Rouge’s racism. These
included ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai, and also Cambodians with Chinese,
Vietnamese or Thai ancestry. Half the Cham Muslim population was murdered, and
8,000 Christians.
Civilian
deaths in this period, from executions, disease, exhaustion and starvation,
have been estimated at well over 2m, almost a third of the population.â€� –Peace Pledge Union, http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_cambodia.html
I walked through the S-21 prison in
somewhat of a daze, looking at several torture devices, blood stains still
visible on some. it was a gross
reality. On the walls hung paintings
depicting how each device was used.
There was this horrible irony with the floor, which I just couldn’t get out
of my mind. It was a tile floor,
checkered orange and white, which carried the vague memory of innocent school
children. And now, the floor had become
the foundation for all kinds of evil, upon which child and parent alike,
released scream after scream. It was
almost as if I could hear them. I felt
sick in my being. The last room of the
tour, once housing a group of hopeful students, now encased a display of skulls
and bones.
I had had enough, but on we go. Next stop, the “Killing Fields�. This was the site of mass killing, and the
mass dumping of bodies into graves. I
didn’t have any new emotion, just more of the same, but deeper. Just felt sick. In the center was a memorial to the victims,
the display of their bones and even the clothes that they wore!
This was a tree that was used to smash
babies’ skulls.
Total depravity suddenly seems generous. The words of Spurgeon come to mind, ‘You
cannot slander human nature, it is far worse than words can paint.�
What is the aftermath like in Cambodia?
The Khmer Rouge believed
parents were tainted with capitalism.
Therefore, children were separated from parents and brainwashed to
socialism as well as taught torture methods with animals. Children were a “dictatorial instrument of
the party� and were given leadership in torture and executions. One of the mottos of the leadership towards
these little ones was: “To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss.� -wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge)
For the children, this became the perfect storm, stripping
them of their self-worth and moral integrity.
They lived in the constant fear of war, witnessed friends and relatives
tortured and brutally murdered, had little access to basic needs of survival, and
were systematically brainwashed by the government. Despair and depression were the constant
companions of all.
It is these children, who, thirty years later, are now grown
up. It is these children who are now the
leaders in the social and political spheres of Cambodia. Although the Regime is over, the country is
far from restored.
And it is this landscape upon which we now do ministry, upon
which we bring the gospel, the one and only true hope of Jesus Christ.
