During our time in Cambodia this month, my team and I are what’s known in World Race lingo as “ATL.” ATL stands for “Ask The Lord” and gives us the freedom to sit with the Lord and ask Him where within the country He wants us and what He wants ministry to look like.
Last week our squad arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Immediately the Lord started showing our team that He wanted us to stay here for the month.
In only a few short days, the Father has been so sweet to each member of our team. He’s spoken directly to our hearts about ministry opportunities, highlighted passions to pursue, dropped unbelievable connections right in our laps.
Ministry looks a lot different this month than a typical month on the Race.
It looks less like structured ministry times and more like inviting the Father into our everyday lives and embracing the fact that life is ministry and ministry is life. It looks like loving the people in front of us. It looks like being interruptible and listening for the Lord’s guidance.
The Lord has made it increasingly evident to myself and our team that prayer is a huge part of ministry this month. In a place where the language barrier is intense and where evangelism itself is illegal in some countries, our prayers can still go where we can’t.
Our first day here the Lord gave me a vision to intentionally and literally surround the city of Phnom Penh in prayer during our time here.
I mapped out a circle around the city and long story short, next Friday the seventeenth our team will be spreading out around the city to cover this city, this country, and its people in prayer.
The people here are suffering the effects of a recent genocide that resulted in the death of over three million people, almost a quarter of the country’s population. Human trafficking runs rampant. To say that this city is spiritually heavy is an understatement.
No matter what part of the world you’re in, we’d love to know that you’re praying alongside us for this country on the seventeenth.
The Lord also put it on my heart to go to specific places in this city to pray over specific people groups. A Buddhist temple to pray for the Buddhist population. A mosque to pray for the Muslim population. Tourist attractions to pray for travelers. The heart of the redlight district to pray for those effected by human trafficking.
On Monday, part of my team and I went to the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center. The center is the most well known of over 300 killing fields throughout Cambodia and serves as a reminder of Cambodia’s history. If you aren’t familiar with the Cambodian Genocide, I encourage you to do some research.
While there, my heart was heavy for the people who would walk those grounds and ask God, “If you’re real and you’re good, why do you let things like this happen?”. If I’m honest, I presented that question to the Lord myself.
He reminded me that the tragedy and brokenness in this world was never His plan for us. All He ever wanted for us was harmony and relationship with Himself, but sin had other plans. He reminded me that it breaks His heart to see these things happen to His children more than it breaks mine.
As we walked through the killing fields, I prayed that He’ll remind hundreds of thousands of people after me of the same things. That He is good. That His heart breaks for us. That brokenness like this is why He sent Jesus to bring us back into full reconciliation with Him.
One of my favorite quotes danced around in my mind during our time there.
“When our grandchildren ask us where we were when the voiceless and the vulnerable of our era needed leaders of compassion and purpose, I hope we can say that we showed up, and that we showed up on time.” -Gary Haugen, International Justice Mission President and CEO
Let’s be people who show up for the voiceless and the vulnerable before it’s too late. Not because we’re anything special, but because those voiceless and vulnerable people are the children of God. His heart breaks for them and, frankly, so should ours.
Lord, break our hearts for what breaks yours.
