As our time in Cambodia rapidly draws to an end, I’ve had a lot of time for reflection. Ministry this month has been very different than other months. First off, we’ve had a lot of “down time” which meant something different every day. “Down time” would turn into unorganized, spontaneous ministry like playing sports at our contact, Joel’s house with the Khmer youth or giving Sina, Lida and Perry (the girls that live with us) a Bible study lesson. Sometimes we would spend an entire afternoon in prayer or in the Word. Other times (let’s be honest here) we’d goof off with each other, play cards or take a nap. It wasn’t just the lack of structure that made this particular ministry month different than the others. We were ministering to a people group that suffered one of the most horrific genocides in the 1970s and every single family we built relationships with has been directly impacted by that genocide. For those of you who aren’t history buffs, I’ll fill you in. That’s one of the ways my world has been rocked this year, I can’t ignore it. I can’t even try to ignore it for even one second. I know the extruciating details of the Khmer Rouge genocide because I have to look it in the face every day this month. The face of genocide looks me dead in the eyes and tells me, “I need help. Help me. Pray for me.” I see this face on our next door neighbor when one day he decided to come over and tell us all about the Pol Pot Regime instead of take an English lesson. When we told him we had been to the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng, he said he went to Tuol Sleng many years ago and found pictures of his three family members who were tortured and murdered there. Can you imagine? What do you say to that? You can’t turn off the TV or close the computer. This isn’t just an update on your Blackberry from CNN.com. This is his reality. This is this man’s life.
From 1975 to 1979, approximately 2 million Khmer people lost their lives during the Pol Pot Communist Regime otherwise known as the “Khmer Rouge”. Their leader, Pol Pot, came to power soon after the Vietnam War had ended, and many of Pol Pot’s propoganda was saying that all capitalist, western ways of thinking were evil and that they needed to be erased. Many Khmer were livid about the destruction of their homes, villages, and country after the Vietnam War’s destruction of Cambodia and so Pol Pot was able to raise up an army of followers due to that. Pol Pot attempted to form a Communist peasant farming society that resulted in the deaths of one third of Cambodia’s population due to starvation, horrific living conditions, lack of medical care, over work in physical labor, executions and extreme mental and physical torture. I read the novel, First They Killed My Father, which is a memoir of one girl’s personal struggle through the genocide.
observing the mass graves at the Killing Fields outside Phnom Penh
My team and I had the opportunity to go to Phnom Penh for the weekend and pay our respects to the infamous “Killing Fields” of the Khmer Rouge where 75,000 men, women and children were executed into mass graves that still remain to this day. We also visited the Tuol Sleng Prison, a former school that the regime converted into an interrogation center and prison where they questioned, tortured and executed 17,000 men, women and children. Many government officials who worked in the previous capitalist party were taken to Tuol Sleng and were violently mutilated and killed as well as any educated intellectuals of the country.
Pol Pot was terrified of anyone who may be of a threat to him and his new power so he made sure that anyone with any education, professional career, or intelligence of any kind had the fate of being buried in a mass grave. The day was a somber one for me and the rest of the group and I couldn’t help but think, “How could something like this have happened? And so recently?” 1975 wasn’t that long ago and while every Holocaust museum you go to says “Never Again” in big bold letters, I can’t help but be livid at the fact that “never again” is anything but true. This genocide in Cambodia took the lives of a third of the Khmer population at the time…A THIRD. The most recent genocide has been the ethnic cleansing in the region of Darfur, Sudan from 2003 to 2010 where over 5 million people have been affected and 300,000 to 400,000 people have been killed. Over 2.5 million victims are currently living in refugee camps because of that genocide.
We don’t like the word “genocide”. It’s a dirty word that no one wants to talk about.
It makes people uncomfortable. We would rather like to think that all of that is in the past…behind us and our history as a world. Sadly, these things continue to happen with little action being taken to stop it. There is a quote from the movie, Hotel Rwanda, where the manager of the hotel asks the US camera man if all the footage of the genocide will make the Americans get involved and help and he answers, “I think if people see this footage, they’ll say Oh, my God, that’s horrible. And then they’ll go on eating their dinners.” How many times does that happen to us a day at home? We see an injustice…big or small…and we think “Wow, that’s awful.” And then we continue to drive off to our appointments in our SUVs.
Trust me, I am right there with the rest of America in doing this and I feel very convicted I have not done enough. I’ve had my share of “out of sight out of mind” moments like the everyone else. Even as I’m on this World Race I hear the constant truth of the Holy Spirit assuring me that “there is so much more that needs to be done for the Kingdom of God, Angie” whispering in my ear. It’s convienent when you’re all the way across the world and don’t have to see the face of genocide every day. That way, you don’t have to think about it if you don’t want to. Like I said, “out of sight, out of mind.”
outside the Memorial built to house the thousands of skulls and bones of the victims of the Killing Fields
Haile walking the third floor of Tuol Sleng…the barbed wire was to keep prisoners from commiting suicide by jumping off the balcony.
One of my favorite ladies at church is Meng Da (“meng” means auntie in Khmer) and she owns a little shop in the market in town. When I asked Meng Da about her childhood she told me she had to move to Preah Vihear when she was twelve because her family was forced to leave Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge soldiers. When I asked about her parents her eyes teared up and she shook her head back and forth, saying “I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry.” My contact, Carolin later informed me that Meng Da lost both of her parents during the genocide. This is one of my favorite women in the entire world, with more love and generosity than you could imagine. Why did she have to suffer such a loss as this one? Where is the justice? Why didn’t any of us do anything to help?
Tuol Sleng has thousands of photos of the victims tortured and murdered there
Genocide may be a dirty word for those of us in the States but it is something the people of Cambodia are still coping with, healing from, seeking answers from God about. It’s not just something we can pretend didn’t happen. I am learning that sometimes we need to get our world’s turned upside down to come to the realization that genocide is simply unacceptable, and it is something I refuse to stand by and watch continue to happen on the news with an apathetic look on my face. I don’t know what I’m going to do after the Race, and that’s OK. I do know, however, that it will be continuing to fight the Kingdom battle against injustices like genocide, human trafficking and poverty.
I pray, as my supporters, friends, and family, that you will continue to fight this battle with me so that one day, when we are standing before the Final Judge and God asks us, “Where were you when millions of people were been slaughtered in the genocide?” “Where were you when countless women and children were sold into the sex trade?” It is my sincere prayer that we can say that we showed up on time, and we took action for Him and His children. That’s when God, the Alpha and the Omega of history will say…
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
