Cambodia was definitely a milestone month for me…
It was a busy month for me personally and I seen the hand of God readily at work every day while we were there. The following stories I believe will give you a glimpse of where we were during our month and how God worked through my team and I in new and exciting ways.
The Slum Clinic
Our team had the opportunity to visit a maternity clinic just outside the city in a former dump/slum. The work that the women were doing there is incredible and it was opportunity to share our testimonies with the village woman. But, it wasn’t this incredible work that captured all my attention…
Antoinette, a coordinator of the program gave us a tour of the slum and began to tell us that many women there lose their children during labour due to the cruel practices and beliefs of their religion. Often during labour, families will set fires underneath the beds of the mothers giving labour in order to keep evil spirits and to give these women “strength”. In addition to this many woman in the community make decorations for the surrounding temples for a meagre 25 cents a day. My heart nearly fell out of my chest when I heard these things, but I grew greatly encouraged that there were woman who had dedicated their lives to bringing justice to this community.
The Man in the Wheelchair
One late night in Phenom Penh, Trey and I were down the street from our residence just having our nightly conversation when a man about 75 years inched his way up to us in a very old wheelchair. He moved terribly slow, moving only about ten feet every couple of minutes. Without even communicating, Trey and I knew what we had to do as the man stopped their staring at us with a look of desperation on his face. For the next fifteen minutes Trey and I carted him around the city till we found his home and his family. There was no way he would have made it there at a reasonable time, maybe even not at all. The look of joy on his face was the all the payment we needed to receive. Little did we know that he would become a huge part of our stay there…
We met two more times and carted him around the city. It is quite the spectacle to see two white men pushing an old Cambodian man in a wheelchair across highways, over curbs, along dirt covered paths, and between whizzing mopeds. Many of the locals carried a confused, but surprised look to see what was going down before them, a true symbol of witness to the locals. But, it was the second time that marked Trey and I the most. We pushed him down the street and gave him some food to eat and dropped him off at a local restaurant. We turned and then I looked back about 30 seconds later to see that the old man raise his hand to his face to wipe away a tear of joy. I felt right then and there that he had truly felt the hand of God on his life through a simple act of kindness and compassion.
The AID’s Hospital
Upon entering the hospital building, I realised that this was not the kind of hospital that I was accustomed back home. It was a place created for patients in their dying days or should I say dying hours of their lives, most of which had HIV. There living conditions there were meagre despite paying $7.50 a night (an expensive price for the average Cambodian). Sheets were unclean, there was little to no professional help outside their families and very little privacy. They laid there, most of them skin and bones, shivering from cold sweats, some green and ghastly looking, but most had a face displaying feelings of despair and a loss of hope.
We entered one room to find a man no older than 30, lying in his bed in rough condition, but beaming with a pearly white smile. We began to sing to him and pray that God would bring healing to his body. Shortly after we finished praying and sharing with him, his smile went away and tears began to stream down his face. He then covered his face to hide the tears and I knew right then and there that something deep was going on inside of him. I think he felt a new kind of love he had never experienced and I knew that we may have been the only people that had came to visit him in his dying days.
The greatest thing happened when we came back a few days later to find him jumping up and down with a beaming smile saying that he was going home that day. He was feeling better and He knew that the prayers were a huge part of that healing process. A dead man came back to life that day and to God be all the glory.
The River Slum
There was garbage everywhere, shacks for homes, children without clothes, filth, foul odours, within a presence of darkness, a loss of hope, and despair. Despite all of this there were many smiling children, each and everyone stole my heart and they had a joy for which I have no explanation. I couldn’t help but carry them around and just spend time with them. Hygiene, germs, the threat of lice, and disease was the last thing on my mind as I held those children amidst the rough and unsanitary environment. The joy on their faces truly touched me and I know that for many of them they experienced the love of Christ for the first time.
It’s all for moments like these that I am extremely thankful to be on the Race and I hope to never take this adventure for granted. God is continuing to add coal to the fire I have burning inside of me for the nations and it’s an honour and a privilege to know that I have so much more in store in the these next months to come. As weird as it sounds, it is so good to be broken again by the dire needs of this world. I’m truly becoming more and more broken by the things that break His heart. Being a follower of Christ means being a broken person, the kind of brokenness that moulds you into God’s heart and leaves you changed forever. The kind of brokenness that makes you want to give up everything to have little in the material sense. The kind of brokenness that makes you live for a purpose greater than life itself.
Cambodia, you will be missed,
Ben Gagne
