Our team, well the whole squad, had to travel to Phnom Penh
to apply for visas for a future country.
While we were there we went to the killing fields where they would take
prisoners to kill them during the Cambodia genocide of the late ‘70s. I can’t describe the heaviness you felt
there. Literally walking up to the gate
I almost started crying. There were
definitely many times that I held back from sobbing. Millions of innocent people lost their lives
in horrific ways, buried in mass graves.
I can’t even imagine what that was like. I have never had to go to bed wondering if I
would be safe through the night. I’ve
never had to worry about losing my life for not following a certain set of
rules. These people had everything
stripped of them -no freedoms whatsoever and then they were taken to a prison
for absolutely no reason. There they
were tortured until the prison got overcrowded then they were sent to the
killing fields right outside of Phnom Penh.
People lived around the fields but no one ever knew it was happening
because they had chemicals that would get rid of the smell of the dead bodies
as well as loudspeakers they would hang from a tree that played music so you
couldn’t hear the moans of the dying people.
The killing fields weren’t discovered until after the Khmer Rouge had
been overturned.
We were talking about it, and Chelsea mentioned how she
wouldn’t even know how to present the gospel to these people. All of them know what happened just 30 years
ago. Where was God during that? I definitely couldn’t answer that
question. It’s just one of those things
that as Christians we know that God was in control. He knew it was going to happen and let it
happen. We have no idea why, but we
still have to trust God in the situation.
This obviously cannot be easily explained to people that can still
remember those days, that lived and survived it. How can you explain to them how much God
loves them and all of Cambodia when 80% of their population was slaughtered
just 30 years ago? God can definitely
redeem Cambodia, but He’s the only one that can. Be in prayer for this nation. They are in desperate need of God’s love and
peace.
