I am now in Cambodia and starting to grow accustomed to life consisting of cold showers, no toilet paper, hard floors or beds to sleep on, diverse meal selections (fried tarantula the latest, by my choice i should add), low ceiling & doorways, and long bumpy bus rides w/ lots of horn honking. Thailand was hard to leave and our team left little pieces of our hearts w/ our contact’s ministry (Heart of Isaan), but we are depending on God to renew our hearts and minds as he allows us to pour into our ministry here in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The transition from country to country is one of the most difficult parts about the trip so far. Not only can it be hard to say goodbye, but also this month has taken awhile to adjust to a new ministry and figure out a schedule to begin our work here.
(Goodbye Ubon)
Through this transition though, the Lord is teaching me to have a patient spirit & to realize that I am not going to save the world every day, however, I need to cloak myself with a positive attitude daily, dying to my flesh & expectations, completely trusting & living in the Spirit.
(Bless, the Ladies’ man! I felt like I was in middle school again)
With that being said, my team & another team working in Siem Reap travelled to Phnom Penh to get our visas for Vietnam & India, the latter of the two is a country in which my heart is heavily burdened for & has a longing desire to to serve there more than any other country this year. So, we applied for our visas and got to go the “killing fields” just outside the city, which possesses remnants of Cambodia’s genocidal history.
(This was a commemorative stupa stacked several feet high from top to bottom with human skulls of people executed there)
In 1975 Pol Pot’s regime, the Khmer Rogue, overthrew the government and after taking power, they subjected Cambodian people to a radical social reform process, where they executed an estimated 2 million people (>20% of Cambodia’s population at the time). Similar to the German holocaust of the Jews, the communistic government would transport prisoners to these killing fields to be slain & mutilated. There are over 20,000 mass grave sites where prisoner’s dead bodies were dumped & piled into the ground. It is still common even today that prisoner’s bones and clothes surface after a heavy rainfall due to the high volume of dead bodies.
Needless to say, as we walked around these fields, where only 35 years ago, a number of Cambodian people were tortured & killed for no reason, I was filled with a heavy spirit & my heart began to truly reach out to this nation, which was still recovering from the impact from this devastation today. You cannot help but feel an amazing spirit of hurt for these people who suffered through this unspeakable, yet almost unheard of tragedy.
Before, I had hardly even heard of the atrocities of this genocide, but God decided to raise up a deep sense of respect for these victims & also the families of victims at the killing fields. I was overwhelmed with an unconditional sense of respect for a people I hardly knew, and previously had cared very little for. In the roots of my heart, God was not only telling me to honor & respect this nation and the victims whose memories were being maintained by shattered skulls & mass grave ditches, but also all those who have come before me, especially my fellow Christian brethren who have set an example & run the race before. I guess God was speaking to me powerfully through history at that moment, and how so much can be learned from the past if you respect it.
Oftentimes, I am courteous & polite, but I let my pride get in the way of a genuine, heartfelt respect that the Bible commands us to show. Psalm 138:6 (KJV) states, “Though the Lord be on high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off.” Even our holy & most high Lord looks down upon this earth and respects the weak, the poor, & the oppressed. So why do I not follow his example even more so and show the utmost honor to those around me?
Uncoincidentally, our most powerful ministry moment for me came when our team went out into the city to eat dinner in Phnom Penh. We had the night off and were looking forward to enjoying some relaxation and eat some Mexican food. After dinner, we were walking alongside the river and these poor children came up and tried to sell us books & bracelets. It was obvious that these children were poor & desperate, and one little girl had disfigured hands. Rather than just blow them off, we decided to ask them what their names were, how old were they, and we even started dancing, playing, and high-fiving with them. Their faces began to light up with smiles and a joy that you could tell they were not used to feeling.
(These aren’t the children, but hopefully you get the picture)
God showed me in that moment and through the killing fields that our ministry never really ends. There is no set schedule or times of availability. However, we are called to honor & respect all of those around us at all times, and that God will let our light shine in powerful little ways like that if we are obedient to his calling.
Happy Valentine’s Day to the most beautiful sister in the world and the most wonderful & loving mother a son could ever ask for! Love you both!!!
