The images still fresh in my mind haunt me…like a scene from a horror film. Naked, screaming out, and chained…how I wish this were just a dream. But it’s not, it’s very much my reality. A reality all too common for the ladies here at Teen Challenge Cambodia.
We had just arrived, it was our first night as a new team, our first night at ministry at Teen Challenge. When I heard what we were to be doing this month, living and working at a rehabilitation center for woman addicted to drugs, I knew it was going to be a hard month…but nothing could prepare me for what I was about to see.
We gathered at night in the tiny house, at 7:30 for prayer time. But before we started to pray, the leader wanted to show us something. So I followed her thru the door behind her to one of the rooms in the house. The room was completely dark and barren. But as light started to leak thru from the outside, she was exposed. Standing in the corner, completely naked, screaming, and flailing her arms. My heart stopped, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Every part of me wanted to run. Shocked, my first instinct was to turn away. And as I turned away, there in the corner of my eye I saw the chain. The chain that was attached to her ankle as she looked out her barred window screaming. I was speechless. I ran out of the room to join the rest of my team and the children who were sitting right outside the door, waiting to pray. My team could tell something was wrong by the look of horror on my face. All I could do was shake my head. The image of her naked and chained burned thru my mind. I felt sick. After we prayed, the other girls wanted to see what was behind the door. Every part of me wanted to stay firmly planted where I was and not get up, but it was like a scene from a bad car accident, where you can’t help but look. So I got up and followed my team back into the room. There we were seven girls, huddled up together, shocked and terrified. Our team leader tried asking her what her name was. She then lunged at us and we all screamed! “Okay let’s just get out of here!” said one of the girls. So we ran out…
Back in our room we joined together in prayer to take what we had just seen to our Father. We were all a wreck and had no idea where to go from there. Our ministry contact just so happened to show up right then and was able to shed some light on the situation.
Her name was Moam. She was found passed out on the streets, where she had been raped repeatedly. She clearly had some form of mental illness and was addicted to drugs or alcohol. It took seven police men to bring her to Teen Challenge, as she was so aggressive. No other place would take her, Teen Challenge was the only option. So they took her in but she was extremely violent, attacking the other woman and throwing and damaging property. So they felt they had no choice but to chain her.
And although this information would later bring me some peace and clarity, at that moment something still didn’t feel right. Nothing could erase the images out of our minds. Many of us could not deny that this was indeed spiritual warfare. Some of us even believing that what we had witnessed was a women who was possessed or under serious attack from satan. So we began to pray. As we were praying I said to God, “God please speak to one of us, please show us what to do and where to go from here, show us your will, give us discernment and wisdom.” But as I prayed this, in my heart I couldn’t help but feel, “God please speak to anyone else in the group but me, I don’t want to be responsible for a decision like this.”
Spiritual warfare, was something I was first exposed to last year on the World Race Exposure trip and ever since then it has been something I have been absolutely terrified of. To the point where I prayed to God to shield me from it, as I was too afraid to deal with it. But God has made it clear in these past five months on the Race, that it’s something I can no longer run from. That it’s time to fight and that He has equipped me far beyond what I have ever believed.
So as I prayed and waited to hear from the Lord, secretly hoping He wouldn’t speak to me…He spoke. And as I weighed my options:
One: We go in and lay hands on her and pray
Two: We wait for a pastor to go in with us and pray for her
Or Three: We do nothing and stay far away from that room
And as I was weighing these options in my mind, God said to me,
“Spiritual warfare or not, possessed or a mental illness, what difference does that make, why would you ever not pray for someone. When has prayer ever been something to debate. Here in front of you is my daughter, my daughter who has been beaten and raped, lying naked and chained, why would you not go pray for her, why would you run away? Have I not sent you for this very reason?”
And so I spoke, and said that although every part of me wants to run and stay far away, we need to go back in there and pray for her. And then another one of my teammates spoke, and said, we need to go in there right now, God won’t give me His peace until we go in. And so we all huddled to pray. It literally felt like we were going into battle, suiting up and putting on the armor of God. There we were seven girls huddled together, standing firm in the strength of our Father, cloaked in His peace, nothing could stop us. So we grabbed our bibles and walked out the door of our room to hers.
What happened in that room is hard to put into words. But I can say that the Holy Spirit was there and moving. The images of that night still terrify me and writing this now, they burn thru my mind. To see a human being naked and chained sitting in their own waste in the corner of a room was unlike anything else, even scarier than a scene from a horror movie. But God was there, in each one of us women, giving us a strength and peace, that was undeniably from Him. Giving me the strength to get down on my knees and lay hands on her. Giving me the discernment to see this is not a battle of flesh but a battle against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12). Besides the awful images, all I remember was telling Moam how much Jesus loved her. And as she shook her head, the enemy working to fight back, I fought back and said, “Yes Moam, Yes, Jesus loves you, and you are His!” So many emotions happened in that room, including immense anger at the things that kept this woman chained, drugs, alcohol, the men that had beaten and raped her, a government that did nothing to help her. But at the same time, immense hope in how Jesus can redeem all those things. How Jesus can break every chain. And how Jesus has already won the battle. That we were going in fighting a battle that had already been won.
In writing this blog I decided to not go into much detail of what happened in that room, partially because it is honestly terrifying and the images are too hard to put into words. But also because that is not what Moam’s story is about. Her story is a story of redemption. And although we are not able to see her story all the way through, we trust in a God who redeems, who breaks all chains. Who sent his only son into this world to set the captives free!
In just our short time at Teen Challenge, in just those six days, God graciously blessed us by showing us the very beginning of His redemption in Moam’s life. After that night, we would continue to go into that room and pray with her. I would visit her each day and say hello and remind her that Jesus loves her. Two of my teammates, Claire and Laura, who had a fire put in them from the Lord, to see her physical chains removed, fought to show the other women how to care for her, and to remove the chain from her ankle. They held her and kept her calm as they brought her into the psychiatric hospital to get her checked out. They bathed her and stayed diligently by her side so she could leave that room unchained. Unfortunately after the hospital visit, Moam became agitated and turned violent. She was off the chain and got access to a machete and began to chase the other women, all with us and the little children around. Because of this AIM has decided that it is unsafe for us to stay and work with Teen Challenge. And so our time there was cut short to a week. But on the day we found out we had to leave, a miracle happened, the fruit of God’s redemption.
It was the best day we had with Moam. She woke up and Laura and Claire dressed her, did her hair and make-up, and brought her out to join us for breakfast, where she served US! She then joined the other women for prayer time and sat their nicely and even said Amen. She gave us hugs and took photos with us, interacted with the babies. It was a complete turn a round. From the woman we had seen naked and chained, wailing and screaming and clearly tormented. A woman we were all terrified of…To this. And if I didn’t believe in a redeeming God, I probably wouldn’t have believed my eyes. I probably would have believed that it was all a dream. But my God does redeem and this is reality. Leaving Teen Challenge was the hardest thing on the Race by far, probably even one of the hardest things of my life. But I put my faith in a God who redeems. A God who makes beautiful things out of the ashes, and so I have faith that He has already begun to turn this into something beautiful.
Please pray for Teen Challenge of Cambodia and the women and children there and know that I can tell you with my whole heart that Jesus is moving in Teen Challenge and that they truly have those women’s best interest at heart. It may not seem like an ideal situation to us, but in a country where resources are so limited and injustice prevails all around, Teen Challenge is doing it’s very best with what they have to bring redemption to these women. I am beyond excited to share with you the stories of those women and to show the world how Jesus is redeeming lives in Cambodia.
