Burned Out
The factory fire is burned out. Life appears to be normal for Cambodians. Street venders with fruit, vegetables, and raw meat, barbershops under a piece of tin and tarp and a bit of wood, aggressive tuk-tuk drivers insisting rides, mopeds weaving and bumping through the pedestrian crowded street directly outside the church where we live.
Life trudges on for the locals of Phnom Penh.
The front of the building with the horizontal stripes -back to us – was on fire.
Although our personal living arrangements have greatly improved this month (we have a shower instead of a bucket bath out of a horse trough structure, western toilets compared to the squatty last month, and a full kitchen compared to the single water kettle in Malaysia), most Cambodians don’t have these luxuries. The heat and smog not to mention the smell of feces (poop river, the Aussies call it), weigh heavy.
A corrupt government offers little hope for change. We very nearly missed being stopped by a police officer the other day, only to watch the moped driver behind us get smacked off his scooter by the cop.
“They’ll make up anything in order to get money from you,” explained our Aussie friends. “They especially like to go after us because we’re white.”
Though we’ve tried to find out more information on the fire, a credible source is scarce. Government officials can’t be trusted for reliable information; I wouldn’t dare ask a firefighter who waited to be paid before fighting, and papers are a skeptical source as well. The word on the street: it was most likely started intentionally, 5,000 are out of a job, and no word on fatalities. What is more frustrating than not being able to find out more information is that this is a regular part of life. Factory fires happen all the time. Onlookers sigh, and turn back to work.
Cambodia is primarily an agrarian country with 67.9% of the workforce involved in some form of agriculture (rice, rubber, corn, vegetables, cashews, tapioca, silk). Since the Khmer Rouge regime and Vietnamese occupation from 1979 to 1989, the country has plummeted to one of the poorest nations in the world (GDP of $1,900). In recent years, the government has steered the country towards clothing factories and tourism (especially to Angkor Wat – the largest religious monument in the world, and for those of you who are cinema fans, a filming location for Lara Croft Tomb Raider). (source for statistics: National Geographic HD maps)
Pardon my ignorance on the Khmer Rouge, but I didn’t know that Cambodia had its own Holocaust. This Sunday we visited the equivalent of a concentration camp. It was a high school in Phnom Penh. I shuddered at the commons area – thinking of my own high school turned into torture chambers. The elite and intellectuals – the teachers, doctors, lawyers, were seized and held. Classrooms were divided into narrow brick cells. Chin-up bars once used for P.E. were used for torture, stringing victims by their feet until unconscious then dropping them into water.
S-21 – a high school transformed into torture chambers and prison cells.
I had no idea this happened in Cambodia.
And it has happened so many other places as well.
Will we do nothing? What should we do?
I wonder if things like this genocide happen in part because someone doesn’t answer their assignment, perhaps even because they are too busy with other assignments they deem as important (and they probably are!) instead of hearing from God on where to go.
I look around, and I see SO MUCH NEED. Each month on the Race brings me new faces, new stories, new mouths to feed, new hearts to heal, new lives who need hope. One person can’t do it all, though. I’ve also met many missionaries who are tired, burned out, overwhelmed and spent. It is easy to say at first, ah, well, you should be putting that in God’s hands, you should have better boundaries, you should … you should have… you should have…”
The last day we were in Honduras, a pastor told us the number one reason missionaries leave the field is because of burn out. (But let’s be honest, it isn’t just missionaries who are exhausted and worn out.)
“Pastor John, how do you prevent burn out?”
“You don’t go where you aren’t called,” he said. “You don’t take on an assignment that you aren’t called to.”
Before we left Guatemala, our contact (strong in faith, strong in their marriage and a strong family unit!), Luis and his wife, Mirella, reminded us to be a light in the darkness. They turned off all the lights and brought a single candle into the room.
We cannot be a light if we run out of wick and wax. We cannot bring light if we have no oil, no fuel for the flame.
How are we to bestow the oil of gladness (Isaiah 61:3) if we can’t keep our own lanterns full of oil and lit?
Sometimes I think the devil uses scripture against us just like he tried to use God’s Word against Jesus when our Savior was called into the desert to be tempted. (Matt. 4:1-11) We ridicule ourselves for not being all things to all people.
I hear: “And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” (Matt 10:42) and think I better get busy handing out some water. In truth, I wouldn’t make it down the street I live on now if I gave a cup of water to every thirsty person.
If you are sick for one day, will the world fall apart? Hey, why need sickness as a means of justification for a day off? God rested on the Sabbath. Give someone else a chance to bless someone. Why are we playing God or hogging all the blessings?
(The finger is pointing at me. This is a life lesson I’m learning as I tend to live at full throttle and subconsciously think, if I don’t do it, it won’t get done. Maybe it’s meant to not get done, maybe it’s meant for someone else to do it.)
If we all answer our assignment, kingdom will come. The body is complete. Christ is glorified. We all feel a part of the body, all invested, all victorious.
We need to know the Bible, we need to know the Spirit’s voice. We need to know our assignment – and support others in their assignments.
Please pray for our team as we’ve arrived in Cambodia and are sorting out different ministry options. We need to know what assignment God has for us this month and maybe on a day-by-day basis. We are teaching English in the mornings and have a plethora of ministry opportunities to get involved in during the afternoons. We want to support and encourage the local missionaries here in their assignments as best we can and not burn ourselves out at the same time.
Join me in asking two questions I’m bringing before the Lord:
God, what is my assignment today? (this moment, this hour, this week, this month)
What do I need to do to keep my candle, my fire burning?
