Wow. It feels so strange and so normal to be back out on the field, back on the World Race and back in Cambodia. There are so many things that are familiar and so many things that are different as I now carry a different role. However, the one thing that has not changed and will never change is seeing God move through all of these places I have the privilege of visiting.
The first week of this month, I have spent with a team going door to door praying for people and teaching English in the afternoons. The houses we go to in the morning vary from Christians to Buddhists, young and old, families and single people. We have seen poverty at its worst but also Jesus’ joy at it’s finest. There is one man I will never forget.
This man has a story you only read about in books, but our team was given the opportunity to sit in his home and hear it from him first hand.
It goes back to the late 70s when the Khmer Rouge were in Cambodia during the time of the genocide where 25% of the Cambodian population were killed. At the end of their reign, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia to push back against the forces. While they were trying to help, they displaced so many families, forcing them to go to refugee camps on the Thailand border. Many families spent as many as 20 years in these refugee camps until they were released to go back into Cambodia. Sung Yu was one of those men along with his family.
He told us of the years spent in the refugee camps, where they built their own houses and started a family. He had four children just while his family was in the refugee camps, and they were given food and life became very normal for them there. Going into the refugee camp, his entire family was Buddhist and everyone he knew was Buddhist. This was the norm, until it was no longer his norm.
Sometime during the many years he spent in the refugee camp, missionaries from all over the world came to bring the news of Christ. Sung Yu was one of the many who decided to start following God in that desolate refugee camp. Sung Yu became a confident man of God along with his family and many of his fellow Cambodians. He was raised up to leadership roles and was on track to go to America after leaving the refugee camp to continue following Christ there. However, the Lord had very different plans for him.
For many different reasons, Sung Yu did not go to the United States. Instead, it was time for him to go back to Cambodia, a place he had once called home but had no idea what it looked like now. While his ideal plan was not to go back to Cambodia, he believed the Lord was taking him back there for a reason, so before his family and friends all moved back, he made a plan. He, along with other Christians from the refugee camp, devised a plan to bring Jesus to all parts of Cambodia. When they were released back into Cambodia, they went with a purpose for the Kingdom. These men of God spread themselves all about the country and started planting churches. These men could have stayed together, comfortable with each other, but they saw the greater need in their country and were willing to follow God wherever He called. Sung Yu has planted 10 churches in the province we are in this month, and at the age of 80, says he still has 3 more to go.
“I used to hate the Vietnamese. I hated the war. Now, I am thankful for them, thankful for the war because if it had not happened, I might have never met Jesus and Cambodia would be 100% Buddhist.”
This man not only came to know Jesus, but he came to know and understand the Kingdom of God here on Earth. I have never met someone with better perspective than this man. A country torn apart by war, but Jesus came out on top once again. I am beyond thankful to have been able to hear this story and can only pray for faith like this man, for the willingness to go wherever God has called me, and to serve Him in whatever ways He asks of me.
***He is writing his whole story down for us, and we will hopefully be getting it translated. I plan on posting his word for word account, so all of you can be filled with the hope he filled us with as he told his testimony, but I wanted to share a piece of what is happening here in Cambodia this first week. Also, his name has been changed.
