Cambodia has stolen my heart. To be honest I don’t know where to begin when it comes to writing about the short time I was there. I could tell you of the late nights that I walked the streets of Siem Reap and saw young children rummaging through trash. I could tell you of the man that we found as we spent one evening handing out rice and vegetables. As we handed this man food, another man came up and told me, “He’s crazy”. I looked back at him and told him, “That’s okay”. Rhema, Melody, and I then proceeded to sit down with him and just spend time with him. His demeanor changed from not really understanding why we were there to at one point his eyes welled up with tears as we sat there with him. He kept grabbing our wrists to look at our watches. He liked our watches. I love having homeless friends.
Our month brought us to Phnom Penh. I lived with a team feet away from the railroad tracks. Almost without exception, in the U.S. housing that is near railroad tracks is usually less than desirable. I cannot begin to describe the living conditions along the tracks where we are staying. I looked one way down the tracks and saw numerous children playing on the tracks while their parents sat in shacks that aren’t much more than tin houses.
As I looked down the other way I saw more children and garbage everywhere. We were in a slum. There is no doubt about that. The amazing thing is as we prayer walked down the tracks, the people were so friendly and the children smiled as though they didn’t have a care in the world. It amazed me how these people have nothing, literally nothing, yet they exude so much joy.
Throughout the month, as we walked the tracks we would hear shouts of “Hello”, from dirty children grinning. Occasionally they would run up and hold hands with you. I was surprised by their reception seeing as they had never see Westerners before.
One day our walk took us to a bunch of men chiseling beautiful works of stone with the most primitive of tools. Their creations are works of art. Creating statutes and Buddha’s the size of cars, which take months and years to make. We made friends with them. We brought them cold sodas and did our best to talk to them. Throughout the month we became good friends with one of them. His name was Chara. Chara didn’t have a voice. He is mute and deaf; somehow we managed to communicate with him. By the end of the month we were able to pray several times with him. My last day there I was brokenhearted as I said goodbye to him one last time.
The honest truth is that if most of my friends or family could see me walking along those railroad tracks, their first thought would be for me to leave as quickly as possible. Looking back I realize that the railroad tracks are one of the places I have come to love the most this year. I love the fact that there are smiling children there. I love the perplexed looks we got because this is not a place for outsiders. I love that there is so much hope and beauty found in the smiles and laughter of the railroad tracks. At a glance, it looks like just another dirty slum with garbage, but upon a closer look it is much more than that. The only words that kept coming back to me are that the railroad tracks are a place of treasure. It is a place where trains of love and redemption are coming through on a daily basis.
