It was a Sunday evening, my team’s second night at Lighthouse Battambang, a Christian organization that provides Cambodian youth a secure living environment to help foster hope for their future and deliver additional life skills training. Sitting under a tin roof pavilion in the backyard of the dorm, I attended my first Cambodia church service.
I did my best to follow along, but I’d be lying if I said the service completely filled me with joy. The high humidity, my body still recovering from our almost 50 hour long travel day, and the flock of mosquitoes feasting upon my arms didn’t do much to help. But I stood to listen to worship performed by a band made entirely of Lighthouse students, and clapped when the students did, bowed my head and prayed when they did, and when I opened my eyes, all the lights in the pavilion were off.
“One of those famous Cambodia power outages, yeah?” Lukas, our ministry contact and the director of Lighthouse, said with a laugh. His students giggled and tittered as the band rose again. They struck up a jazzy version of “Happy Birthday” and from the darkness, three candle laden birthday cakes came bobbing toward us.
As it turns out, Lukas and Navy, one of the female Lighthouse students, were both born on that day, and Somaly’s, Lukas’ wife’s, birthday was the next day. Lukas, Navy, and Somaly blew out the candles and the lights turned back up, revealing the cake’s bright blue, green, and pink frostings and their size, which, in my Americanness, I am tempted to call “personal”, yet the three fed our group of almost forty.
The best part, however, wasn’t the cakes, or the surprise, or the unique version of “Happy Birthday”. After all this, the floor opened for students to come up and give “wishes” for the next year to those we celebrated, a Cambodian tradition, I was later told.
Several students rose and spoke, and each time they came forward, they hugged the person they addressed and shared their wishes. For Somaly, they wished good health, safe travels as she was leaving for Siem Reap the next day, and an increase of love in her and Lukas’ marriage. For Navy, they wished that she would pass all her classes and get to graduate high school this year, good health, and that her beauty would increase. And for Lukas, they wished good health, a strong family, and thanked him for being like their father at Lighthouse.
While the Khmer might translate to “wishes”, I couldn’t help but view these as hopes. Hopes for a future filled with good things. And as student after student came and spoke similar hopes into these individual’s lives, I found myself a little misty-eyed.
I started to think about these students who have Lighthouse to call home and how much this community empowers them with hope. These students are not orphans and not all of them are from poor families. Lighthouse seeks to bring students in exactly as they are to provide stability. Here, they don’t have to worry about security of their body or belongings, or living too far away from a school that provides a good education. This blessing allows them to focus on the work of learning and growing, as teenagers should be allowed to do, and show them the fruits of hope that come with living in a true Christian community.
Rather similar to Jesus’ model of life, huh? Through His birth, He brought hope—true secure, infallible hope—to this world. He is our stability despite the ever changing nature of our lives. When we place our hope in Him, He provides for our spiritual needs so that we can do the work He has prepared for us. When we try and place our hope in things outside of Him, our spirit cannot be sustained and, inevitably, we become disappointed and disillusioned to the point of incapability to do Kingdom work.
The hope of Jesus is hope for a life lived in freedom to be exactly who we are, without condemnation, without shame; A life of redemption from our past, being forever chased by a fierce love that runs down the road to greet us with a kiss; A life worth living and a story handcrafted for each of us intentionally by the greatest storyteller of all.
He also gave us the gift of community, because in community, we feed hope to one another. We remind each other of what Jesus did for us and praying his blessings into one another’s lives. I think that’s a big reason Jesus told us to take communion together around a table in remembrance of Him; wherever Christians gather, He is there also.
As I watched the students chase us and each other around, smashing cake into our faces—since that’s obviously more enjoyable than eating it—and as the tin roof of the pavilion shook from the bass line in the Khmer dance music, I turned the idea of these two birthdays over in my head. I have for a couple of days since.
I guess the main point is security breeds hope. Whether it’s the security Lighthouse students find to pursue hope for a prosperous future, or the security humanity finds in knowing that God cannot change and wants only the best for this beloved creation. We are secure in Christ and thus we are hopeful for future blessings.
At a Cambodian birthday party, I not only learned some amazing new dance moves, I also learned to view hope in light of community and how this gift entered this world for us through the greatest hope—Jesus.
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Currently: The back porch of my ministy site, Battambang, Cambodia | 3:49 PM | 84% funded | May the praises of the saints rise higher than the Buddha song of the humid Cambodian morning!
