Try to imagine blurring out all the men in Cambodia, so you can’t see their faces and expressions at all. Not that the men don’t matter, but I want to really focus on the women and children.
So picture having this super hero type of spiritual vision that can blur out all the men but at the same time have laser sharp focus on all the women and children. Imagine being able to clearly see their eyes and their well rehearsed smiles, their scars and their bruises. What if you could see the expression on their face so clearly you could almost know what they’re thinking. Imagine having this kind of vision for every woman and child in Cambodia.
What if you had this super hero spiritual vision on a tuk tuk ride, driving past a KTV? (A KTV is a Karaoke type bar with loud music, drinking, drugs and often blatant prostitution.)
As you pass the KTV you would see what I saw every night, women packed in the lobby, doing each other’s hair and makeup, waiting for the night to start. What if you could just take a quick glance, but your eyes could focus laser sharp on each of their faces. There are usually close to 100 women sitting in each building. And on some tuk tuk rides you roll past about 2 on every block. That’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of women. With so many lobbies full of women to focus in on, it’s hard to take it all in. But what if you could see each face and really understand each woman and child’s soul and story.
Looking back at the country I just left, I will try to remember it like that. I’ll try not to remember just going past a building full of women, but I’ll try to look deeper and remember them as individual faces, lovely women with great value and worth who are subjected to a gross form of slavery for hours and hours every night. If I could really see with that laser sharp focus I’m talking about, I’m sure the first KTV I pass would crush my soul at first glance. It’s too much for my little heart to carry.
Prostitution and human trafficking is EVERYWHERE. In Phnom Penh they don’t even try to hide it a little bit. So every tuk tuk ride was a lot to see if you look with laser eyes. The exploitation of women and children is everywhere you go in that city. It starts with young children who beg, steal, or sell bracelets on the streets all day. One of the hardest images I took in was a woman who approached our tuk tuk at a stop light. She had her son who was 8 or 9 years old wrapped around her body with a sling. He was a big physically healthy looking boy, but he was completely limp, he looked like his body was made of noodles and his eyes were rolled back in his head. Some mothers use glue, alcohol, or heroine to knock their child out to get money from sympathizers. There is no doubt in my mind that was the situation I was looking at. My eyes saw his face with that laser focus I’m talking about. I couldn’t blur it out if I tried.
But the faces that are best locked into my memory with laser focus are the faces of the girls I worked with at the girls safe home.
It seems so unfair to me that I can’t show you the faces of all the little girls I got to spend time with this past month. Because if you could look into all of their faces you would see bright, beautiful joy, a desire for love, a fun spirit, creativity, and beauty. Sometimes if you really focus your eyes you see a deeply seeded anger, insecurity, fear, jealousy, and a desire to be heard even though they have built up high and strong walls around themselves. But don’t we all have that deep inside of us?
Mostly what I remember from the time I got to be with them is the light in their eyes.
And after hearing their stories it’s amazing there is any brightness at all. One little girl was 6 and she went next door to watch TV where she was raped by her neighbor. One of the girls had seizures as a baby which caused developmental delays. She would wander off, so for years her family chained her up. She escaped somehow and an elderly woman found her in the woods nearly starved to death, completely covered in dirt and bug bites. My favorite girl, the sassy one in the back who wouldn’t smile, was sold as a prostitute by her mother for two years from 12-14 years old until she was rescued.
Every single girl has a heartbreaking story. But after weeks of looking at their faces, my memory has blazed their faces on my heart with smiles and bright eyes. It’s not blurry, the memory is laser sharp. Part of me doesn’t know how it’s possible the light showed up in their eyes after all the darkness they have faced. But I guess that’s what the love of God can do. It can redeem the very worst situations and give 26 little beautiful lives a hope and a future. Isn’t the power of God’s love absolutely amazing?
And that’s why I came on the World Race. I was feeling cynical and sarcastic about my faith, and it was hard to trust God to work it all out. I felt like most times evil triumphs over good and life doesn’t ever really work out how we want it to. I was pretty ugly. But I felt Jesus inviting me to come on this World Race. To show me how His love works in the darkest places. And, my friends, I’m seeing it.
The darkness is huge and overwhelming, but His love is working. And the light and the love of God is really so beautiful, shining in this darkness. It’s shining in the eyes of the little girls I spent my time with last month. God’s love can transform lives, it can heal, it can break down walls, and it can carry us through the hardest things. And it helps us see the darkness, pray against it, and celebrate in the ways God’s love shines through.
I loved my month in Cambodia. I loved the girls and they loved me. God’s Spirit was working in all of it.
I will probably never see those girls again, but their faces are laser sharp in my memory. And God continues to allow them to show up. A few days after I said goodbye to the girls I went to dinner and I was greeted by a server with a sweet smile and bright eyes, laser sharp. My heart stopped and I could have sworn I was looking at my favorite girl, the sassy one in the back who wouldn’t smile the first day of class. It was like I was seeing my favorite girl ten years in the future, working a respectable job, with bright eyes and a warm smile to prove that God’s love is working in dark places. I just know she is going to make it.
Until the day I see her again in heaven, I pray God continues to give me eyes to see beyond blurred faces that race by in life. I pray He will use me to show that His love can work in the darkest places. And in the end, His love wins.
