in·jus·tice
/in'j?stis/
noun
1. lack of fairness or justice
synonyms: discrimination, corruption, cruelty, misdeed.
According to Oxford Dictionary this is the definition of injustice.
In the U.S. this was a word I knew and rolled off my tongue often. I thought I knew what it meant. It's a easy word to talk about when it's not a reality to you. But when you see it, are surrounded by it, it changes you. For me, it became a word I didn't want to say anymore, see anymore. I didn't want to see another barely twelve year old girl clad in barely-there clothes climb on the back of a motorbike of a man almost four times her age. I didn't want to see another barefoot little boy selling bracelets for money that wouldn't go to him, but maybe would keep him from getting a beating by the person who "owned" him. I didn't want to see another young mother and her baby making their bed on the sidewalk.
With the little I know, allow me to give you a backdrop of this place called Cambodia. The median age here is 23 years old-it is a nation of young people. Any person here over the age of 34(ish) has survived the bloody regime of the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot. A genocide that claimed the lives of over 3 million is reflected everywhere I go, as if it is a nation living in PTSD. Under the Khmer Rouge anyone with an education of ANY kind or who opposed the regime was murdered. And anyone who was related to them- wives, husbands, children, babies, parents, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins- was murdered along with them. The Khmer Rouge believed that "to kill the grass you must also remove the root."
So, Cambodia is a nation that knows the word "injustice" too well. Heartbreakingly well. Infuriatingly well. Helplessly well.
jus·tice
'j?stis/
noun
1. just behavior or treatment.
synonyms: fairness, morality, righteousness.
hope
hop/
noun
1. a feeling of trust
synonyms: confidence, faith, belief, assurance, promise.
re·demp·tion
ri'dempSH?n/
noun
1. the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.
synonyms: retrieval, recovery, return, rescue, reclaim.
So as I prayed over this nation and the helpless heartbreak of it all, God began to show me a language that He speaks. You know, the same one He uses throughout His word for us.
"O Israel, hope in the Lord ! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption."
(Psalm 130:7 ESV)
"Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely."
(Proverbs 28:5 ESV)
"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth."
(Job 19:25 ESV)
The same language that He speaks through organizations like Daughters of Cambodia, that provides employment opportunities so that restored victims don't fall prey to the sex trade again. Through organizations like Water of Life that provides restoration through community living, education, and bible teaching for girls rescued. Or through Agape Missions International that provides education, employment, and community to an entirely overlooked people group so that they don't have to sell their own children out of their homes to survive.
He speaks it through those He loves. That means He can speak through anyone. He speaks it through you. He speaks it through me.
I want to end with a story, an experience when His language was shouted to me.
One night my team and I were blessed to do ministry with Water of Life that does outreach to the prostitutes in the red light district in Phnom Penh, which interestingly is their temples to buddha. The part where He was shouting? The girls that we did outreach with weren't Americans, or "grown ups." It was young, Cambodian girls who were rescued and restored from the very streets we were walking. Talking to, praying for the prostitutes that are in the exact slavery that they used to be in.
That's the language my God speaks.
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THANK YOU!
