I haven’t posted recently, and for that, I would like to say: my bad. This is a blog that I have been working on for a while now and it’s been a challenge to put everything I want to say into words and to come to terms with the fact that I will never do justice to this topic. This is something that the Lord has been showing me and teaching me throughout my time in on the race and I know that there is still so much growth to be had on my end.
When I decided to come on the race I knew that I would be walking into hard things, but head knowledge and heart knowledge are very different. I was originally very caviler about all of it, I could talk about the facts of what had happened in the different countries I was in and they were just be facts. Many of the countries that I’ve been to on the race so far have faced hardships that have contributed to the various states of development that they are in today. War, genocide, corruption, slavery, and famine aren’t just words, in some places they are, or were, reality.
In Ukraine I learned about the war that is currently taking place. Right now, even as I write this, lives are being uprooted. A powerful foreign government is taking land that is not theirs, anyone that tries to stop them be damned. It all started when a group of students protested a deal made by their corrupt president, who went against what he had promised to do. The university students, people my age, were beaten and arrested for peacefully protesting. When their community rallied in protest of their treatment, the military engaged: they beat people, arrested some, and opened fire on others.
These are facts, but they are also things that happened to real people.
When I was confronted with this during month one, I was angry and sad and scared that such evil could go on, where was the justice and where was God in all of this? The more I learned, the more I felt powerless, defeated, and honestly overwhelmed. The war in Ukraine began back when I was in high school, I was old enough to know, but I wasn’t paying attention. I would hear bits and pieces on the news or from friends and think ‘bummer’ then move on. I didn’t have compassion and I didn’t think it was that important, I mean, wars happen all the time right?
Yea, they do.
I didn’t expect for feel so upset by what was happening in Ukraine. I didn’t expect to feel so connected to the people, but I did all the same.
Coming to Asia, I knew the history of the countries that I would be going into a little better, I mean, who in America hasn’t heard of the Vietnam War? Even if you don’t know the specifics, you might have even heard about the Cambodian genocide that took place in the 70’s, or the ethnic cleansing that is taking place right now in Myanmar.
Well, in Vietnam I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t want to learn about the war or the hurt that was there, or hear about it any more than I had to. At the opportunity to go and see different memorials about all that had happened I said no, I said that it would be too much for me and I wasn’t interested in wars.
I wanted to protect myself from what was hard, because I had the option to, but for many others there isn’t any option, this is just life, or their family’s history. I wanted to come to these places and proclaim good news while at the same ignoring the reality of where I was.
When I came to Cambodia I was bracing myself for the worst. I knew that back in the 70’s a group called the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia and within a 5 year period wiped out over 3 million of their own people. Anyone who opposed the new government, or had any sort of power or education was brutally murdered. Because this was so recent, most Cambodian today know someone who was killed during that time, and anyone over the age of 45 likely has memories from this time as well. I thought that I would be ready to love these people, and that the tragedies of what happened here wouldn’t impact me that much.
Our host shared part of his family’s story. How his uncle was killed, how his mother used to sleep in the flooded rice fields surrounded by snakes to avoid being found.
During our last week in Cambodia my team had the opportunity to go to the capital, Phenom Penh, and tour one of the 300+ killing fields used by the Khmer Rouge. For the week leading up to our trip I wrestled with whether I should go or not. I knew it would be hard, I knew how it would make me feel, I knew it wouldn’t be easy to shake off afterwards, and I just didn’t want to go. Part of me felt like what was the point in going? I was going to be leaving in a few days and then I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. When I confided this to one of my sweet friends, she told me to go, and to embrace the heart ache because it would help me understand, and I knew she was right, so I went.
Guess what: it sucked.
I was right. Being there felt heavy. It felt oppressive and it felt like there was a palpable evil in the air. We took an audio tour and as we were walking we were confronted with stories of the atrocities that took place there. There are no words to describe it, how much evil humans are capable of doing to one another.
We saw mass graves, and the tree where they beat children to death against.
As we walked the audio tour guide kindly asks that if you see any clothing, teeth, or bones on the ground to please leave them undisturbed, it said that the workers pick up any newly unearth remains at the end of each month.
Can you even imagine?
I honestly didn’t believe that I would see anything, I mean, after 40 years and all of the work that they had done to excavate in that area there was STILL remains that were surfacing? It sounded like an exaggeration to me.
Then, as I was walking back towards the center of the fields, I saw it.
A tooth.
Just laying next to an embankment where some pieces of what looked like clothing were poking out of the ground.
My brain literally could not understand what I was seeing, or believe that there was a human tooth from a human skull on the ground next to my foot. How do you make sense of that?
What happened to that person? Who were they? What was their life like? Were they killed for wearing glasses? Or having a college education? Did that tooth belong to a political rival? Or just someone who was at the wrong place at the wrong time?
It all felt heavy and real in that moment and that tooth reminded me that real people, with full lives and families died here, people who knew the Lord died right along side people who didn’t.
There is a giant memorial that sits in the middle of the field, it is filled with a display of skulls that were collected from the mass graves on site. It was hard to look at. I felt dizzy, I felt sick, I felt an unrest in my spirit. I was silently crying out: ‘Lord why did you forget these people? Why did this happen? Where were you?’
“I see this, look at it, I feel this pain. This is not forgotten, I am here. Be here”
God spoke to me, but not in some audible way, or even really as a voice in my head, I just suddenly felt His presence, and I knew what He wanted me to know. All of the questions that had been pressing in on me stopped. He didn’t remove the pain that I felt, or give me a peace about what had happened. My fear, anger, and sadness didn’t subsided, but I got to sit in all of those things with the Father, knowing that He felt them too.
There is so much pain today that lingers over Cambodia, and in all of the countries that I have visited, but God is there. In all of the places I have travelled, I have never once left His kingdom. Of all of the people that I have met and encountered, I still haven’t met one that He has not created.
This is what demands to be seen: His people, their lives, and their pain. We as Christians cannot go our whole lives with our eyes closed to the things that are hard or painful. We cannot ignore what is unpleasant because it is exactly those things which we have been called into. We are His hands and feet and He wants to use us. He wants healing and restoration. He is not absent or indifferent to the things that are happening or have happened in these countries, He is already moving, already healing, already loving.
In Myanmar horrible things are happening right now and many people, people who don’t know the Lord, are being persecuted and killed because of their ethnicity and their religion. But in the midst of those things, as I have already mentioned in another blog, I have encountered a church that is thriving. A church that has taken root here and is fighting for their nation and their neighbors. In a place shrouded in darkness, a light is shining. I left this county more hopeful and expectant that any other place. That is the hope of the gospel in action.
I am learning that I have to choose not to run from the reality that bad things happen around the world all the time and I’m learning to allow myself to enter into pain and hardship with the people that I encounter, because that is what Jesus has called His church to do. I am learning what it means to be the hands and feet and the heart and the eyes of the Lord.
The world is dark and fallen and full of so many evils, but in the midst of all of those things there is also light and hope and love, there is always Jesus. I still have questions about why all of these things were allowed to happen, but the Lord is reminding me that in this broken world, rain falls on both the good and the wicked, but through all of those things He is still good.
Much love,
Morgan
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