How to Change A Village's Heart
The World Race is about bringing Jesus’ unconditional love to the hurting and the lost. Just outside of Kampong Cham, Cambodia, that mission became personal for Megan Kennedy of July ’13 Q Squad.
The small bamboo structure pushed back from the main path caught my eye. Glancing deeper, I noticed a woman lying on a mat.
"That is the paralyzed woman," our host told me. "You can go pray for her."
The only thing covering Som's naked body was a small piece of yellow fabric. I noticed holes in the roof and walls of the hut. An opening was cut in the bamboo underneath her bottom to enable her to go to the bathroom without being moved.
As I made my way over, her deep blue eyes widened as if to say, "Are you really coming towards me?"
She was an outcast among the outcasts.
She looked up at me and as I reached out to hold her hand, I whispered the one Khmer phrase that I have learned by heart since arriving in Cambodia,
"K'nom s'roline n'yak." I love you.
Som's face lit up and she smiled.
One day, as we went into the village, God spoke softly, "Stay with her today. Sit in her hut with her." So instead of saying hello, exchanging a few remarks, and moving on to other huts, I stayed.
As I took off my shoes and climbed into the tiny hut, tears began to fall down Som's face. I held one of Som's hands and my teammate Michelle held the other and we began praying for her. A few minutes later, we asked Som what she was thinking.
"She said that her people have forgotten her. That her family does not love her anymore and that she is alone here. Her people do not come to her. She cries every night because she is so hungry and alone."
"I have not forgotten her," I heard God say. "I love this beautiful daughter of mine. I hear every cry of hers and I love her. Though the world ignores her, I do not."
"God has sent us here to love you," we told Som, "God has sent us here to pray over you and to tell you how much you are loved. How you are not forgotten."
After a few minutes, she looked up and said something to Daru.
"She understands," Daru told us. This woman who had never experienced God's love before looked up and declared, "I believe."
We all began to weep alongside Som. This time, tears of joy.
A few days later, as I sat in Som's hut, a family member approached us and asked my translator why we were talking to her. Nobody spoke to her.
The woman said that she and her family want Som to die. She said that it would be much easier for them that way. They want to own this plot of land, and they didn’t want to feed her anymore.
That day my prayers for Som changed drastically. I still want to see her walk, but I realized what God desired more than anything was her heart. What good would it do for her to pick up her mat and walk if she still felt abandoned by her entire village?
As my prayers changed, Som's heart began to heal.
She spoke boldly in full sentences. She asked questions. She smiled more. She became radiant, captivating. We shared with her how this love didn't come from us — that we loved her because God first loved us.
"I want this type of love," she declared.
As Som’s heart healed, her body began to heal.
I watched her crippled hand, a hand with fingers grown together and stuck in the position of a tight fist, open for the first time. I watched the skin between her fingers literally disappear and the pain that kept her fist clenched greatly diminish.
She extended her left knee farther than she had been able to move it in years. She began using her strength to push herself around her hut.
As Som’s body began to heal, the hearts of the villagers began to soften.
We began noticing food in her bowl. The holes in her hut that left her drenched anytime it rained were repaired. Someone placed a candle in her hut, allowingSom to see after dark.
I watched in amazement as God transformed both Som and the village.
On my last day in the village, Som moved herself to the edge of her hut, allowing her body to lay directly in the sunlight. As the sun beamed down on Som's already radiant face, she smiled at me and told me that her heart was full.
How can you change your prayers to let God move dramatically?
