I am the type of person who enjoys knowing many people, learning random facts about them and filing it away in my head for later use. Whenever I can, I try to introduce people who I think will get along because I love seeing friendships and relationships form. It never occurred to me that would come up on the Race, but while we were in Cambodia looking for Unsung Heroes, almost everyone I met was someone who was somehow connected to someone from back home. Who would have thought that so many things can be put into motion simply by introducing people to each other?
Cambodia went through the horrors of the Pol Pot Regime. In the late 70s, the Pol Pot Regime targeted the wealthy and educated for destruction, which is why those who survived to this day don?t have critical thinking skills. The country has much to recover from. In Siem Reap you meet people, disabled from the mines who try to sell books to survive. They carry a letter explaining their story, of why they are missing an arm or a leg. They sometimes also tell of scams, where people are asked to give, but none of the money reaches them. Now 80% of the population is 30 or below and there is a lot of rebuilding needed.
The presence of foreigners both helps and hurts the country. In the capital, Phnom Penh where there where many foreigners, there are more faith communities and signs of development. At the same time the presence of foreign money leads to more crime and corruption as people respond with greed. Poverty tourism has led to the trafficking of children who are forced to beg from westerners. Adoptions from Cambodia had to be halted because children were being sold or abducted to meet the demand.
Meeting people with memories of Pol Pot?s Regime gave me a sense of connectedness to my parents who came of age during the Cultural Revolution in China. The stories were similar, a police state, the educated and wealthy targeted and mass starvation. Pol Pot got most of his practices from Mao. I found myself wanting to serve Cambodia in part because I wanted to do for them what I wish someone would have done for my parents.
Many Cambodians have positive associations with Christians, because there were so many who were kind to them when they were living in the refugee camps. Now it is one of the places where the gospel is spreading the fastest. It became real to me that there are villages all over Cambodia where there isn’t a single Christian presence. That in the places where a church has been planted there is still such lack of knowledge of God that people have to step up when they are still quite young in the faith themselves.
As we met the people who are laboring for the Lord we were excited at the possibility of AIM sending people to work alongside them to meet the growing need for discipleship. Where the problem is that the church is growing so fast that there aren’t enough indigenous Christians to meet the need for leadership.
