Cambodia

Two months in Asia.

Part of my Discipleship Training School was a two month cross-cultural outreach. For my outreach location I went to Cambodia. These are some facts to help you see into the type of country this is. Cambodia is a third-world nation located in South East Asia right between Thailand and Vitenam. In the 1970's there was a genocide where all the educated people in Cambodia were killed by a group called the Khmer Rouge. (for more information on the Khmer Rouge visit http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1879785,00.html ) Today you can still see evidence of this devastation simply by looking at the older generation, or the lack of. Eighty percent of the population in Cambodia is under the age of 30 due to the killings. The education system was obliterated because all educated people were killed in the genocide. Due to the Khmer Rouge corruption runs rampant in the government and education system. This corruption along with Cambodia being mostly Buddhist plays a huge role in the hopelessness of this country.

 As I arrived in Cambodia the hopelessness I had been reading about hit me full force. After hours of traveling our flight finally arrived in the city of Phnom Phen at midnight. As we drove through the dark streets to get to our hotel I became very aware of one of Cambodia's main attractions: sex tourism. Prostitution seamed to be on every other street corner as we weaved our way through the city. The next day our team took an eight hour buss drive to Battambang where we would be spending the first three weeks of our trip. As we drove my heart began to ache even more as I saw the tin shacks and stilted wooden sheds that the people called home. I became so aware of peoples hopelessness; I could see it on the faces of everyone from small children helping to bring in the rice harvest to grandparents sleeping in hammocks. It was to much to bare and I began to cry out to God.

How was little me suppose to do anything to help anyone in this country with pain everywhere I looked. I was helplessly aware of my inferiority to do anything. I was frustrated because all I wanted was to tell each one of them that there was hope in Jesus, there was a God that loved them. But I knew that was impossible. I felt like the responsibility to tell them was mine. As I lifted the people up in prayer, out of lack of anything else to do, God met me. He came and reminded me that HIS love for the people was far beyond anything that I could even imagine. He reminded me that He had them in the palm of his hand and that I was to do nothing but what He called me to.

Saving people is not my job, I am not the messiah but the messenger. As Jesus spoke truth about these people and his care for them, my frustration melted into hope. Jesus is capable of speaking to people that I can not reach, Jesus' love has no bounds, His mercy is with everyone if they accept it. I realized in that moment that God loves Cambodia. I had known it in my head but once again, God miraculously let this truth sink deep into my heart. I knew that anything that happened from that moment on would be because of Jesus working in hearts and not because anything I could do. I felt like God humbled me and comforted me by reminding me of how big He is and that He was already in Cambodia long before my team went there. It was my opportunity to simply partner with what God was already doing there. Jesus is totally capable of bringing people into his loving arms without using me; what amazed me is that He loves me enough that He wants me to be able to be a part of what He is doing in the lives of His other children.