Sadness, Reverence, and Unbridled Joy

First full day in Cambodia, and could it have gotten any more amazing? The day started with Will and Carrie going for a walk, and spotting a traffic jam, CAUSED BY AN ELEPHANT. We all congregated in the lobby and soon found out that none of us slept really well, and had been up without an alarm for quite some time. God did provide, as he always does, and we had a day where we all felt pretty energized.

After a traditional Cambodian breakfast (haha) of omelets, pancakes, and for Will the big breakfast platter, we set out on our way with the other two team here in Cambodia to S-21, which is an old high school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a concentration camp. We all felt the aching in our hearts as we saw the gruesome pictures, read the horrific accounts, and most haunting, saw the hundreds of faces that the Khmer Rouge documented as they brought them into the camp, tortured, and killed them. They killed 20,000 in 3 years just at that place. We then went to the Killing Fields, a place where they would truck people to murder them and push them into mass graves. It was an emotional experience to see the brutality and lack of respect for human life, all of which happened all too recently. It is tough to go through that but vital to see in order to understand where Cambodia has been, and the darkness that the nation is coming out of and fighting, a fight that is fought by a growing population of Christians.

Peter, a Cambodian that works for New Life Missions (who runs the churches and the orphanages that we are working with), then took us to lunch then to the the main church campus which is here in Phnom Penh. On the way, he told us about the Weekly Evangelism Club (WEC), which is a group of Christians that commits to share the gospel once a week in a one on one setting with a non-believer in Cambodia. They started a year ago, and are already up to 2,000 WEC members. Their goal is to get to 3,000 by the end of the year, and eventually 5,000. They say by doing that, they can share the gospel 20,000 times a year!!! This is a country that is 98% Buddhist. Talk about praying BIG!!

We had a great opportunity to pray for the church as a group of 26 (all three teams from globalX), then decided that we would LOVE to go see the Phnom Penh orphanage, since most of us hadn’t seen it yet, and didn’t know when we would have the opportunity to do it again. Talk about God putting plans in work we didn’t know about. On the way, Peter told us that ALL THE KIDS WOULD BE THERE!!!! We got so excited about being able to spend time with our kids before seeing them at church tomorrow morning. We got to the orphanage, walked down the long road to their gate, and to our surprise, there were the kids from all 3 orphanages, close to 100 in all, all lined up in two lines for us to walk through, waiting on us. They all started clapping we when walked up. The lows of the evil of Cambodia were far overcome with the joy and love we felt when we saw these precious children of God. The kids immediately hugged and called out the names of the familiar faces, and QUICKLY gravitated to our 4 first timers, when introductions to Will, Suzanne, Meredith and Ashley quickly turned into hugs and holding of hands. For us veterans, we just let it all just wash over us as we greeted, hugged, picked up, loved on, and sat with “our children”. God is such a good, loving and caring God, and seeing these children who have so much, in the Western world’s eyes, that they are lacking just so unabated joy, love and happiness truly showed God’s love.

After a couple hours there, we were sentenced to have to leave and head back to the hotel. We grabbed some dinner and packed up our stuff to go to the beach and then grouped up for a team debrief. 9 people who were virtually strangers 8 months ago sat in a room having laughs, talking about highs and lows, and just really being a group of close friends digesting the day. God is good, and has placed great blessings on us to have such a wonderful group of individuals who truly care about each other.

Thanks for your prayers for strength, they were certainly felt today. Please, please, please continue that for the next 48 hours as we have a couple full days of playing hard with the kids at the beach. We won’t have internet access tomorrow, so we will be back to blogging Monday night. Thanks for your support. We miss all of you and look forward to telling you more stories throughout the trip.

PS We will have pictures to upload Monday