CMT’07

My first time leading a summer project team was to Cambodia. It was my 3rd time there and suffice to say, year after year, Phnom Penh’s weather did not relent. It was dang hot, but I fell in love with the heat, the country’s smells and mostly, the people. They actually have their own number system. At one appointment with a recent PRC, I just took all the Follow Up booklets because them squiggles and dots looked all the same to me.

Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention in World History when we skirted through Cambodia’s past, but the books came to life as we toured the Killing Fields. My heart broke. A whole educated generation was wiped out by a ruthless dictator, Pol Pot. I didn’t think weapons of mass destruction could come in the form of palm tree fronds. The students we met on campus were literally the hope and future of the nation.

Many of them came from very poor countryside villages. We got to visit one when we partnered up with the Jesus Film team. We slept when the sun went down because they didn’t have electricity. We slept in a bamboo hut. We slept above pigs & chickens and woke up to the smell of burning trash. They didn’t have proper sanitation disposal, let alone paved roads. The clucking chickens were a problem for some on my team.

As Jesus did, we went from town to town (or rather, contextualized to this society, hut to hut) sharing the Gospel & I witnessed many pray to receive Christ. We taught the schoolchildren how to sing “God is so good” in English. The 200 kids rocked it. One looked like she belonged in a Precious Moments catalog. These were precious moments.

Ashlie, Bung & Sarah Kim (gctc) were part of this team.

This is a story I have shared here & will do so, forevermore.