Cambodian Reflections

We just came back exhausted from our Cambodian trip. It was quite an experience. Our church sent about 19 people, divided up into three teams. One team went to an orphanage, about 1 ½ hour outside of Phnom Penh. Our church has been ministering to this orphanage for some years. Another team of teachers went to help train some Cambodian school teachers. I’Ching and I constituted the third team, and our purpose was to speak to university students and teach some classes at a bible college there.

One of our contacts in Phnom Penh was a missionary and his family. They have been in Cambodia for 11 years, and worked with Cambodian refugees in the US before that. He speaks Khmer and gave us a lot of insight into what is going on in Cambodia. He and his wife are really warm and hospitable. They invited us to dinner a couple of times, and were really pleasant to get to know. His 16-year-old son who prefers the nickname “Peter” from The Chronicles of Narnia (!) is a great Dutch Blitz player, and we had a great time introducing I’Ching to the game.

Universities in Phnom Penh do not have dorms on campus for their students—they have to find their own housing. This can be a great difficulty for them, especially those who come from the provinces. Many male students stay at some of the Buddhist temples for free, but it is not a great environment for study. So our friend runs a male dorm and a female dorm, each with a resident director. They look out for students who are bright and poor as potential dorm residents. The goal is to have 70% Christian students and 30% non-Christian. All of the students are ministered to and cared for.

I’Ching and I each gave a one-hour talk to the dorm students over two nights. I also was able to attend the Khmer church service on Sunday. The really encouraging thing about these experiences is that the Khmer students are so hungry for the gospel and to follow Christ. They ask good questions, and we were able to have some engaging conversations with the ones that spoke English. Some people from the other teams were able to come with us one night, and they all helped to engage the students afterward.

We also taught at a bible college for three days. Each day starts with a devotional in chapel. We also taught an afternoon class for a few hours on two days. These were also wonderful students who were really hungry for the Word of God.

For all of our meetings, we had to use a translator. This is one difficulty in Cambodia. All of our meetings cover only about half of what one would expect because of translation. Furthermore, the Khmer language lacks words for some biblical, theological, and philosophical concepts, so it is quite difficult to communicate certain ideas to them. One need for Cambodian bible students is to enhance their theological vocabulary, perhaps by taking words from English and having the meanings explained in Khmer. There is a lot of work to be done in this area.

The good news is that the Church is growing in Cambodia, and the young people are really open to the Gospel. Buddhism is just a piece of the cultural identity and furniture there—it doesn’t really meet the needs of the soul. So many are open to Christianity, and thus both the Buddhist priests and the authorities are concerned with the growth of the Christianity. Officially, the percentage of Christians in Cambodia is up to 4%, but it is estimated to be much higher. Many Christians meet in house churches because the government (specifically the Ministry of Cults and Religions) often seek to suppress the churches by what you might call “bureaucratic persecution”: endless red tape, exorbitant bribes and fees, and intrusive demands for personal information. But the gospel is advancing.

On the other hand, Cambodia is a bit of a depressing place. It is so poor, and with so many needs. Corruption and passivity are a way of life there. There are more NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) there than in most countries, trying to help out, and tons of foreign aid money. But it passes through many hands, and a little is skimmed off into people’s pockets at each step along the way. Cambodia needs a revolution of values before it experiences progress beyond third-world status. I’Ching estimates that it is about 20 years or so behind Malaysia in terms of development.

Ironically, Phnom Penh used to be referred to as “The Paris of the East.” Our friend Alvin informed us that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew visited Prince Sihanouk in the ‘60s and told him that he hoped that one day Singapore would catch up with Phnom Penh! Looking at the two countries now, it is hard to believe that such a switch in fortunes could have happened. Cambodia is a shattered country, picking itself up from the wreckage caused by decades of warfare, civil war, and the Communist rule of the Khmer Rouge. It is estimated that 1/3 of the country’s population died under the rule of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. There is a missing generation in Cambodia today as a result of Pol Pot.

The last day of our trip we toured Tuol Sleng, the Genocide Museum. This used to be a high school, but was turned into Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge. Out of about 17,000 people imprisoned at S-21 from 1975 to 1979, there were only 12 survivors. The wickedness of this regime is beyond belief. Every prisoner had a photo taken upon arrival. Thousands of these photographs are on display in room after room at the museum. Ordinary people from all ages, men and women, all stations of life, stare back at you from the past. Many were tortured until they admitted to fictitious crimes, for which they were then executed. Also on display were many of the implements of torture used. There are some photographs from the Killing Fields, filled with mass graves and uncountable multitudes of skulls arranged in stacks. The last room of the museum contains many skulls of the victims.

It was a sobering end to our trip, but a necessary reminder of the fact of evil in our world, a fact that is often denied or trivialized.

More on our trip next time.