Redemption and the Sex Trade

One of the most heartbreaking things I learned about while in Asia is the sale of young women into the sex trade. Among one of the minority groups in Cambodia, for example, families sell their daughters to those who run this loathsome business. A fourteen year old girl brings $1000. For a poverty stricken family, this is a huge sum of money. The minimum wage for factory workers is $50 per month, so this represents nearly two years' wages.How can parents do this? My friend, Susan Lucasse, who lives in that part of the world, helped me to figure this out. She explained that parents there have children with the expectation that the children will take care of their parents. The money received from the sale of a daughter is one way of supporting the parents.Doesn't anyone care about the welfare of the girl involved? Yes. Several Christian ministries do. Phany, who ministers to children at risk, for example, is concerned enough to train pastors to help these young women. In one town that is a tourist center, they counted over 100 brothels and more than 70 of these use underage girls. How can they help these young girls?Recently two pastors attended a conference in Phnom Penh. One evening they noticed that young men on motorbikes brought girls into a certain hotel near where they were staying and evidently collected them a while later. Curious, they went into the hotel and asked about it. The clerk at the desk asked if they would like to rent a room for an hour and they said, "Yes." What a huge risk for a pastor to take! Some time later they brought in a young girl and they explained that they did not want to have sex with her, that they were pastors and wondered how they could help her. As she wept out her story, one of them recorded it on his cell phone. The girl had been sold three months earlier and was now in intense pain, but her bosses wouldn't let her stop serving customers. They promised to try to help her and went about finding out where they could take her to a safe house and how to get her the help she needed.The next night they went back and asked if they could have the same girl. "She's with another customer." They said that they would wait for her, but to no avail. Evidently the bosses don't let these girls form relationships either with customers or even with one another. They tend to move the girls around so that they don't go back to the same places.So the pastors agreed to have two other girls. When the two girls arrived they explained once again that they didn't want to have sex with them, but that they are pastors and wanted to help them in any way possible. The pastors asked about the girl from the previous night and the girls thought that they knew who she is but had no idea where she might be. Would these girls like to get out of the trade? Absolutely. So the pastors, who by now had made all the necessary arrangements, took them out through the hotel lobby, explaining that they were taking these girls out to dinner, took them into a taxi and off to a safe house.There are groups that help these girls in practical ways. For one thing they are taught to read. Often girls who have been sold into the sex trade have no more than a second grade education. And they are taught a new trade so that they can earn a living. Near where I stayed in Phnom Penh there is a restaurant, begun by an English woman to give some of these young women employment, but which has now been turned over to eight of them, who run it and are making quite a success of their business. Nearby there is a "pamering room" where some of these women give manicures, facials, neck and shoulder massages and are adding to their reperatoire of skills as they seek to earn their living in different ways.Above all, these women have experienced a spiritual transformation as they have come to trust Christ as their Savior, and know that their past is forgiven and wiped clean. They are truly new people, transformed women, daughters of the King."This is my Father's world, Oh let me ne'er forgetThat though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet." draft 3/23/08 by Cora's Asian Oddyssey

Missionary Training Institute

While in Seoul, I stayed at the Missionary Training Institute, which was founded more than 20 years ago by my friend, Young Son, who sensed that God was calling him back to Korea to train Koreans to be missionaries. Young has since retired--actually he is in the upper midwest of the United States, pastoring a church in the Dakotas--but the work of MTI goes on and I was very much privileged to see it first hand. During the term when I visited, students were studying English quite intensively. On certain floors of the building only English is permitted. Basically the school day goes from breakfast at 7:30 a.m. through late homework help until about 9:00 at night. These students work hard and are quite serious about pursuing their calling. My friend, Danya Kelberg, teaches intermediate English and drilled the 8 or 9 students in her class on various things that they were learning. I sympathized with them because learning English as a foreign language is hard! English is such an irregular language and full of idiomatic expressions that a lot of just plain memorization is required. I'm so grateful to have learned it as my mother tongue! Students get exposure to a variety of accents. Their current teachers come from the United States, Australia and England and they have to learn to understand each of these accents. One of the young women I spoke with had spent some time in Uzbekestan and hoped to return there. I asked her about learning Uzbek and she assured me that it was much easier than learning English, since it was closer to the Korean language than is English. A man named Joshua was there with his wife and his 21 year old cerebal palsy daughter, who lives in a wheelchair and doesn't speak any language. Joshua and his family hope to go to Swaziland to do child evangelism. I expect that English will be very useful to him there, although I suspect that he will have to learn the local tribal language, too. Perhaps the most radiant of the people I met there was a young man who grew up in Japan, where his parents are missionaries. For Koreans to go to Japan as missionaries is a real work of grace. There is a centuries-old animosity between the two nations, since the Japanese have invaded and occupied the Korean peninsula many times over the years. This young man already speaks Japanese, having grown up there, but was working hard to learn English. Korean missionaries are everywhere in the world. In Cambodia alone, there were more than 600 of them, plus those who come for short stays of a couple of weeks to do specific projects. Koreans from a Christian univeristy have been invited to come and found a similar institution in Cambodia and have even been granted the land on which to build their school. They also blend in with the scenery much better than do we westerners! They are also the salt of the earth: they work hard, are focused, willing to make sacrifices and they stick with the task until it is completed. How much we have to learn from them! I got to speak to the student body about my own experience and invited questions afterward. Perhaps the most touching was from a young woman who asked "How about single women missionaries?" Right on! It seems that she had spent time in Jordan, where it is very hard for a woman to be alone. Not knowing her background, I gave a more generic answer. It seems that in God's providence, single women have been largely responsible for evangelising the world over the years. They have gone where men could not go--and still do. In China, girls in their early teens go off to remote regions to share the gospel with people who never had a chance to hear the good news. The government watches men more closely and tends to ignore the activities of women, so these girls are evidently quite free to travel. Anyway, being a single woman in a foreign land can be a lonely experience. I reminded them that we are not meant to be alone in our endeavors, and that we have a lot to learn from our Roman Catholic friends, for who singleness is also a vocation. Their single clergy live in community and we Protestants need to realize the wisdom of that. We all need support and companionship. As I read through the New Testament I am more and more convinced that community is God's norm for us.

Redemption and the Sex Trade

One of the most heartbreaking things I learned about while in Asia is the sale of young women into the sex trade. Among one of the minority groups in Cambodia, for example, families sell their daughters to those who run this loathsome business. A fourteen year old girl brings $1000. For a poverty stricken family, this is a huge sum of money. The minimum wage for factory workers is $50 per month, so this represents nearly two years' wages.

How can parents do this? My friend, Susan Lucasse, who lives in that part of the world, helped me to figure this out. She explained that parents there have children with the expectation that the children will take care of their parents. The money received from the sale of a daughter is one way of supporting the parents.

Doesn't anyone care about the welfare of the girl involved? Yes. Several Christian ministries do. Phany, who ministers to children at risk, for example, is concerned enough to train pastors to help these young women. In one town that is a tourist center, they counted over 100 brothels and more than 70 of these use underage girls. How can they help these young girls?

Recently two pastors attended a conference in Phnom Penh. One evening they noticed that young men on motorbikes brought girls into a certain hotel near where they were staying and evidently collected them a while later. Curious, they went into the hotel and asked about it. The clerk at the desk asked if they would like to rent a room for an hour and they said, "Yes." What a huge risk for a pastor to take! Some time later they brought in a young girl and they explained that they did not want to have sex with her, that they were pastors and wondered how they could help her. As she wept out her story, one of them recorded it on his cell phone. The girl had been sold three months earlier and was now in intense pain, but her bosses wouldn't let her stop serving customers. They promised to try to help her and went about finding out where they could take her to a safe house and how to get her the help she needed.

The next night they went back and asked if they could have the same girl. "She's with another customer." They said that they would wait for her, but to no avail. Evidently the bosses don't let these girls form relationships either with customers or even with one another. They tend to move the girls around so that they don't go back to the same places.

So the pastors agreed to have two other girls. When the two girls arrived they explained once again that they didn't want to have sex with them, but that they are pastors and wanted to help them in any way possible. The pastors asked about the girl from the previous night and the girls thought that they knew who she is but had no idea where she might be. Would these girls like to get out of the trade? Absolutely. So the pastors, who by now had made all the necessary arrangements, took them out through the hotel lobby, explaining that they were taking these girls out to dinner, took them into a taxi and off to a safe house.

There are groups that help these girls in practical ways. For one thing they are taught to read. Often girls who have been sold into the sex trade have no more than a second grade education. And they are taught a new trade so that they can earn a living. Near where I stayed in Phnom Penh there is a restaurant, begun by an English woman to give some of these young women employment, but which has now been turned over to eight of them, who run it and are making quite a success of their business. Nearby there is a "pamering room" where some of these women give manicures, facials, neck and shoulder massages and are adding to their reperatoire of skills as they seek to earn their living in different ways.

Above all, these women have experienced a spiritual transformation as they have come to trust Christ as their Savior, and know that their past is forgiven and wiped clean. They are truly new people, transformed women, daughters of the King.

"This is my Father's world, Oh let me ne'er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet."

Visit to a Silk Making Village

While in Haoi visiting Susan Lucasse, we visited a village outside of town where all of the residents were involved in some way in the production or sale of silk. Evidently they have been involved in this trade for generations and work in the time honored ways of their craft.

Silk Village

Snapshots of Seoul

You've surely shopped at Sam's Club. What you probably didn't know is that Sam has a Korean cousin who also has a mega mart called Kim's Club.

That place with the golden arches, whose Korean name I can't even read, delivers here. However, I can read the name on the bright yellow box on the back of the red motorbike that does the deliveries: McDelivery.

And Korean chopsticks are flat and made of metal. It takes re-learning how use chopsticks, and I'm afraid I'm quite awkward with these.

Yesterday when I was out seeing the sights I realized something that I hadn't seen before: Seoul is in a valley surrounded by mountains. However, there are so many tall buildings that it's hard to see beyond them! It's all a matter of getting a different perspective.

Palm Sunday in Seoul

With all my travelling, I had quite forgotten that today is Palm Sunday. Having arrived in Seoul yesterday I really wanted to worship with Korean Christians today, Sunday. So Danya and I jumped into a taxi and although Danya had told the driver to take us to a nearby landmark, she asked if he knew where the Chung Yeon Presbyterian Church is located, and he said he would take us there. Evidently this church is well known. It is, in fact, a Korean mega church with 50,000 members. They have 5 services each Sunday , so although I would have estimated the number of people in the service differently, evidently there were 10,000 people in the service we attended.

We were met at the front door by the greeters, who spotted us right away as foreigners, and made sure that we were escorted upstairs to the balcony section for foreigners, where we were issued headsets and could choose from 6 different languages for simultaneous translation. We were also given a bilingual bulletin, which had the order of service listed in both Korean and English. Even the hymns were translated for us, complete with music.

It was indeed a glorious service. There were two children's choirs and at least 300 people in the adult choir. In addition there was a 20 piece orchestra and 4 maual organ. Singing with a large congregation is a glorious experience. The congregational singing included some selections usually reserved for soloists or concerts: The Holy City, which we sang at two different points in the service, and Palms, but the congreagation managed to cope well with the music, and as I said before, the service was glorious. The sermon was on Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, of course, and each time that the pastor read from Scripture, he had the congregation read it in unison. Now there's an interesting way to have the congregation participate in worship.

After the service, another man, Mr. Kim, shepherded us out of the sanctuary and over to the building where they served a dish of noodles with a dollop of kimchee to everyone. As you walk in the door, you pick up a dish of noodles (White noodles, that Mr. Kim called "wedding noodles") and proceeded to an area with lots of taps, from which you added broth to your bowl of noodles. I'd never seen a wall of taps for broth before! Evidently everyone who attends church is welcome to have a dish of noodles with the congregation after the service! Since they seem to do this every week, the kitchen staff is amazingly efficient at serving large numbers of people. Many years ago missionaries used to refer to people who professed to convert to Christianity in order to receive a handout from the church as "rice Christians". Today we were "noodle Christians."

Pray for Burma Day

Last Sunday at the Chiang Mai International Church in Thailand, they had "Pray for Burma Day". I was deeply touched that the Christians in Chiang Mai would set aside a day to pray for their neighbors to the north. Given the upheaval and violence that has been going on in Burma, prayer is a wonderful way in which to minister to people there.

In the church service, two Burmese choirs sang: one sang the National Anthem of Burma, which is a very majestic piece, and a choir of orphanas, all dressed in red and black, sang songs of praise to God in their language.

As part of the service, various church members who are working in Burma or with Burmese refugees in Thailand gave reports of their experiences and those of the people with whom they are working. There has been much bloodshed and killing. Many people are hiding in the jungle trying to avoid the soldiers. Others have been displaced as their villages have been destroyed. The more we heard the more evident it was that setting aside a day to pray for the country of Burma was a very important thing to do.

And so we did. We had time in the worship service to ask God to have mercy on the Burmese people and to bring the current troubles to and end.

Perhaps others ought to be praying for Burma,, too.

Elephant Camp in Thailand

While visiting Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, Shelagh Wynne and I spent a day at an Elephant Camp. We took a song tao, basically a red pick up truck with an enclosure on the back with two lengthwise benches ("song" means two and evidently "tao" means seats) up into the hills, which was an experience in itself.

The first event we attended was the elephant show, where the big beasts did lots of tricks, stacked wood, played soccer and basketball, danced and did lots of great tricks. The grand finale was the most amazing. They brought out their paint boxes, which they carried in with their trunks walked up their assigned easels and began to paint with brushes in their trunks. At first it looked like a lot of lines on the paper, but as the work progressed, it was obvious that these were becoming real pictures. Most of them painted flowers, but one elephant painted a picture of an elephant, which I think is quite extraordinary. Who ever would have thought that elephants could be arty?

Then we stocked up on bananas and sugar cane to feed the elephant we would ride, climbed the stairs to a raised platform and climbed into the wooden box on the elephant's back, the mahout came up to his place at the back of the elephant's neck as the elephant lifted him with his trunk and we were off. We started off downhill, forded a river and went uphill on the other side. This is not a ride for anyone who gets seasick, because with each step of the elephant you sway back and forth. It was fun, but if I were to do this on a long trip (Shelagh has elderly friends there, who went into Burma by elephant many years ago and it took them two months!) I would want much more padded seating.

After riding the elephant for about an hour we dismounted on another raised platform, and walked through the stalls of handicrafts made by the hill people, who greet dismounting passenger. Since they are all in traditional native dress, I felt as though I were in the middle of an article in National Geographic.

Next we got into a cart drawn by two white oxen, with a large sun umbrella over it, and rode through neatly cultivated fields to lunch. The oxcart is much less uncomfortable than the elephant's back.

After lunch we went down to the river and got onto a bamboo raft to float down the river. It was more of a "Crusing Down the River" kind of adventure than a Huck Finn kind of enterprise. In fact, it is one of the most relaxing things that anyone can do. Imagine floating down a smoothly flowing shallow river with tropical foliage and an occasional elephant on both river banks. We couldn't see the birds whose songs we heard but we did see a profusion of brilliantly colored butterflies flitting through the reeds along the banks. In case anyone was thirsty, a man in a boat paddled out to sell drinks. Shelagh and I had a coconut apiece, which he opened with a machete and inserted a straw. After finishing the drink, we scooped out the coconut flesh and ate it.

Shelagh mentioned that it would take a couple of months to go from there to Bangkok by elephant but only a couple of weeks to go by raft. Even without the time factor, for sheer comfort and pleasure I'd choose to go by bamboo raft!

Narin's Story

One of the significant people I've spent time with while in Cambodia is Pastor Narin Chey. He and his wife, Quenie, of whom I wrote early on in my blog, have planted a church in Phnom Penh and are having a fruitful ministry there.

It was only on my last day in Phnom Penh that I learned that he is a survivor of the killing fields. It was a horrible time in Cambodian history. Everyone lived in fear--or in terror--of being rounded up, taken to the killing fields and executed. This was done in an utterly random, capricious way and no one was exempt.

One day when Narin was about five year old, a truck pulled into their village, loaded up all the inhabitants, including Narin, his parents and all his siblings and took them off for several hours' drive to the killing fields. They arrived about mid afternoon and were told that they would be executed at sundown. So they waited for the end. You can well imagine the utter terror that they all experienced. It was not unusual for whole families to be executed and their bodies dumped into a mass grave. This wasn't as simple as being shot by a firing squad. People were bound and bludgeoned to death on the edge of a large pit that they would have helped to dig.

But obviously, Narin wasn't executed. Nor was his family. A few hours later, they were told that the general had changed his mind, that they would simply be resettled in another village. Resettling people in different places was routine in those days. The whole country was in constant upheaval.

Life in the new village was not easy. The parents worked long hours, probably before dawn until after sunset, and the children didn't get to see them very often. When they did, the parents were exhausted. The whole country was involved in the production of rice. The utopian dream was to become a wealthy nation through abundant production of rice. The workers and their families were fed very little food, perhaps a small can full of rice for the whole family. Hunger was constant. Life was lonely and bleak and difficult yet they survived.

I believe that the Lord spared Narin and his family for a reason. Years later when he came to Phnom Penh to go to university, someone shared the gospel with him and he came to faith in Christ. It took a long time for him to tell his parents, who are devout Buddhists. When he did tell them they disowned him, breaking off all communication. His faith cost him something. His relationship with Jesus Christ became the central thing in his life. He joined a Christian organization and shared the gospel with other students. Eventually he became a pastor. He has since reconciled with his parents, who are still devout Buddhists, and Narin continues to share the gospel with people in creataive ways as he shepherds his congregation.

Theme Song

Sometimes I've discovered a theme song to sing on my travels. It's just some hymn that seems to fit that particular adventure that I find myself singing throughout the trip. Now, I don't exactly have a concert type voice, but I sing it softly in worship to the Lord.

Some years ago as I was hiking the Canadian Rockies, through some of the most spectacularly beautiful scenery anywhere in the world, my theme song was "How Great Thou Art". During my visit to Nepal a few years later it was "When morning gilds the skies my heart, awakening, cries,'May Jesus Christ be praised" because in a spiritually stifiling atmosphere, it was important to me to sing, "May Jesus Christ be praised!'

While in Cambodia, I've been singing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." When walking through the temples at Angkor, where people were worshipping idols, it was important to me to be able to sing praise to the Living God, whom I serve. He is after all, the Lord of all the earth. It's always appropriate to sing praise to Him, no matter where in the world we might be:

"Let every kindred, every tribe on this terrestrial ball, to him all majesty ascribe, and crown him Lord of all."

More snapshots of life in Cambodia

When I saw "morning glory" listed on the menu I imagined it to be a dish of flowers. After all, in Italy we breaded and fried zucchini flowers, why shouldn't they serve morning glories? Finally I got the chance to have some, but there were no flowers and no vines. Here, morning glory is the name of a swamp grass--the kind that grows in ditches at the side of the road--and often it is braised and served with oyster sauce or served in soup. It isn't bad unless you try to imagine how much sewage your serving might have absorbed. It is after all, a green vegetable, and I expect that it contains at least some vitamins.

Before I came to Cambodia I expected that everyone would drink tea. After all, this is Asia. What a surprise to realize that the national drink is coffee, which is grown here. Coffee here is served with generous helpings of condensed milk, which both whitens and sweetens it. Since this is a tropical climate, cold drinks are very much in order. Iced coffee is served with a thick layer of condensed milk at the bottom of the glass--perhaps a quarter to a third of the glass--before the coffee is poured in over it to make a striped looking beverage, which is rather attractive to look at.

Why would anyone put the legs of kitchen furniture into bowls of water? It looks rather strange. But it is a very effective way of keeping crawling insects from getting into the stuff stored in that furniture!

Road crews have been paving some dirt streets in my neighborhood. It's a very labor-intensive, low-tech operation. They do send in machinery to level the roadbed. The rest is done by hand. First of all, they dump loads of rock on the levelled roadbed, and crews of women come in and spread the rocks out in a reasonably even level. Then they dump loads of sand, which the next crew loads up into wheelbarrows and dumps on top of the rocks. The other day as I watched a crew do this on a nearby street I was deeply saddened to see young boys, who looked to be about 10 or 12 years old, pushing and dumping the wheelbarrow of sand. I don't know if they use child labor on every street that gets paved, but seeing it even once is heartbreaking. Then they bring in a portable cement mixer, which is placed at the head of the street, and laborers shovel cement, sand and gravel into it and let it mix. The mixed concrete is shoveled into a wheelbarrow, wheeled down the street and dumped over a latticed frame of bamboo, where it is spread out by hand and becomes the paved road. At home, where labor is more expensive, they would just drive up in a huge cement mixer truck and dump the contents on the street for the road crews to spread out evenly.

Choeung Ek

Most of the time I write these items in a state of excitement. This one I write out of profound saddness. You may not even want to read this one. It's gruesome.

I visited killing fields. It was a deeply moving experience and I was saddened to see the very place where so many people died so brutally. I thought it was important to visit this place to understan Cambodian culture and attitudes. The memorial is very effective. One cannot walk away untouched by it.The first thing you see is a tall structure made mostly glass, and as you approach you see that it contains shelves of skulls, some intact, some with great holes in them. The are the remains of some 8000 of the victims. In the years 1975-1979 thousands of people were sent here to be brutally executed. They were bound and taken to the edge of a pit and either bludgeoned or stabbed to death and pushed into a common grave with other prisoners. The Khmer Rouge couldn't affoard to waste bullets on executions, so they were done in a primitive way. Some 300 people were trucked to this place and killed here each day. The slaughter was indiscriminate: men, women, children and even infants were executed. One of the most sickening things in this place was to see the tree with a very wide and strong trunk against which infants and small children were bashed. It seemed that no one was exempt from the kiling: pesants, intellectuals, government ministers, laborers, teachers--the whole gamut of society was subject to execution. It was a horror beyond imagining.Today the place is peaceful. Yet they have left the common graves from which they exhumed the remains of the victims as great big holes in the ground. One is very aware that this is no park: these were the killing fields.

Just before I joined my friend, Alison to make this trip, a friend gave me a copy of Killing Fields, Living Fields, the story of how God was at work to bring people to faith in Himself even as this barbaric spate of genocide was happening. There is no situation so dark and hopeless that Lord cannot transform it into a means to glorify Himself. Thousands and thousands of people escaped over the border into Thailand and scores of thousands of these came to faith in Christ while there. So many times when I have asked people old enough to have lived through this period how they came to faith in Christ, they have told me that it was in a refugee camp. Since that dark and horrifying time there has been a profound spiritual hunger among people here. Certainly God has brought good out of an unthinkably evil situation.

Women's Retreat

This weekend I participated in a retreat for women in leadership of Christian organizations here. We went to a place called Kep, which the French built as a resort town during colonial times and called Kep-Sur-Mer. The Khmer Rouge destroyed their huge beach houses, but their skeletons are still standing and give ther impression of great elegance. The King also had a beach house (read that mansion) out on a point of land there that was also abandoned about the time of the Khmer Rouge. It hasn't been destroyed--just abandoned--and I can well imagine some developer coming in and making a very elegant restaurant and hotel there. Today Kep is a quiet, little known beach community. Even my Cambodian student friends have never heard of it.

We stayed at a guest house next door to the home of an amazing couple, in whose home we met. Ling is a dynamo of a little Cambodian woman and is the most gracious and giving hostess you''ll ever want to meet. She is married to a French man, Jean Luc, who teaches in Singapore, one month on and two months off, and writes in his off time. He is laid back, funny and totally charming. Ling had the vision to build a retreat center in Kep, and bought a lovely plot of land on the other side of the mountain from where they live. We saw plans for the retreat and these two people are a couple of the most imaginative, creative folks I've ever met. They are trusting God for the funds to start building and for the people to whom they will minister there. The Lord has already provided a friend who teaches architecture in England, who brought his class to survey the property and do elevation drawings. I expect that the Lord will continue to provide in unexpected ways.

Meanwhile their house was just finished in November. Ling and Jean-Luc let their imaginations run wild when designing the house, a U shaped structure with a wall of windows behind the balcony overlooking the Gulf of Thailand. They have used tropical hardwoods native to Cambodia, native stone of various sorts, various bits and pieces from France, from Bali from all over the world. And they open up this fabulous structure to groups of Christian friends, treat them like visiting royalty, feed them wonderful food, including exotic tropical fruit that grows on their property and bless them copiously.


My Bible study with them went well. I decided to do Jesus' encounters with women and focused on the Samaritan Woman at the Well, whom I consider to be the first women missionary, whose testimony brought her whole village to Jesus. I only needed to do one session: we galivanted and played for the rest of the time. Ling, who is very task oriented, took us to task on Saturday afternoon when she said, "This is supposed to be a retreat and you are having a vacation instead." My instructions from Donna Rudy were to make sure that these women relaxed and stopped working. I think the time was well used with these workaholic women

We ate food that I''ve never had before. Local cuisine is flavored with bunches of green peppercorns, which grow there and/or is served on a bed of them. We ate fresh seafood, including a lot of squid, of which I''m very fond, and tasted exotic fruit that I never dreamed existed. I don''t even know the names of much of the stuff we ate, but it was fabulous. I do remember durian fruit which grows on a tree in quite a large pod, sort of like jackfruit, but with a spikier pod. The fruit is inside and looks like huge beans, that you lift out of the various compartments of the pod. The pod, quite frankly, stinks, so you prepare it out of doors. (Jean Luc refused to allow any of it to be brought indoors.) Anyway, the fruit is the consistency of pudding, creamy and soft and sweet with an unusual fruity flavor.

The best part of this experience was having fellowship with these extraordinary women. All of the Cambodians present had to flee during the Khmer Rouge regime, all of them spent time in refugee camps, and some even came to faith in Christ while there. ( Keing, my roommate for the retreat, said that before she got to the refugee camp she had never even heard of Jesus, but there someone shared the gospel with her and she believed. She also said that in the largest of the camps there was a church of 30,000 people, so God was at work in the midst of adversity.) All of them have been through horrifying experiences and all have had to build new lives in other countries. The amazing thing is that none of them show any sign of bitterness. On the contrary, they are the most loving, gracious, giving people I have ever met. I felt honored indeed to spend time with them. They really ministered to me.

Scenes from Life in Cambodia

This week I went to the hairdresser here for the first time. It was really an experience. My friend, Donna Rudy had given me the name of hairdresser she used while she lived here. The shop is in a section of town frequented by tourists and the customers are mostly foreigners. I had reached the stage where I tell my hairdresser in Philadelphia, "I look like a shaggy dog. I need a haircut."

While they were shampooing me, they gave me a facial. They wiped my face with a wet cloth and laid strips of cucumber on me. "Hey! I smell like a salad!" After a few minutes they took off the cucumber and wiped my face again with another wet cloth. Then they did a facial massage that was absolutely delicious. Interestingly, the man in the chair net next to me was also getting the full treatment.

The lady in charge cut my hair and did a good job. When she finished she rubbed mousse into my hair and blow dried it so it came out a bit more boffant than I'd have liked. "Oh, my goodness! This is how my mother used to wear her hair. I don't want to look like my mother!!!"

When she finished my hair the next team came along and did an arm, shoulder and back massage that utterly revived me and calmed me down to the point that I didn't even complain about wearing my mother's hairdo. The cost of all this treatment? Beyond the budget of most Cambodians, but for foreigners it's a real bargain: $8.00.


I don't speak Cambodian but I gather that this is a culture in which everyone needs a title. I volunteer an afternoon a week with the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia and the woman I'm working with asked what she ought to call me. "Call me Cora." "Yes, but what title should I give you? Mother, aunt, sister..." "Call me sister."

All this would explain the greeting that I get from the guys who work in the furniture refinishing shop down the street from where I live: "Hello, Mama!" I learned years ago in Kenya that "Mama" is a title of respect used for any woman older than one''s self.The first time a Kenyan called me "Mama" I wondered who on earth he thought I was. Here in Cambodian culture I don't freak out any more.


One of the sad things about being here is seeing all the poverty. There are beggars everywhere and they are quite agressive and persistent. The saddest thing is to see the children who beg for a living. Co workers tell me that there are organziations of beggars and the kids are beaten and required to go out and beg. Sometimes there is a mother with children begging on the street. They camp out in front of restaurants frequented by tourists. If you sit at a sidewalk table, they realyly get up close and personal. In the neighborhood where the hairdresser is located there are disabled people begging, children, mothers with babies, the gamut. While I was having my hair cut some beggar kids were playing with a bike parked outside the shop and doing who knows what else and one of the employees of the shop grabbed, of all things a feather duster, ran outside and chased them down the street. The other evening as I was buying fruit in the open market two elderly ladies came along begging. The lady selling fruit gave them a handful of fruit, then the ladies turned to me to beg silently with hands in what we would call a "praying position". I said "No". The fruit seller said, "But these ladies are very poor." (And I've seen them sitting on the sidewalk in the shade, counting their money.)


There is a lot of crime and corruption here. It's everywhere. Sometimes it comes out in unusual ways. At 5:00 a.m. on Sunday the electricity went off. When the ceiling fan in my room stopped I knew the electricity had quit. We were without power for the whole day--the only house in the neighborhood so deprived. The landlord came and brought an electrician, who tried to find the source of the problem. Finally it was obvious: Someone had cut and stolen our power line.

Survivor Stories

As usual I'm collecting people's stories. People here have the most amazing stories to tell. A group of friends went off last Friday to visit some survivors of the Killing Fields here, and since I had committed to teaching an Italian Cooking lesson I couldn't accompany them. However, at supper the next night, one of the people who did go shared some of what they heard from the pepole they met the day before.

One of the people my friends met was Sok. During the Khmer Rouge he was arrested and while in jail he was beaten for 8 hours, I believe, by a guard. He eventually got out of jail, and escaped to Thailand, where he was in a refugee camp. The Christians in the refugee camp fasted and prayed for the people who would arrive there. Could this be why so many people's stories of their spiritual pilgrimage begin in a refugee camp? In any case, Sok met Christians and was converted. Within a very short time of his conversion-- in the first hour, evidently-- he ran into the former prison guard who had beaten him. Now what? He ran up to his former tormentor and said, "I've just been completly forgiven of all my sins and I want you to know that I forgive you, too." Is it any wonder that the former prison guard also became a Christian?

Sok's wife, Savy experienced the grace and protection of God before she even knew Him. She was being forced to marry a Khmer Rouge soldier. On the day of the wedding, she said she needed to go out and buy some things for her wedding outfit, and took the opportunity to escape in a boat with her sister. After a while they heard a motor boat and saw that it was filled with soldiers, so they slipped into the river to escape. They made their way to Thailand, which is no mean feat for any of these people. It meant walking through the jungle and swimming across rivers and avoiding soldiers and land mines. That any of them made it was God's grace. At one point Savy and her sister knew that they needed to cross a river but were unsure of where to go. It was a dark night and they really couldn't tell where to go. Suddenly the clouds parted briefly and the full moon shone brightly on the river so that they could see where to go and they were able to cross. The irony of all this is that there was no full moon that night. It was really only a sliver. But Savy made it to Thailand and the refugee camp, became a Christian and married Sok.

In their years in Canada they planted 3 Cambodian churches in Ontario and are back here to run a "modular seminary" where pastors come and study for something like 11 days at a time and don't have to leave their families or their churches for an extended time.

I'm overwhelmed by the stories I hear. These people have been through suffering that we can't begin to imagine, and yet in the midst of all the horror and the cruelty and sin involved, God is calling out a people for Himself in this part of the world and showing them grace. It may be that when people have nothing, no homes, no posessions, no safety, they realize how much they need a God who will save them, protect them and guide them.

CHINESE NEW YEAR

Today is the Chinese New Year. It is a big holiday here, and evidently throughout Asia.

It seems to be a time to honor one's ancestors. As I was walking through the streets in my part of town this morning, I noticed people making burnt offerings of paper play money and other things. When I arrived at the internet cafe that I visit almost every day I saw the altar, the "spirit house" that sits in the corner, right next to where I'm sitting as I write this, has offerings on it: incense a candle, five cups of some kind of liquid (I'm not going to taste it to find out what it is) a stack of oranges, several packets of cooked rice wrapped in banana leaves, a cooked fowl (either a chicken or a duck), a dried fish, an egg and other edibles.

Even here in a place of business, ancestors are duly honored today.

WHAT AM I DOING IN PHNOM PENH?

Last week I travelled to Siem Reap. So what am I doing now that I'm back in Phnom Penh? On Sunday a short term team with a group from Canada came to church and I asked if I could hang out with them for the day. We spent the afternoon at a state run orphanage, a hard place to be because it was pretty dirty and the kids were pretty lice-y, but a really necessary place to visit. The theme of the program they presented was, "God made you and He loves you and you're wonderful." A pretty relevant theme for unwanted kids, I think. Interestingly, as they were finishing their program the country director of the Methodist church (from North Carolina) and their community development director, a lovely lady from Bangladesh, came in, because they do a weekly Sunday school there.

I was most impressed with the Canadian team. They had great team spirit, were open to including waifs and strays like myself, they did a great presentation, they worked as a team with a group of Cambodian students, because their philosophy is not to come in to "do for" people but to come and work alongside people in the countries they are visiting. We had a great time together! They are visiting orphanages throughout Asia run by a group called Äsia's Hope. The team consists of about 6 or 8 people, including a children's pastor, who is really good at what he does. He really knows how to engage with children.

The person on the team that impressed me the most was a woman named Sua, who was born in Laos. She is from the Hmong tribe and when she was 5 years old the war broke out in Laos and a Scottish missionary lady helped the family--parents and 9 children, of which Sua is 7th--walk 11 days through the jungle to Thailand, where they spent 5 years in a refugee camp. During this time the Scottish lady visited them every day and taught the kids to read and write. At some point in their escape the father realized that he was totally dependent on God and became a Christian. In Asian countries, when the father gets converted, the whole family converts. Being a refugee--unwanted, displaced, without a home or an identity--is hard on a child, and Sua was really traumatized. The oldest three siblings were accepted to emigrate to the USA, and the rest of the family ended up in Canada. Sua had her struggles with God, was planning on suicide, but the Lord intervened, as did counselors, pastors, and friends, and she finally found healing and her identity in the Lord. For her doing this tour of orphanages has been a really healing experience. You should see how she shows love to the kids!

I spent Monday evening with these people, too, as they were going to say "Goodbye" to the children in the Asia's Hope orphanages here. They were waiting for the kids when the van brought them home from school (at about 6 p.m.) and they played with these kids and finally hugged everyone as they said "Goodbye." We did this at two orphanages. What touched me was (1) that these kids acted like they knew they are loved. No squabbling or jealousy. and (2) it was the KIDS who said, "We will be praying for you." Lots of tears. Today the team is off to another part of the country.

I'm becoming more engaged with the Friendship Club, where I am staying. I've volunteered to teach Italian cooking and this week we are going to make spaghetti alla carbonara. Who would have thought I'd be teaching Italian cooking in Cambodia? I'll also be leading a Bible study in English and possibly a photography class.

Tuesday I met with the director of the Evangelical Women's Fellowship, with whom I have promised to meet one afternoon per week to help her with various projects, and possibly do some training for her organization. I'm glad for the diversity of activities and people. Next week I will be leading a women's retreat at the beach. Great location. Hope it's fruitful.

Things are slowing down here--even traffic--as people get ready to celebrate Chinese New Year. We are, after all, in Asia and this is a big holiday.

RETURN TO PHNOM PENH

On Friday I took the bus back to Phnom Penh. It was a luxury bus, with fringed yellow curtains in the windows, and both a guide and hostess to accommodate the passengers, free bottled water and a snack and the obligatory bathroom at the rear of the bus. They showed movies along the way, (a delightful film called "Two Brothers" about two tigers, set in the temples of Angkor and a fast moving and fairly violent kick boxing film) although the scenery that was going by merited all our attention.

There is one major road north-south between Phnom Penh and Siem Riep. It has been paved only in the last couple of years, evidently, so trip takes about six hours. However, this is not an interestate highway. It is a two-laned blacktop used by huge trucks hauling logs, busses, cars, tractors, motorcycles, bicycles and tuk-tuks. Right of way seems to belong to the biggest vehicle with the loudest horn. The bus driver used his horn frequently, not in one loud blast, but in a toot-toot-toot-toot kind of staccato. The confusion of traffic on the highway was further complicated by cattle wandering across the road, or just standing in the middle of the highway. (These were very skinny cattle--"gaunt" I think is the word. I began to wonder if they were predicting seven lean years to come.)

We went through village after village, in which there was a stand to sell things in front of every house. I began to appreciate the phrase, "a nation of shopkeepers." In more rural areas the countryside looked as though it had been pressed with a giant waffle iron, as there was a depression in front each house, some with water and some dry. Evidently the grow water crops in these areas, such as lotus, which they eat as a vegetable. The rice fields behind the houses in this area were mostly brown, the latest crop having been harvested. The houses are built along the road and the fields are set back from the highway.

As we got closer to Phnom Penh, the rice fields were brilliant green with a crop on a different schedule. We passed the "Killing Fields" which the guide pointed out to us. The anguish of the national tragedy is never far below the surface of anyone's consciousness. How much this country needs a deep healing!

As we got closer to Phnom Penh the traffic became even slower and more congested. When we got to the bus station, we were surrounded by tuk-tuk drivers vying with one another to solicit business. Such confusion! We were really were back in town!

Angkor Part II

For my visit to Angkor I had a three day pass. It's really a high tech production. As you go to the ticket window a camera takes your photo and in less than 5 minutes you are issued a photo I.D.that admits you to the park for the length of time you've paid for. At the entrance to each temple site they check your ticket.Tuesday I did the "short circuit" visit of the temples. Wednesday I did the "grand circuit".

That day I had a guide, a friend of the man at the front desk at the guesthouse where I was staying, Mr. Boonsith, who is an official English speaking guide. He gave me a thorough explanation of Buddhist and Hindu mythology portrayed in the art in these temples. They were built from the 7th through about the 12th century A.D.--the same period that many of the great European cathedrals were being built. It seems that a succession of Buddhist and Hindu kings tried to obliterate the representations of whichever belief system they didn't adhere to, so much of the damage to the artwork happened while this complex was being built. Add to that the looters through the centuries, particularly the 20th century, and a lot of the artwork is just no longer there.

The next to last temple we visited was the most famous, known as the "Jungle Temple" because the roots of the gigantic trees that surrond the temples have taken over that one. The film, "Tomb Raiders", staring Angelina Jolie, that was filmed here, so lots of people in the western world have seen this place as an eerie kind of setting. Evidently at some point in history most of these temples were reclaimed by the jungle that surrounds them. (I'll spare you the object lessons about not letting things get out of control and keeping things weeded along the way.) Part of their restoration is getting rid of the phenomenal growth that overtook them. They are working on this temple, too, courtesy of the government of India, who is financing this one, so the trees, roots and all, will eventually be taken away. (But all that atmosphere!!!)

At each temple site there are hawkers, people selling everything from books to T-shirts to postcards. The most persistent are the children, some of whom can sell things in multiple languages. At one temple a little boy, who insisted on following me around, counted to ten in at least seven or eight languages. He has a chance of getting out of the cycle of poverty if he can develop his linguistic gifts. Actually many of these people are victims (and families of victims) of land mines, which abound here, both the mines and the victims. At several sites groups of them play musical instruments and sell CDs of their music. To support the family, all family members sell their wares at the various temples. I waited until we reached the last temple site before buying anything. I bought postcards from one urchin and suddenly five or six more appeared, "Buy my postcards, too." They followed me through the temple area, where I was met by adults also selling things. I bought wares from the first person and was immediately surrounded by others, offering an even better price on the same wares. Extricating one's self can be a difficult task.

In my devotions the next day I came to Isaiah 41, which was so appropriate to read in this setting. It speaks of the the care and protection of the Holy One of Israel for His people and the folly of trusting in idols. I'd say that the God who created the trees with the giant root systems is definitely more powerful than the idols who occupy the temples.

Angkor Wat

Tuesday I got to explore Angkor Wat--or at least as much as one can explore in a day. It's an amazing complex of ancient temples built by a succession on Hindu and Buddhist Kings from the 8th through the 13th centuries. It's the largest complex of religious buildings in the world.

It's a bit overwhelming, but then I guess it's meant to be. It would be easier to show you the place in photos because it is more a visual than verbal kind of experience. Other than clambering over ruins of ancient temples in incredibly hot, humid weather with thousands of other tourists, the high points of my day centered around the people I met.

First of all, everywhere you go in this country you are best by very persistent hawkers. This morning as I got out of my tuk-tuk I was accosted by a very young one of the female persuasion. "Buy my postcards, Mam? Where you from?" "Ämerica." "The United States is between Canada and Mexico. The capitol of the United States is Washington. The capitol of Mexico is Mexico City. The capitol of Canada is Ottawa. By some postcards, only two dollars for ten." "Nö." "The capitol of
California is Sacramento, the Capitol of Alaska is Juneau, the capitol of...buy some postcards!"
"You are very good, but I don't want to buy any postcards right now, maybe later." "But I won''t be here later. I have to go to school!" What a character!

I went to the big temple that is actually called Angkor Wat. It's beautiful. The architecture is amazing: the symmetry and proportions are magnificent. They have Buddhas in several places and they've set up incense and other offerings in front of them. Hawkers try to get you to buy some incense to offer. If you offer incense you also get to dip into a pot of water with an upside down lotus bud and sprinkle the water on yourself to refresh you. The whole process takes less than a minute. This is really hit and run worship! It occurred to me that if you are not worshipping a personal God there's no relationship involved to cultivate so worship can be quite perfunctory.

After I had sufficiently explored the temple I went out and was walking along the long walkway leading between the temple and the entrance and the surrounding moat. I sat down in the shade next to a Korean man and we got into a conversation. He said he had spent 5 years in the States and studied in Boston. I was wondering if he went to MIT or Harvard or Boston University or...and he said what I least expected: "Gordon Conwell Seminary". "Then you are a Christian! So am I and you are a brother in the Lord!" It seems that he is a pastor in a suburb of Seoul who had brought 18 of his young people to Cambodia to do evangelism for a couple of weeks. I told him I was coming to Seoul and he gave me his telephone numbers and said to call him when I arrived. After the intensity of the pagan temple, this was an amazing blessing!

On to the next temple. This one is called Bayon, and the best part is that it is in a park of the most amazing trees--Banyan trees, I'd guess with the most amazingly complex root systems that wrap themselves around the trunk or twist themselves together and make phenomenal patterns. I told my tuk-tuk driver to stop so I could explore (and photograph) these amazing trees. The feeling was the same as visiting the giant Sequoia trees in California. These trees are so awe inspiring that they got me out of my tuk-tuk!

Anyway, at Bayon Temple, which is also an awe-inspiring experience, I heard some people speaking Italian. In a country where I am linguistically challenged hearing a language I actually understand is a real treat, so I engaged them in conversation. They seemed to feel the same about speaking their language and we had a wonderful time together. Their famiy runs a hotel in Montecatini Terme, a spa town outside of Florence and I now have an invitation to stop by and have a glass of wine at their place next time I'm in the neighborhood!

Trip to Siem Reap

This comes from Siem Riep, the gateway to Angkor Wat. Getting here was quite an adventure. I decided to take the boat up the Mekong River and across the lake, the name of which I can't remember. It's the largest lake in this part of the world and very abundant in fish.

So at 6:30 this am the tuk-tuk came (actually he was late since he couldn't find the street where I live) to take me to the boat for a 7:00 a.m departure. Oh, what an adventure! I'd wanted to see life on the river and well, today was a real revelation. Lots of people live on the river in boats or houseboats or along the shores where they farm as well as fish. It was so interesting to see whole villages that were made up of houseboats. Some of these had TV antennas, which looked really incongruous. OK it''s a developing nation, and though they have cable in the big cities, I doubt they even have electricity in some of these villages. By the way, a TV can run off a car battery, so the lack of electricity doesn't hinder the functioning of a TV. Most of the houses along the water were built on stilts, which makes good sense in the tropics, where homes are subjected to insects, rats and snakes. Having the house up off the ground also adds to the coolness of the place since air circulates under and over and through the building. There were rice paddies of a brilliant spring green, people plowing their land with a team of white oxen, there were miles and miles of jungle, flocks of snowy egrets all along the way--in short, it was a magnificent panorama! The photographer in me was enraptured with all this new visual material. She was also frustrated because this was a speed boat and sights flew by so fast it was impossible to capture most of it.

The boat is like any of the tour boats you might find anywhere in the world, in Paris, for instance. It probably held 100 people or more in an enclosed area, each with a quite comfortable seat. However, people could also sit outside, either in the prow or in the back. Since I didn't think I could handle 5 or 6 hours in the hot sun, I sat by the open doorway. This craft would never pass USCG standards for safety. Although there was a railing around the prow, there was nothing to protect people on the catwalk from the prow to the stern from falling into the river. I don't recall anyone mentioning that there were life preservers, of which we thankfully didn't have need.

A couple of hours into this trip we slowed down as we went through a populated area of the river (as in houseboats) and a smaller ferry came out into the channel in which we were travelling, sort of perpendicular to our trajectory. I thought, "Wow! Water traffic is just as crazy and daredevil as vehicular traffic on land here." However, our boat slowed down and the other pulled alongside us to transfer passengers from their ferry to the boat to Siem Riep. In something like 3 minutes we were on our way again.

When we landed at our destination, they put a gangplank from the prow to the beach. It was just a plank about 15 inches wide with smaller strips of wood attached horizontally, to help people to stay upright on the muddy gangplank--no railing, no ropes. It was quite a balancing act to get off.

However, the first thing that one noticed even before we got off the boat was the crowd that was waiting for us, holding up signs with names of the passengers they had come to meet. The man from my hotel had one that read, "Mr. Cora". There was a frenzy of confusion as people disembarked and the inevitable tuk-tuk drivers tried to solicit business.

They told us in Phnom Penh that it is 16 km. from the docking place to Siem Reap. The first few miles of dirt road are deeply rutted and dusty, but I would love to have filmed every bit of the way, as we passed mile after mile of bamboo houses, some with people sleeping in hammocks. In the tropics people live outdoors and life is very public. All you need a house for, really, is as a place to sleep. From the safety of my moving tuk-tuk I tried to take as many photos as I dared. For a while we were part of a parade of tuk-tuks that reminded me of a line of Amish buggies going down a road in Lancaster County, only with the putt-putt of motorbike engines rather than the clop-clop of horses. And like the line of Amish buggies, this is another world!

I'm staying at the Ancient Angkor Guesthouse, which has air conditioning in the rooms and cable TV so I look forward to watching CNN to find out what has been happening in the world since I've been out of touch. The cost? $15 per night.

My tuk-tuk drive, Mint, took me over to Angkor Wat just before sunset so I could see it at sunset. He didn't warn me that you have to climb a steep hill and then the ruins of a temple at the top of the hill. Actually, there is a way out. You can pay $15 to ride an elephant up the hill. I declined to pay that much for an elephant ride, although one of my goals while here is to ride an elephant, and joined the crowd who climbed the hill in the hot, muggy evening. The view from the top was too hazy to see clearly, and the sun sort of sank into a cloud bank, so I beat a hot path down the hill, hopefully before most of the rest of the crowd, although the path was pretty crowded.

Tomorrow I set out for Angkor Wat in earnest. Like Toad in Wind in the Willows I discovered something I MUST do. As we sat on those temple ruins at the top of the hill, I noticed a hot air balloon drifting over the valley below. Next time, I, too will be aboard!

GENOCIDE MUSEUM PART II

Since I posted my last blog on my visit to the Genocide Museum I've learned two interesting facts: First of all, one of the aspects of the sacrilege of it all is that the high school that was taken over by Khmer Rouge and became the center for torture and condemnation to death was, in fact, built by a Christian organization: World Vision. It may sound like the plot of a Frank Peretti novel, but it really happened.

Secondly, evidently before the whole frightful period of Khmer Rouge, Christian workers found very little response to the gospel here. Since that time there has been an extraordinary spiritual hunger and people are very responsive to the gospel. The Lord indeed makes even the wrath of men to praise Him.

The Children's Prayer Network

On Wednesday I had lunch with Laura, an American woman who works with a Cambodian man named Phang, who runs a children's ministry. He is particularly concerned with children at risk and educates pastors and church leaders about how they can improve the situation of children in their community.

Often parents, particularly in the northern provinces go off to Thailand to find work. Sometimes they have to leave their families here in Cambodia. Sometimes both parents have to leave home to work. Other times they never come back: they take on a new identity in their new country and marry a new spouse. This leaves the kids in the lurch. With no supervision they don't go to school and grow up illiterate. Often they are recruited as labor force.

Phang encourages churches to do "non formal education", that is, they tutor kids who have dropped out of school in the lower grades to bring them up to grade level so that they can go back to school in the next grade from when they dropped out. Evidently this has been a very successful endeavor, and they have wonderful stories about how kids can now read and write and are doing well in school.

One of the most exciting aspects of Phang's ministry Ka Kmeng (Kmeng means Children) is the Children's Prayer Network. Sometimes congregations are composed largely of children and young people. Sometimes these kids are the only believer in their family and are beaten or otherwise persecuted for their faith.

In order to provide support for these kids, Phang has organized the Children's Prayer Network. He invites churches to send up to ten children to a prayer retreat, where they meet other Christian kids and pray for their needs, their families and their nation. These kids really mean business when they pray! They are a force to be reckoned with!

At the first prayer retreat, 5 churches each sent 10 kids. At the last one 40 churches sent a total of 340 children! Now there is a prayer force!

The Cambodian church is not likely to die out within a generation or so. Their future leaders are prayer warriors who have learned at a young age to depend on their Heavenly Father through prayer.

Geocide Museum

Last night I had as much of a conversation as I could with a survivor of the holocaust here. (I don't speak Cambodian and her English is rather rudimentary and she has forgotten her French). She was from an educated family and was enrolled at a good French High School (lycee) when Pol Pot came to power Her parents and schoolmates were murdered in the killing fields She escaped by insisting that she could neither read or write, as her parents instructed her to do. It's affected her emotionally, of course, and she has a hard time functioning, but her story broke my heart.

So this a.m. I decided that it was time to visit the Genocide Museum at Toul Sleng. It was once a high school but the Pol Pot people took it over and turned it into their central prison and torture center, from which they sent people to the killing fields. If ever anyone doubts the depravity of man they ought to visit Toul Sleng. Photographs and paintings depicting the outrageous torture that went on there (and the rules of prison which forbade anyone to cry out during torture with the penalty a beating) make one shudder. It was all so unspeakably evil.

There is a guest book that people can sign at the end. Someone a few pages before me had written: Romans 8:28. For me that didn't quite fit. I wrote, "Lord, have mercy upon us."

Although Cambodians are friendly and gracious when you meet them, there is this terrible grief and fear not far below the surface. How can such a horrendous experience not scar the national psyche? Anyone over 30 actually lived through the Pot regime. Their fear and sadness has also been passed down to their children and children's children. Perhaps their longing for healing accounts for the great spiritual hunger here.

About 35 years or so ago when I was visiting Germany I was in Munich for a weekend and decided on sunny June Sunday afternoon to visit Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp. The Nazis were meticulous in their documentation and had photos of everything. (Khmer Rouge wasn't too far behind, with their photos and dossiers). I remember walking out of the exhibit at Dachau and looking up at the sun pouring through the green leaves of the trees and thinking how unreal it all seemed but it did really happen and right there. It was absolutely shattering and took me a few days to process it, but in the end I think it shows how important the Final Judgement will be to set everything right. There is a holy God who will judge sin and these barbaric wrongs will be put to right.

As Christians, we have hope. As I was leaving Toul Sleng a large group of Koreans came in all wearing black T shirts with Acts 1:8 written on the back (in English). "But you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be my witnesses..." Even in Tuol Sleng.

Getting Around in Phnom Penh

In any international or cross cultural situation there are bound to be areas of adjustment. Going to a country as different from my own as Cambodia, there are lots of adjustments to be made.

In the US we have lots of numbered streets. How would anyone in Philadelphia find Tenth Church, for example without Seventeenth Street? In New York you find your way uptown and downtown by the numbered streets and across town by numbered avenues. Here every street seems to have a number. I'm staying on street 460 for example, in the southern part of town. It's accessed by street 123, which is the nearest cross street. And the numbers keep going up. I don't know where they stop. By the way I'm staying in the neighborhood of the Russian Market, a huge indoor market where they sell a little of everything: clothing, knock off designer fashions, fabric and other dry goods like towels and sheets, artistic and craft productions, wathces and jewelry. And you need to bargain for a good price. They figure that foreigners are rich and so they try to charge us more.

A surprising number of streets are not paved, although friends who have been here for some years tell me that it's much better than it used to be. Therefore, dust is a way of life. It's everywhere! People who ride motorbikes, the preferred means of transportation, since gas costs $4.60 a gallon, (quite a bite out of the family budget when you consider that a teacher's salary is only about $25 a month!) anyway, people who ride on motorbikes tend to wear a surgical mask or some other means of covering their nose and mouth so that they minimize the amount of dust that they breathe. By the way, I went to church on the back of a motorbike yesterday. One of the students who hangs out at the Friendship Club graciously took me.

One of the other great adjustments is stairs. I don't think they have a buildilng code that regulates the size and steepness of steps. When they have a given space in which to build stairs, they make the steps as steep as necessary to get from one end of the staircase to the other. Consequently, the bottom step may require a bit of a giant step. After the first time you come down the steps and realize how long the last step is, you take it gently!

As in Europe, light switches work the opposite from American ones. Generally we push the switch up for "on" and down for "off". here it's the opposite. Consequently I think I push away at light switches more than people who know what they are doing. By the time I leave here I may even have it all figured out!

Christian Ministry in Cambodia

There seem to be quite a few Christian ministries in the area of Phnom Penh where I'm staying. Actually there seem to be quite a few more Christians than Í'd expected. There seems to be a tremendous spiritual hunger here, and people are really searching for a spiritual connection. That means that Christian ministries are doing great work and it also means that groups like the Mormons are also gathering large numbers of people, too.

First thing this morning I met with Narin and Quenie, who pastor the church I attended on Sunday. They wanted some input on starting an Adult Bible School and mentioned that most of their people are new believers. I suggested that their first class needs to be one about basic discipleship, and that those who complete this course can be the leaders of the next one. I gave Narin a copy of Dr. Boice's Foundations of the Christian Faith and assured him that his job is to preach and teach the Word of God and that other things in the church can be done by others who are gifted to do them.

The other night I had supper with Professor S.K. Lee of Hang Dao (or however you spell it!)University in Korea, a Christian university, that the provincial government in one of the northern provinces here has invited to build a similar university there. The governement has even donated the land on which to build it. They have the land for 70 years and it must be retuned to the government if they fail to build the university. Said Professor Lee, "If we can't build a university in 70 years we don't deserve the land." He also pointed out that there are 600 Korean missionaries working in Cambodia. That rather took me aback. Wherever I've gone in the world, I've found Korean missionaries doing great work.

Today I visited two more businesses that have been established for women at risk. The first was another restaurant, Cafe Yejj, which buys organic produce from local farmers outside of Phnom Penh (in a country where you need to be very careful what you eat!) and produces really creative, tasty, beautifully presented meals, including some fabulous vegetarian entrees. They even make vegetable juices from organic produce--and I thought I was going to have to give up juicing for the duration of this trip! This business was begun by a British couple who also established a school for computer repair. though I expect that not all their students are women.

Ken explained a bit about the "women at risk". Sometimes they are kidnapped, sometimes poor families are promised that their daughter will be trained for a job and allow her to go with the exploiters. other times poor families just sell their daughters to have money to live on. In any case, human trafficking is a very ugly reality in this part of the world.

Then I went off to "The Pampering Room" where they offer pampering services: manicures, pedicures, shoulder rubs, foot rubs, shampoo and blowdry. Each service cost about $2.00 US, which is a significant amount of money here, and gives some of the women a trade by which to earn their living. I had a manicure, my first professional one.

Tomorrow I hope to have lunch with the two women who run White Lotus, the organization that rescues women at risk.

Narin and Quenie

On Sunday I met the Cambodian pastor and his Filipino wife with whom I will be working, Narin and Quenie. What an amazing couple they are.

Ken and Donna Rudy have mentored them and they even named their daughter Donna, in honor of Mrs. Rudy, who has mentored some of the women in leadership here in Cambodian Christian circles.

Narin didn't start out intending to be a pastor. He was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, but felt that God was leading him to plant a church here in Cambodia. He took a one year course for astors and then they bravely started out, gathering a group of believers in their home for worship and then moving to the ballroom of a very nice hotel. They really had to trust God to provide the rent money each month. They shared wonderful stories of how they had no idea how they were going to pay the rent and how God provided month by month what they needed to go on meeting in that facility.

Within a year, they outgrew the hotel facility and had to look for another accommodation. They now occupy the ground floor of a building in a very nice part of town, which they have decorated with potted palms, festooned with netting, and moved in lots of plastic chairs to accommodate the people who attend the services. They have a worship team, led by a classically trained musician, now on staff with Campus Crusade, and a congregation of over 100 people.

And they have vision! They are praying as a congregation for their number to grow to 300. They want me to help them to develop an adult Bible school, and I expect that we will probably discuss small group Bible study groups before I leave here. Most important, I think, is that they understand that God will be the one who builds His church and so they bathe everything in prayer. It is so refreshing to meet with a couple who is so aware of their dependance on God and who is seeing Him do great things.

Cambodia, Days One and Two

Saturday Ken Rudy came over in a Tuk-tuk (took-took?) which is a kind of cart with seats facing both forward and backward and an awning overhead, pulled by a motorbike. It looks like it ought to be on a boardwalk somewhere but the streets here have a fair share of them. There are more cars here than I'd thought, but most of the traffic is motor bikes and there don't seem to be any traffic rules. If you are going to turn left, for instance, and there's oncoming traffic you just pull over to the left side of the street and stay there until you make your turn. Somehow all the various vehicles seem to avoid one another like a big game of chicken or something.

Anyway, we did some errands, and he took me to an incredibly elegant supermarket called "Lucky"" that looks like an upscale European place, where you can get products from all over the world, including a whole deli counter of French cheeses. I was thrilled that they had brown rice and fresh fruits in a refrigerated case and good looking veggies. They also have bottled water from all over, including Evian, which is a bit pricey. The local waters seem to be processed by reverse osmosis, but they seem to be quite sanitary and dont taste bad and I''m not willing to pay the price of Evian, so I'm drinking local products.

Then we had lunch at a place called Jars of Clay, a coffee shop founded by an English woman named Barbara, as a business for some of the women at risk that they've rescued from brothels and off the streets, in order to give them an alternative way to earn a living. The young women I met have become Christians and are just radiant in their faith. These women are really lovely and gracious and they do a wonderful job. The decor is charming, too. Besides, the food is clean and good and they have things that even I can eat.

I also went to the "Russian Market" which is a big, enclosed market (with no air conditioning) where we could buy some dry goods--I hadn't brought any towels, for instance"--and a number of the merchants recognized Ken, so going through the market was a bit like "Hello, Dolly! They have everthing you could imagine--much of the stuff you buy in stores in the US is made here--including many of the latest movies on DVD. Ken explained that here "copyright"seems to mean "the right to copy".

We went to two church services yesterday: one in Cambodian at 8:00 am and one in English in the afternoon at the International Christian Fellowship that really was incredibly international. In the congregation there was a pair of newlyweds from Nigeria, many Cambodians, a group from Calvin College in Michigan travelling with a group from a Christian University in Korea on a study tour of Cambodia, a large group of anglophones from all over, including the Austrailian pastor. It was another "Hello Ken!" experience. One person came over and said "I thought that was you but that's not your wife with you!"

Arrival in Cambodia

Well, I made it! The trip took 24 hours and we lost a day going west over the International Date Line, but I made it to Cambodia shortly before midnight on Friday January 11.

Flying on Korean Air Lines was a real treat and I recommend them highly. They are an efficient organization and the cabin service is elegant and gracious. I can't say enough good about the elegant, graceful cabin staff, who really understand what it means to serve people.

My overseas flight left out of Seattle, and we went up along the coast of Canada, the panandle of Alaska, across the Bering Straight, down along the coast of Siberia and Russia, over Shanghai and then across the Korean peninsula. Incheon Airport, which serves Seoul, is actually about an hour's train ride out of Seoul, located on an island off the coast, which certainly saves Seoul the extra noise and pollution of an airport in a metropolitan area. We had to circle a long time before landing. The pilot said that they had closed two runways. When we finally landed, I noticed that there was snow on the ground, which would explain that. The airport is new and modern with every possible amenity. We had to go through security before going to the next flight, and my flight to Phnom Penh left from the gate furthest from where we landed. Fortunately, they held the plane for passengers from delayed flights. A special treat on that flight was my seat partners, who are Cambodians who live in Boston, who announced, "We are Christians." What a special gift from the Lord!

It was cold in Korea, but here in Cambodia, it's hot. Ken Rudy and a couple of friends met me at the airport. They had taken the team of students from Liberty University who had been here for two weeks to the airport to catch the return flight of the plane on which I arrived, so that worked out beatifuly. As I stepped outside the airport, the first thing I noticed was a delightful fragrance of night blooming jasmine. What a great welcome that was.


I'm staying at the Friendship Club. Jenn, who used to teach English with ELIC rented this house as a hospitality center for students and I have a room on the third floor. It's very reminiscent of Italy in that everything is done in ceramic tile, both floors and walls, so you can imagine the noise factor.

I got in after midnight local time (we are 12 hours ahead of Philadelphia) and was awakened at 5:00 a.m. with incredibly loud ululating music. I thought at first that we were in a Muslim neighborhood and this was the first call to prayer, so I thought it was best to get up and pray, but actually it was just a wedding celebration at the end of the block. They close off the street, build a kind of pavillion and start celebrating early. Wedding celebrations can go on for 3 or 4 days and they are loud and long. The certainly know how to celebrate here!

My biggest surprise so far? I told Ken Rudy that I needed to change some money since I had no Cambodian currency. He said the easiest way to do this is to go to an ATM so we did and I was shocked when it dispensed American dollars. They are legal tender here. The local currency is so badly inflated that everyone spends US dollars, (prices are given in dollars) with Cambodian rial given as small change. (There about 4000 rial or so to the dollar!)

So many sights, smells, tastes, experiences, how to get them all into words? Stay tuned.

Cora's Travel Blog

Just before leaving Philadelphia at Christmas, I started a new travel blog: coraspacificoddyssey.blogspot.com

I invite you to follow my travels on the blog I created especially for this trip. Please note that I've spelled Oddyssey with two d's, which is a misspelling or a pun, depending on how you look at it. The adventures will be new, but I hope not too odd.

SABBATICAL REPORT

“Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples,
Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously, let this be known in all the earth.”
(Isaiah 12: 4, 5)

In celebration of my 25th anniversary on staff at Tenth Church in September, many of you contributed toward my sabbatical, which goes approximately from Christmas to Easter. I praise God for His faithfulness during my 25 years of service here. I also thank all of you for your friendship and encouragement and your prayers over the years, and for making this sabbatical adventure.

I left Philadelphia on Christmas Eve to celebrate the holiday with my sister and her husband in San Diego, California. The highlights of that time were a hike on Christmas day over hills that had been charred during the recent wildfires, and the joy of seeing fresh shoots of grass growing amid the ashes. (This part of the country, which is basically desert, has had an extraordinary amount of rain since the fires, which fed on tinder produced by several years’ drought.) It was a great reminder that God has promised to give us “Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning.” The day after Christmas we went to see the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at a museum here. It was very thrilling to see something with my own eyes that I had only heard about over the years. As I took in the background information about the community that produced these scrolls and how in God’s providence they had been stored in a way and a climate that preserved them for two millenia or more, I was thrilled to think that “The word of the LORD endures forever.”

This Thursday I left for the next phase of my sabbatical: a trip to Asia. By the time you read this I should have arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to be met by our own Ken Rudy, who has made arrangements for my time there, working with a church in Phnom Penh, doing a variety of things, and certainly teaching English. Tenth Church already has strong ties with this congregation: Ken and Donna Rudy have worked with them, a short term team from Tenth Church went over to minister there in summer of 2006, and Naty Lopez spent time with the pastor and his wife on her visit there this past summer.

In early March, I hope to travel to other parts of southeast Asia to visit some of our partners who are working there, starting with Shelagh Wynne in Thailand, who is serving people who are teaching English throughout that region, then on to Hanoi, to visit one of our former staff members who is teaching English there, and finally to Seoul, to visit Danya Kelberg, who is teaching English to prospective Korean missionaries. I feel extraordinarily privileged to be able to visit partners in these places and to see what God is doing there.

Although my original travel plans were much more ambitious than this, taking in New Zealand and Hawaii, the Lord has helped me pare this down to doable proportions. Just before Easter, which comes on March 23 this year, I plan to head back to Philadelphia in order not to miss the Easter services at Tenth Church. Where else on earth would anyone find such glorious worship services?