My second stop on this trip was Indonesia. I flew from Singapore to Jakarta to visit Anne Budd, who had just finished language school there, before going on to her new assignment, teaching English in New Guinea.
Jakarta is an amazing place. It is dynamic and full of life. It displays some of the wealth of this country, so rich in natural resources: oil, gas, hardwood trees, precious gemstones, gold. Modern skyscrapers abound throughout the city and skyline is quite impressive. There is also a lot of poverty, as one sees the shacks in which some of the population live in the foreground of the skyline of the city. While Singapore is very controlled and orderly, Jakarata is wild and free and well, the opposite of controlled or orderly.
Perhaps the most overwhelming aspect of life in Jakarta is the traffic. There are a lot of vehicles on the streets and the traffic appears to be permanently gridlocked. It just doesn't move. It takes a long, long time to get anywhere because the traffic is so jammed. Imagine a huge number of vehicles caught in a long term gridlock. Then add thousands of motorbikes running between the cars and trucks and up onto the sidewalks, further jamming the traffic. That was my first impression of Jakarta!
Enough of gridlock. There's more than traffic in this country. We took a trip up into the mountains west of Jakarta, to Bandung, which is very beautiful. Being at a higher elevation, the air is cooler, and since it is less populated, less polluted. Although it rained a lot of the time we were traveling, the countryside was really beautiful.
While in the mountains we visited a park which encompasses two volcanic calderas that still emit steam and hot mud. It's much the same kind of landscape as Yellowstone Park in the USA.
The best part of being in Indonesia, however, was the people. They are warm and friendly and very welcoming. Anne shared some of her Indonesian friends with me and they were very open and welcoming.
The best part of meeting the people was meeting Anne's "Share Group" at her boarding house. The proprietors of the boarding house or "Kos" recently became Christians, and the people in Anne's share group are all serving the Lord, some at great personal cost: two work for Wycliffe, one teaches at a Christian school, and the Vietnamese American in the group works with children at risk. The night I visited they discussed spiritual warfare, a concept that is very real to them. One told the story of a recent experience when he was hit by a motorbike as he was crossing the street, and was hit with such force that he was catapaulted across the roadway and landed on the opposite side of the street, yet had no broken bones or serious injury. Most of Anne's friends speak very good English, which really amazes me. Anne greets them with "Hey, Dude!" so their English is also very contemporary.
Not all of Anne's friends are Christians. Some follow the dominant religion in the area, but they are very gracious, friendly and even protective of Anne, as they were of me, too. Andri is a law student who is also quite a businessman. His goal is to become rich enough to support the rest of his family, who have sacrificed for him, in good style. He has invested some money in ducks, which a farmer is taking care of for him. After a couple of months, they will be mature enough to sell at the market, and he hopes to make enough profit to invest in his next venture. Puspa is a businesswoman who works very hard at her job, and looks out of Anne. She's a woman who gets things done and when Anne needs to get somewhere in a hurry (hard to do in the traffic here) Pus takes her aboard her trusty motorbike for a wild ride to their destination.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Trial
Before I left for this trip someone asked me if I was going to attend "The Trial" while in Cambodia. I replied that I didn't think that it was on the agenda for our group so probably not.
That statement was made without considering that we have a lawyer in our group. Of course, we would have to attend The Trial.
You may be wondering what trial I am talking about, or maybe you know and are thinking you might like to have the experience, too.
The United Nations has a special tribunal that is trying some of the Khmer Rouge honchos. They built a special court building in which to have these trials. It is called Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC. The person who is currently on trial is "Duch" the former head of the infamous prison, S-21 or Tuol Sleng. We visited Tuol Sleng last week and got to see the place where prisoners were held in incredibly tiny cells and tortured until they confessed and confessed and confessed to all manner of things before they were taken to the Killing Fields.
The things that went on in the
prison of which he was in charge were horrible, gruesome, inhuman, monstrous. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge the leaders who were still alive (many of those tortured and killed were from their own ranks) went into hiding. A journalist who was appalled at what went on at Tuol Sleng went on a relentless search for Duch, whom he found out in the provinces, teaching math in a high school. Interestingly, in the interim he had come to faith in Christ and his life was transformed. God has promised to forgive the worst of sinners who repent and put their faith in Christ. But he owed a debt to society for the horrendous wrongs that he helped to perpetrate.
In the years of his incarceration he has has asked forgiveness of all those whose lives he has helped to ruin. When taken to the local killing fields as part of the pretrial preparation, he again asked forgiveness for all those he had sent to their death.
So the UN has gathered an international tribunal of seven judges: four Cambodian and three from other countries: New Zealand, Austria and France. There are ranks of lawyers for the prosecution, also an international team with a preponderance of Cambodians, and two for the defence: one Cambodian and one French.
The courtroom is built to accomodate this array of players. The back wall is curved and made of glass. Behind this wall is the gallery of very cushiony theatre style seats for the observers. Each person is given a set of wireless headphones as the trial is translated into English, French and Cambodian. It is an amazing set up.
We got to see the Swiss lawyer, who also studied at Columbia U. and spoke in heavily accented English, interview the expert witness, an American, who had studied the transcripts and documents from the Tuol Sleng prison. Evidently this was the second day of this interview. It was not really a cross examination. My lawyer teammate said that in America there would have been so many objections. Here the rules are different. The British lawyer asked for clarification, but no one objected to anything.
It was a painfully slow process. I fought hard not to fall asleep. And this trial will go on for the rest of the year. The UN is spending something like $30 million dollars on it. And when one thinks of what good they could do in Cambodia with $30 milliion dollars... There is no death penalty here, only life imprisonment, and he was already in prison for life.
Oh, yes, the defendant. He sat there with his headphones on, listening to the proceedings. Journalists (who were also there in force, in the gallery with the rest of us) have described him as "serene" during the proceedings. Yes, he is. Could this be the peace of God?
As we sat there I couldn't help thinking of the final judgment, what Eric Alexander calls, ":Gods Assizes". Every one of us will have to appear as the defendant. No escaping it. I expect that it won't go on for years though. The Scripture tells us that "Every mouth will be stopped before him." No objections. "Guilty, your honor". And our Advocate will say, "I paid the penalty for this sinner's sins. She is forgiven."
That statement was made without considering that we have a lawyer in our group. Of course, we would have to attend The Trial.
You may be wondering what trial I am talking about, or maybe you know and are thinking you might like to have the experience, too.
The United Nations has a special tribunal that is trying some of the Khmer Rouge honchos. They built a special court building in which to have these trials. It is called Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC. The person who is currently on trial is "Duch" the former head of the infamous prison, S-21 or Tuol Sleng. We visited Tuol Sleng last week and got to see the place where prisoners were held in incredibly tiny cells and tortured until they confessed and confessed and confessed to all manner of things before they were taken to the Killing Fields.
The things that went on in the
prison of which he was in charge were horrible, gruesome, inhuman, monstrous. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge the leaders who were still alive (many of those tortured and killed were from their own ranks) went into hiding. A journalist who was appalled at what went on at Tuol Sleng went on a relentless search for Duch, whom he found out in the provinces, teaching math in a high school. Interestingly, in the interim he had come to faith in Christ and his life was transformed. God has promised to forgive the worst of sinners who repent and put their faith in Christ. But he owed a debt to society for the horrendous wrongs that he helped to perpetrate.
In the years of his incarceration he has has asked forgiveness of all those whose lives he has helped to ruin. When taken to the local killing fields as part of the pretrial preparation, he again asked forgiveness for all those he had sent to their death.
So the UN has gathered an international tribunal of seven judges: four Cambodian and three from other countries: New Zealand, Austria and France. There are ranks of lawyers for the prosecution, also an international team with a preponderance of Cambodians, and two for the defence: one Cambodian and one French.
The courtroom is built to accomodate this array of players. The back wall is curved and made of glass. Behind this wall is the gallery of very cushiony theatre style seats for the observers. Each person is given a set of wireless headphones as the trial is translated into English, French and Cambodian. It is an amazing set up.
We got to see the Swiss lawyer, who also studied at Columbia U. and spoke in heavily accented English, interview the expert witness, an American, who had studied the transcripts and documents from the Tuol Sleng prison. Evidently this was the second day of this interview. It was not really a cross examination. My lawyer teammate said that in America there would have been so many objections. Here the rules are different. The British lawyer asked for clarification, but no one objected to anything.
It was a painfully slow process. I fought hard not to fall asleep. And this trial will go on for the rest of the year. The UN is spending something like $30 million dollars on it. And when one thinks of what good they could do in Cambodia with $30 milliion dollars... There is no death penalty here, only life imprisonment, and he was already in prison for life.
Oh, yes, the defendant. He sat there with his headphones on, listening to the proceedings. Journalists (who were also there in force, in the gallery with the rest of us) have described him as "serene" during the proceedings. Yes, he is. Could this be the peace of God?
As we sat there I couldn't help thinking of the final judgment, what Eric Alexander calls, ":Gods Assizes". Every one of us will have to appear as the defendant. No escaping it. I expect that it won't go on for years though. The Scripture tells us that "Every mouth will be stopped before him." No objections. "Guilty, your honor". And our Advocate will say, "I paid the penalty for this sinner's sins. She is forgiven."
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Stateless Persons
One source of great joy in my time in Cambodia has been to teach an English class for some Vietnamese teenagers at a local church. The kids are a real delight: bright eyed, eager to learn, conscientious about doing their homework, and when they talk about their faith in Christ, they radiate joy.
Their lives, however, are not so very happy. They are "stateless persons". The Cambodian government does not recognize them as Cambodian, and for reasons I cannot understand, they cannot return to Vietnam. There are about a million Vietnamese in Cambodia, some living in house boats along rivers and doing subsistence farming on the river banks, others who live in slum conditions in the cities. They have no passports, no birth certificates, receive no government services or h
ealth care, nor are their children permitted to attend school. They live in poverty, despised by the rest of the population. They are the garbage pickers, who eke out an existence on a very low level. In the midst of such crushing poverty, vices abound: alcoholism, gambling, other addictions. To survive, families often sell their daughters into prostitution, sometimes at a very young age. Brothels in this country are staffed by a great number of underage Vietnamese girls, many of whom have been sold by their parents in order to support the family.
The Christian Missionary Alliance, which has worked here for many generations, has been reaching out to these people, trapped in poverty, trapped without a state or identity. They are convinced that the answer to the situation is the gospel, applied to every area of life. They have established Vietnamese churches and the churches have established schools to educate the children so they have a chance of getting a better job than picking trash. In fact, we have been teaching at a CMA church school.
The other day I met one of the moving forces behind this ministry, a Vietnamese Canadian woman named Kim Bui, who was herself a stateless person who went to the United States, then to Canada as a refugee. Now that she has Canadian citizenship she is no longer stateless, and she has come back here to work to see that Vietnamese children in Cambodia get a chance for a better life. Kim is passionate about what she is doing. She told us about other schools that they have established, such as the floating school on a houseboat near one of the "floating villages" along the river.
So many times in this trip my heart has been broken for the children of this country, many of whom do not have an easy life or a hopeful future. I'm so encouraged to meet people who are willing to work to bring about change and give a reason for hope. What great sense it makes to deal with the conditions that cause poverty, applying the gospel to bring redemption to every area of life!
Their lives, however, are not so very happy. They are "stateless persons". The Cambodian government does not recognize them as Cambodian, and for reasons I cannot understand, they cannot return to Vietnam. There are about a million Vietnamese in Cambodia, some living in house boats along rivers and doing subsistence farming on the river banks, others who live in slum conditions in the cities. They have no passports, no birth certificates, receive no government services or h
ealth care, nor are their children permitted to attend school. They live in poverty, despised by the rest of the population. They are the garbage pickers, who eke out an existence on a very low level. In the midst of such crushing poverty, vices abound: alcoholism, gambling, other addictions. To survive, families often sell their daughters into prostitution, sometimes at a very young age. Brothels in this country are staffed by a great number of underage Vietnamese girls, many of whom have been sold by their parents in order to support the family.
The Christian Missionary Alliance, which has worked here for many generations, has been reaching out to these people, trapped in poverty, trapped without a state or identity. They are convinced that the answer to the situation is the gospel, applied to every area of life. They have established Vietnamese churches and the churches have established schools to educate the children so they have a chance of getting a better job than picking trash. In fact, we have been teaching at a CMA church school.
The other day I met one of the moving forces behind this ministry, a Vietnamese Canadian woman named Kim Bui, who was herself a stateless person who went to the United States, then to Canada as a refugee. Now that she has Canadian citizenship she is no longer stateless, and she has come back here to work to see that Vietnamese children in Cambodia get a chance for a better life. Kim is passionate about what she is doing. She told us about other schools that they have established, such as the floating school on a houseboat near one of the "floating villages" along the river.
So many times in this trip my heart has been broken for the children of this country, many of whom do not have an easy life or a hopeful future. I'm so encouraged to meet people who are willing to work to bring about change and give a reason for hope. What great sense it makes to deal with the conditions that cause poverty, applying the gospel to bring redemption to every area of life!
Monday, May 25, 2009
The Children's Prayer Network, 2009
The last time I was in
Cambodia, probably the item that got the greatest response from people at home was the children's prayer network. My friend, Phany, who runs a ministry called Kone Kmeng, which reaches out to children at risk to share the gospel and disciple these kids, also gives kids with very little in the way of support, resources for survival, the main emphasis being pray
er. Every so often he gets the children in a given area together to have a prayer meeting. He works through the local pastors, who bring the children in their congregation (and some congregations are largely children) together to pray for one another and for the problems in the country. These kids are serious prayers, and I rejoice that the Lord is raising up a generation of future church leaders who rely on prayer.
On Saturday we got to attend a children's prayer meeting out in Svay Rieng province, where we had been doing children's m
inistry for several days, going from village to village out among the rice fields, to hold meetings with the kids. Some of them came to the prayer meeting. After
a lot of singing and presentations and skits from various group, we got down to praying. The theme of this prayer meeting was domestic violence, with which these kids are all too familiar. they got into small groups and made lists of their requests, ("pray that the other children in my
school stop persecuting me." "Pray that the Lord will provide the money for me to continue to go to school" Pray that my father will stop drinking." "Pray that my parents will believe in Jesus, too."...) As is the custom here, they all prayed at once--and so did we.
At one point, the adults present got all the kids into the center of the room and all prayed
at once for them. Much more touching was having the kids surround all the adults in the room and pray for us. I feel especially blessed to have been prayed for fervently by these very special children. They mean business when they pray and I think that God honors the prayers of children in a special way.
All this praying against domestic violence brought some strong emotional response from some of the kids. One girl sobbed uncontrollably, while her friends surrounded her and cried, too. These children have known a lot of violence. Phany told me that most Cambodian children have been traumatized in one way or another. Since being with them I have prayed much for the Lord's protection of them. Won't you join me in praying for them, too?
Cambodia, probably the item that got the greatest response from people at home was the children's prayer network. My friend, Phany, who runs a ministry called Kone Kmeng, which reaches out to children at risk to share the gospel and disciple these kids, also gives kids with very little in the way of support, resources for survival, the main emphasis being pray
er. Every so often he gets the children in a given area together to have a prayer meeting. He works through the local pastors, who bring the children in their congregation (and some congregations are largely children) together to pray for one another and for the problems in the country. These kids are serious prayers, and I rejoice that the Lord is raising up a generation of future church leaders who rely on prayer.On Saturday we got to attend a children's prayer meeting out in Svay Rieng province, where we had been doing children's m
inistry for several days, going from village to village out among the rice fields, to hold meetings with the kids. Some of them came to the prayer meeting. Aftera lot of singing and presentations and skits from various group, we got down to praying. The theme of this prayer meeting was domestic violence, with which these kids are all too familiar. they got into small groups and made lists of their requests, ("pray that the other children in my
school stop persecuting me." "Pray that the Lord will provide the money for me to continue to go to school" Pray that my father will stop drinking." "Pray that my parents will believe in Jesus, too."...) As is the custom here, they all prayed at once--and so did we.
At one point, the adults present got all the kids into the center of the room and all prayed
at once for them. Much more touching was having the kids surround all the adults in the room and pray for us. I feel especially blessed to have been prayed for fervently by these very special children. They mean business when they pray and I think that God honors the prayers of children in a special way.
All this praying against domestic violence brought some strong emotional response from some of the kids. One girl sobbed uncontrollably, while her friends surrounded her and cried, too. These children have known a lot of violence. Phany told me that most Cambodian children have been traumatized in one way or another. Since being with them I have prayed much for the Lord's protection of them. Won't you join me in praying for them, too?
Friday, May 22, 2009
Out Among the Rice Fields of Cambodia
This finds me and my team mates in southeastern Cambodia in the Svey Rieng province near the Vietnam border, out among the rice fields, where we are working for four days with a children's minis
try called Kone Kmeng. Basically we have been to five villages, one the first day, and two yesterday, then another two today, to do a program, which includes a skit, some songs, Ken''s dramatic rendition of the story of Daniel, testimonies, Cora's teaching the sign language version of Jesus Loves me, etc.
One of the things we do before we close is to present a skit, which gets sillier each time we do it, about the benefits of brushing teet
h, then we give each child a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. Since they don't always know what to do with it--some have evidently eaten their toothpaste in the past--our friend, Alex, the lawyer from Washington DC--demonstrates how to brush teeth. He's done it twice already today so he must have the cleanest teeth in the province. Then we play with the kids. Some of my team mates are really good at running games, so they play with the kids at the end of the program, even though the temperature is outrageously hot. The kids don't seem to mind. Me? I plead being an old lady and find a shady place to chill out in--if one can be said to "chill" in intense heat. I tend to gravitate towards the older women in the village, who have wonderful faces, to ask if I can photograph them.
We have gone at the request of local pastors in these villages, and have travelled in a van over some incredibly rutted dirt roads, full of potholes and puddles. The terrain is flat and for as far as one can see, there are flooded rice fields, like a green quilt. Punctuating the flooded areas are sugar palm trees, and the effect is beautiful. Anyway, the churches in these villages are buildings generally about 15 x 20 feet, very open to allow for air flow. People evidently sit on the floor or on a wooden platform, and they can get quite a lot of people into the space available. The kids tend to be quite shy and reticent until they start playing games and then they let loose.
The kids have also given testimonies that have been very touching. Since Kone Kmeng
runs the Children's prayer network, these kids have been taught to pray as a very valuable resource and they take it very seriously. Some have told of growing up in abusive homes, particularly when the father got drunk. After the kids became Christians they started to pray for their parents and they found that the violence has abated considerably. One boy told about being persecuted by the kids at school when he became a Christian, "Ïf you are going to be a Christian go somewhere else. Now he prays for those kids. Others have lost parents to AIDS and are living with their grandmothers. The grandmothers are amazing women, and are doing heroic work, although they can't always provide both food and school fees. Kone Kmeng has helped here, too. One boy to
ld about having to drop out of school after his parents died and how he is now back in school because people have provided for his school fees.
After our afternoon meeting today several adults--who become quite enraptured by the children's programs--came up to us and asked us to pray for them. We are travelling with an evangelist from this area who directed this part of the program, and we were able to pray for people with health problems, and a mother and two
daughters whose bicycle has worn out and broken, who need the bike to take their vegetables to market. (You would be amazed at what they can carry on a bicycle here! I have lots of photos of people riding bikes that carry enormous loads.)
Thanks for praying!
try called Kone Kmeng. Basically we have been to five villages, one the first day, and two yesterday, then another two today, to do a program, which includes a skit, some songs, Ken''s dramatic rendition of the story of Daniel, testimonies, Cora's teaching the sign language version of Jesus Loves me, etc.One of the things we do before we close is to present a skit, which gets sillier each time we do it, about the benefits of brushing teet
h, then we give each child a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. Since they don't always know what to do with it--some have evidently eaten their toothpaste in the past--our friend, Alex, the lawyer from Washington DC--demonstrates how to brush teeth. He's done it twice already today so he must have the cleanest teeth in the province. Then we play with the kids. Some of my team mates are really good at running games, so they play with the kids at the end of the program, even though the temperature is outrageously hot. The kids don't seem to mind. Me? I plead being an old lady and find a shady place to chill out in--if one can be said to "chill" in intense heat. I tend to gravitate towards the older women in the village, who have wonderful faces, to ask if I can photograph them.
We have gone at the request of local pastors in these villages, and have travelled in a van over some incredibly rutted dirt roads, full of potholes and puddles. The terrain is flat and for as far as one can see, there are flooded rice fields, like a green quilt. Punctuating the flooded areas are sugar palm trees, and the effect is beautiful. Anyway, the churches in these villages are buildings generally about 15 x 20 feet, very open to allow for air flow. People evidently sit on the floor or on a wooden platform, and they can get quite a lot of people into the space available. The kids tend to be quite shy and reticent until they start playing games and then they let loose.
The kids have also given testimonies that have been very touching. Since Kone Kmeng
runs the Children's prayer network, these kids have been taught to pray as a very valuable resource and they take it very seriously. Some have told of growing up in abusive homes, particularly when the father got drunk. After the kids became Christians they started to pray for their parents and they found that the violence has abated considerably. One boy told about being persecuted by the kids at school when he became a Christian, "Ïf you are going to be a Christian go somewhere else. Now he prays for those kids. Others have lost parents to AIDS and are living with their grandmothers. The grandmothers are amazing women, and are doing heroic work, although they can't always provide both food and school fees. Kone Kmeng has helped here, too. One boy to
ld about having to drop out of school after his parents died and how he is now back in school because people have provided for his school fees.After our afternoon meeting today several adults--who become quite enraptured by the children's programs--came up to us and asked us to pray for them. We are travelling with an evangelist from this area who directed this part of the program, and we were able to pray for people with health problems, and a mother and two
daughters whose bicycle has worn out and broken, who need the bike to take their vegetables to market. (You would be amazed at what they can carry on a bicycle here! I have lots of photos of people riding bikes that carry enormous loads.)Thanks for praying!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Singapore
I arrived in Singapore on Saturday morning, May 9, after a 21 hour flight from New York. For years I had been hearing about how wonderful Airlines is, and now I can attest to that from personal experience. They are a very efficient, we ll run organization with a real understanding of what service is all about.
Singapore Airport is a reflection of the airline. It is beautiful, well designed, well run, efficient, and a very welcoming place. There are indoor gardens and banks of orchids, the national flower.
We arrived at 6:00 am while it was still dark. Along the equator there are exactly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of dark and it doesn't get light until about 7:00 am. By the time I jumped
into a taxi it was light, and as we drove along the road I was reminded why Singapore is one of my favorite places. Although the island is very densely populated, with tall apartment buildings all around, the roads are lined with trees and flowers, many of the exotic tropical variety. It's like driving through a park!Currently the weather is very hot and incredibly humid. It has rained a good portion of each day since I've been here, so there is a reason that all those trees and flowers grow so lushly everywhere.
Singapore is a very multi cultural place, a combination of Chinese, Indian, Malasian and British culture and ethnic groups. It is also a model of cooperation, since these diverse groups all manage to get along with one another. I must confess that one of the reasons I enjoy this place is that everyone speaks English, so I don't feel illiterate or cut off from the local population.
On Sunday I attended a worship service at Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, pastored by Christopher Seah, formerly of Tenth Presbyterian Church. The church meets in a school building, on the third floor in a suite of rooms that is particularly well suited for the congregation.
While talking to one of the elders after the service, a transplanted New Zealander named Brian, I became aware once again of the broad influence of Tenth Presbyterian Church. He told me that some years ago he was an athiest and teaching in a small village in Japan. Also teaching in that area was a young Japanese American man who was a Christian and who had long talks with Brian, with whom he shared recor
ded sermons and lectures. Brian said that the very first Christian sermon that he ever listened to was by James Montgomery Boice. He later listened to R.C.Sproul and others, but his first dose of biblical Christianity was our own JMB. He eventually came to faith and is now serving at Providence Church here, but he has a real sense of gratitude for Tenth Church and Jim Boice's teaching.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
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. |
Sunday, March 23, 2008
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."
Thursday, March 20, 2008
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.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
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."
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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.
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 sug
ar 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!
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 sug
ar 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!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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."
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.
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.
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.
Monday, February 18, 2008
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.
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.
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