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Leaving behind the students, the facilities at NIBC(the school where we taught) and the city of Siem Reap that we've become so familiar with in just a week, we headed south today on a city bus for the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. Upon arriving at the Phnom Penh bus station after a pretty comfortable 6-hour ride(like SF to LA) and grabbing a quick lunch we were told that our next stop was the Genocide Museum, which used to be a security office for the purpose of interrogation, torture, detainment and countless inhumane actions by the Khmer Rouge. Having already been there and seen the numerous displays of pictures of detainees and the 0.8 m x 2.0 m cells during my last visit with my parents last winter, my anticipation for this particular experience was probably much less than that of other team members who were seeing for the first time the thousands of terrified faces of the detainees who ranges from little girls and boys to the elderly, and some of the photos being taken at the time of their death (I'm not sure why they took such pictures). So as we entered the building, I recognized the the horrified looks of the numerous people in the photo display from my previous trip. To be honest, I had a strong urge to skim over them since I'd been there before. But I told myself I would take the time to look at each of the faces. And as I was doing that, I realized that a picture of me, a picture of Richard, Phil, Sarah, George, Eunsook could be up there had we been born a few decades ago, and just a little away from the states. And a few other faces from Berkeley came to mind and then the reality of this country's history felt a little more real to me. To the people of Cambodia, it wasn't just some foreigners or people in history books and old black-and-white photos that lost lives during Khmer Rouge. It was their little brothers and sisters they used to play with, running around the streets together. It was their mothers and fathers who were their shelters. It was their husbands and wives whom they swore to spend the rest of their lives with. But all those loved ones were gone, so quickly, leaving most of them nothing else but grief and anger.
How would I tell about God's love to someone's who has been through something like that when I myself have only lived barely over twenty years and all of them years spent in blessings upon blessings, great opportunities and resources all around? What can I, a mere college student spoiled in my little world, possibly do to open closed hearts and clenched fists? Knowing there's nothing I can do to change anything except to pray to our God, I am humbled. And knowing our Good Lord hears and answers our prayer, I am hopeful.
Well, I was going to end there but I remembered we did some things after that. So after visiting the Genocide Museum, we made our way over to one of the missionaries' homes here in Phnom penh. We met two missionary couples, their cute little babies(one of them was only 23 days old, and maybe that's why Eunsook said "look at its hair!"), and a missionary who's studying Kahmer at a language school. It's so encouraging to see so many servants who have counted gain what many would count loss and are living lives that are so flexible and available. George, as well as other missionaries, shared with us that much of being a missionary is about flexibility and availability for God. And I've been seeing just that in the lives of the men and women who are here for God and whose plans are to ask and seek God every step of the way, whatever it is they are doing. Really, it is so encouraging, and also challenging because I see so little of that in the way I live. Tomorrow is Sunday, international service in the morning and Cambodian service in the afternoon. Good night
Richard Lee
