Category: Cambodia

Aches and Joy

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It’s normal to ache after a trip home from overseas. The long plane rides, confusing time changes, and complete change in environment, food, and everything else make the body go into a bit of shock. But those aches aren’t the ones that bother me as much. The ones that hurt me the most are the spiritual and emotional aches that sometimes physically hurt down deep in the bones.

I just watched the sun set out over the pond from my bedroom window. And the first thought in my delirious, jet-lagged mind was of my friends in Cambodia. The same sun will rise on them in just a few hours. The same sun. And the same grace. I already miss them, and I miss my team as well. I am so used to our patterns of interacting and being that I floundered a bit. The tears came and went, but the ache stayed in my throat. I’ve been told that this kind of ache is all part of ministry, that after a while you stop getting as attached and leaving people behind is easier. Maybe I believe it. But this ache in my throat says no.

When Paul listed all of his trials and all of the scars he bore in 2 Cor., the one he lists last, on top of everything, is his daily burden for the churches. Because of that, I am comforted. I know that I ache and cry like a leaky waterspout because I have a bit of my Father’s heart for his work among the nations. I believe that He weeps for them, as people groups, as cultures, and as individuals just as the Son wept over Jerusalem. He knows each of the people he created by name and he desires their worship and their relationship with Him. And I know that Paul, too, as calloused and seasoned as he was, still bore the burden of remembering the churches he’d left behind. Only a sorrow as deep as that could birth an anger as intense as what we see in some of his letters. He burned for the communities he’d left and was deeply angry at any who would lead them astray.

But Paul also had other emotions for the people he’d left behind. One look at Philippians shows that Paul was filled to overflowing with joy. He loved his work and the people he worked with. And because of his connection with them through Christ, he could be abundantly joyful. We share in the same grace, he said. We have the same savior, and we have the same love poured out on us like an ocean. Though we may worship in different ways or languages, and though we may be so far apart that we will never see the sun at the same time, we all look to the same Son, who died the same death to give us the same grace.

I’ve probably said this to all of you before, and it’s probably old news to you, but every time I think about it, the thought wells up in me with a fresh joy and appreciation for the Father’s faithfulness. He knew that his children would sometimes be apart from those they love, so He gave to the Body of believers one single Body, broken for all. That Holy, blessed Body unites us. We function as unit—as a body with many members working together. We aren’t perfect, but we have the grace of this provision. We all serve the same Father. And just as I can look at the sun and know the same sun will soon rise on my friends, I can look to the Father and know that He is leading us all to participate in his good and perfect will—in a beautiful and intricate Great Dance, weaving in and out between each other to accomplish his purposes and sing for his glory.

Bless the Lord, O my soul

O my soul.

Worship His holy Name;

Sing like never before,

O my soul,

I’ll worship Your holy Name.

Tears

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The hardest part of overseas trips for me has never been the food, the language, or the culture; it has always been the departure. And it hit me today that I’ll be on a plane in 48 hours. Don’t get me wrong, I miss my friends and family from home. But as we drove through the city today in a tuk tuk I almost cried at the thought that these may be my last few moments of the familiar smells and cries from vendors. As the smoggy wind blew through my hair and I wiped the road grit out of my eyes I was not annoyed—I felt embraced by the culture, the people, and the familiar scenery. Do I feel called to this culture long-term? Not necessarily. Will I miss my time and my friends here? Absolutely.

Not too long ago in a place closer to me now than my own home, a Gypsy pastor consoled me as I wept for the people who will forever have a piece of my heart. He said to me, ‘Sister Caroline, no matter how hard it is, leaving is part of ministry. Even Paul talked about how he was burdened for the believing communities he left behind.’ I have never forgotten his words, and I am reminded how true they are in times like these. The longer I serve in this kind of overseas ministry, the more people I will have to leave behind, the more dear hearts I will add to my prayer list, and the more chrch bodies I will carry in my own heart. There will always be bittersweet goodbyes without a promise of meeting again. And because of who the Father has made me to be, my heart will always ache for His work and His people that I leave behind. We have not witnessed any salvations on this trip, but we have planted many seeds. I have told quite a few stories, and I know I am leaving behind friends who may or may not continue in their seeking for the Truth. My heart breaks for them, and every time it does I wonder why I find this ministry so appealing.

But then I read Philippians, and I am always encouraged by Paul’s words. He got it. He knew what it was to leave a place and to wonder what would happen in his absence. He was burdened for those he discipled and those they in turn would disciple to take their places. I am reminded of the Father’s gift of his global community. “We all share in the same grace,” he says in the first chapter, and that unites us. I will always be connected to the Body because we are one in the Son. I will always have someone, whether they speak English, or Khmer, or Romanian, or Spanish, to mutually encourage and lift up. And that is a blessing beyond anything I could ever ask. Our Father knew leaving a community would be difficult, so he connected us in a beautiful way that blows my mind. We all serve the same Lord, no matter what language we use to do it.

And this trip is different from the last, because I will be able to take back a little of the country with me. Father has given us a wonderful team of five students and a professor who’ve shared experiences and trials and triumphs. We’ll always be able to recall fighting over the last scrap of toilet paper, tasting the smelliest fruit in the world, having late-night hair stylings, and laughing with our jmen so much that we cried. We’ll be able to remember together laughing and haggling at the markets and sweating with our knees laced together in a tuk tuk. We will be able to grieve for this culture together and its people’s hardships, and we’ll be able to lift of the students we have come to know and love.

So much has happened with them in the short two weeks we’ve known them. We’ve done everything from karaoke night, arcade games, and sharing more than questionable food, to visiting market, going to the zoo, playing endless games of mafia, and storying until we’re blue in the face. As hard as it is to believe, we’ve built relationships with people whose language is foreign to us, whose culture sometimes astounds us, and who live halfway around the world from our homes. Sunday we had another worship time and 7 of our students came. The entire things was orchestrated by Father, but they heard a short message on the wide and narrow paths and houses built on sand and rock, they sang their favorite songs Waves of Mercy and 10,000 Reasons, and then they heard the story of the crucifixion and resurrection. I was brought to tears as I storied about the beautiful love of our savior, and I was amazed at the whole-hearted response from the students. They followed along with emotion on their usually reserved faces, and a few times there were even exclamations at parts of the story. I was amazed to see Father at work through our team and I was blown away by his grace when I saw the students’ reaction to the greatest story in the Word.

And after all of that, we have to leave. We have to go back to school and hectic schedules and health problems and stressors. But we have the same Father to go back to as well. If he is Lord in Southeast Asia, he is Lord in our hometowns. He promises that His Words will not return to him empty, so we know that our teachings here have not fallen on deaf ears. We know that someday He will bring a harvest, even if we are not here to see it. He has taught us much, and we will take much home with us. Please continue to lift up our team as we prepare to leave and return to our ‘normal lives.’ Pray that we would not be overcome with sorrow as we experience our last meal of Lok Lat, our last time with the students, and our last time in the crowded market. And as I read Philippians, I am reminded of Paul’s overwhelming joy that answered to his sorrow and burden for the community. He was completely and utterly filled to the brim with joy because the Lord is faithful, and he will finish the work he has begun. For that we will praise him, and our tears will be tears of joy.

Feeding the Hungry

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We spent the last week teaching English with our university students. We teach them English and make connections to our favorite Stories and they teach us about their culture and beliefs. We’ve been on outings with them to Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields, the Phnom Tamau Zoo, and a riverboat on the Mekong to celebrate the new year. We teach three classes every weekday, and we want to make friends with the students so we can tell them about things that are important to us. And they are wonderful. Our two guys (affectionately dubbed ‘the brothers’ by our M) have really bonded with a group of guys, and we continually lift up the students so that Father would prepare their hearts for his Message. Our guys and the guy students have done a lot together—icecream, karaoke, arcade games, and shared meals.

We have gone shopping with our girls, had icecream and ‘American fast food,’ and just had them over to our house to talk. Father has really blessed us, because we have all connected with students whose hearts have been undergoing preparation for the Message for a long time. The two girls I am closest to (we’ll call them Padma and Rita) have been over to our house many times already. I’ve started a story set with them, and they are both so hungry for the stories I’ve shared. Between the two of them, they have heard C2C, Jn. 13:1-14:14, creation of the spirit world (that story was in Khmenglish), Elijah and Ahab at Mt. Carmel, and Noah’s flood. With all of that, they’ve learned about sin and our need for the Son. They’ve learned that our Father is more powerful than anything they encounter, and that he does not desire them to live in fear. They have learned that the Father is holy and that we are not, and they have learned that all paths do not lead to heaven. They are so hungry for what they are learning. It blows my mind. We take for granted that we can pick up the Word and read any story any time. These girls know nothing about the stories I love, and if they had time, they would sit with me all day to learn. I love them with all of my heart, and I lift them up daily. I love the assurance that none of this is my doing. So many requests to the Father have been answered, and He has been hard at work preparing minds and hearts. He has called us here to feed the hungry; to bring good news to the broken, and to provide for the poor. Is. 55 is one of my favorite chapters in the Word, and I love seeing it work out in my daily life here.

Father has really brought our team together since we’ve been here too. That has been a blessing greater than my words can ever say. We have all become close friends, and we love spending time together. Often on short term trips friction within the team can be used by Satan to retard Father’s work, but we have not had to deal with that. Father has heard what we have lifted up and woven us together as a wonderful team. We learn from each other and balance each other’s weaknesses and strengths. We are functioning as the Body, and it is a beautiful thing. It almost brings me to tears when I think about it. And speaking of tears, a few were shed last night when we dropped Dr. Carlton off at the airport. He is leaving early and the team and I will be ‘on our own’ for the rest of our trip. I cried a tiny bit before I could rein it back in, but I cried for many reasons, and my heart still sings and hurts when I think about it. First, I cried because I’m a girl and I’m hormonal. Second, I cried because of the good friends who came to see him off, and because of those who didn’t. And I cried because of his legacy.

Dr. Carlton and his wife Mrs. Gloria have been an influential part of my life since they moved to OBU almost two years ago. I love them both so much, and I have learned so much from them. They are both hilarious, and one of the things they have taught me is how important it is to laugh as you work on the Field. Dr. Carlton has taught me to story, taught me to be an M, trained me and encouraged me in the classroom, and invested in my life just as he has with his other students. Mrs. Gloria and I have met (along with my roommates) to talk many times about life, love, and all things related to being an M or simply living a life full of the Son. I admire them so much, and they both have invested deeply in me, just as they have with countless others. On this trip I have gotten to see a little bit of their legacy, and I have been overwhelmed with their commitment and dedication to Father’s work and Father’s people.

During the whole trip I have worked alongside students developing a passion for overseas work that they wouldn’t have were it not for the Carltons. I have met Shepherd after Shepherd who was trained and taught by Dr. Carlton. I have seen people and the work of people who were trained to plant new communities of believers. And I have watched many tearful reunions and listened to many stories about the years of work the Carltons invested in this country and its people. I am so honored to be serving our Father alongside such heroes of our faith. And I don’t just say that to lift them up on a pedestal or praise them. They would be the first to deny that they had any hand in the exponential growth of believers—they would give all the credit to Father, where credit is due. Dr. Carlton shared an impromptu motto with us the day he left that I think is worth sharing with all of you: Life is fun. Have a blast. Tell people about Jsus.  As we have done on this short trip, the Carltons have done just that and fed the hungry for many years; I ask the Father to bless them for their work.

One of our goals for this trip is to establish a legacy of believing university students. We want to make connections and disciple so that when we leave, the students who are hungry for the Message can continue to meet with the Ms. I told you I have been storying with my girls, but this Sunday we got to model what a gathering of believers looks like. We asked Father earnestly to bring students to hear his Word and to see our joy in Him, and He did not disappoint. At the risk of sounding like an American, I’ll tell you that we were blown away by the numbers; but not just by the numbers. We had EIGHT students come to worship with us, and every one of them was engaged and hungry for the meat of the Word. It was INCREDIBLE! I was so amazed and blessed and overwhelmed by Father’s faithfulness!

We sang Every Move I Make (which we taught them in class on American Song day) and some other songs we love (and miss while we are here). I storied about Elijah, Ahab, and the showdown at Mt. Carmel to help correct the fault in their worldview that allows them to believe that they do not have to pick between deities. Father blessed my words, and everyone present had something to say about what they had learned from the story. After we sang some more, Kasey shared a short message on Paul’s conversion to teach that believing in Father is not just intellectual—that is brings about a change in people, and that no matter what our past holds, Father still wants us to turn to Him. I’m pretty sure I had a goofy grin on my face the entire time because I was so excited to see Father’s work in our student’s hearts! Please continue lifting them up with us. If you lift up Rita and Padma, Father will know who you’re talking about. 🙂

I have one more quick story about feeding the hungry and I’ll let you go on with your lives instead of melting your corneas in front of a computer screen. Today was not one of my favorite days. The girls and I had a wonderful brunch with the lady Ms, and then we met the boys in the market for some shopping and bartering before we went back home to rest. Today is an Independence Day for the Khmer people, so there were no classes. The first part of the day was great, but after that I wasn’t feeling very good, which compounded any emotions I had stored up. But as we rode back from supper in our tuktuk, my mood was radically changed because we were given another opportunity to feed the hungry. The streets are lined with beggars, many of whom are contracted and are forced to pay any money they receive to bosses, who dole out next-to-nothing to live on. We stopped at a stoplight and three precious little boys came up to our tuktuk with a hand out and a feather duster ready to clean anything for us. We had some leftover food from the restaurant and some fresh fruit we had just picked up, so we gave the boys something to eat. We also handed them each a little book in Khmer that told the Greatest Story Ever with comic book-like illustrations (taken from an incredible storying tool called The Action Bble, for any of you who’d care to know). They forgot about the food in their hands and immediately sat down and started flipping through the pages and following along the words with their fingers. It may not have been much, but at least they have the chance to hear the Good News from someone who cared enough to feed their bellies and souls.

Thorn in the Flesh

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I have known I was supposed to be on the field since I knew what the word ‘missionary’ meant. Sure I went through the archaeologist, astronaut, and the author phases, but whenever I thought for one second about what the Father wanted with my life, I was never in doubt. I became a believer at the tender young age of 5, and I went every summer to Nunny Cha-Ha GA camp. Those grounds will always have a special place in my heart. It was there that I first remember meeting a real, live M. I remember holding instruments from the place she worked, tasting traditional food, and seeing pictures of children not much older than myself, but very different in every other way. But what affected me the most were her stories. She told me about people who had never heard the stories I had been raised on. She told me they needed the Word that I had. And I was hooked. I was probably about 10 years old.

I don’t know when I first officially ‘surrendered to the call.’ To be honest, I barely even remember that experience. It was listening to the M at Nunny that has stuck with me for all these years. I’ve never had any serious questions about my career or future. I came to college with the same major I’ll graduate with in a few months, and I never once considered changing. I’ve never really had a crisis moment in my life about what I would do, how much it would pay, or whether or not I was following the career path Father would have picked for me. All things considered, it’s been pretty easy.

And on top of that, I have been incredibly blessed beyond anything I could ever ask or imagine. One of my favorite passages (aside from Eph 3:20-21) is Jer. 1:4-9. It talks about Father knowing Jeremiah’s destiny before he was even born. I claim those words in my own life. I have clearly been wired for work as an M. Father has given me talents and passions and dreams for which I cannot take any credit. He has perfectly fitted me for His work overseas. I LOVE children, and I only get tired of American ones (and even that takes a loooong time). I don’t mind getting dirty or grossed out; in fact, I often feel that the dirtier I am, the better. I’m very flexible and don’t handle time constraints well—I work best without schedules. I love to story too. I could sit with you all day long and tell you stories that would make sense in your culture and hold your attention. And the only time I’ve ever had trouble adjusting to a culture is when I return to my own. While it is difficult at times, on the whole, everything about being an M has come easily to me so far—until this year.

Paul gets pretty steamed up in 2 Cor. In chapters eleven and twelve he goes on a half-crazed rant about his credentials because people doubted his message on their validity. The first ten verses of chapter twelve are my favorite. Paul’s rant comes to a screeching halt and he takes a few deep breaths as he explains that all of his accomplishments, talents, and stories come to nothing when compared to the power of the Son. “Therefore,” he says, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that [his] power may rest on me.” And how did he come to this realization? By something he calls ‘a thorn in the flesh.’

I have already boasted about the work Father has done in me and the gifts he has given me, and now I will gladly boast about my own thorn in the flesh. Paul describes this anomaly as “a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” He never goes deeper than that, but whatever the case, he was plagued by some constant source of spiritual warfare. But what was meant for evil, the Father used for good, for after Paul asked for the thorn to be taken away, he is told, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Through Paul’s weakness, Father’s power was most visible and active. Paul’s thorn was nothing but glory to the Father.

And so is mine. I told you before that pursuing the life of an M had been easy for me until this year, and I meant it. After falling absolutely in love with the Lord’s work among the Roma people, I was led to organize a return trip that fell through a month before its departure this summer. After applying to a two-year internship with my denomination’s sending agency, I was turned away until I got my weight under control. And in the midst of all this, my health has been a constant thorn in my side. I had bronchitis for over nine months straight. I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which causes continually forming cysts, intense pain, weight gain, and anemia. These weaknesses have been my constant companions. Those of you who know me understand well just how weak they have made me. My health forced me to miss classes, I was prescribed a barrage of medicines, and I lived day by day. As the year progressed I began to realize that I was facing constant spiritual warfare because of my health and situations keeping me from the field.

I say none of this for pity or shock-value—I want you to see how superlatively good my Father has been. In the space of a year, he made what had been an easy road, difficult. After firmly convincing me that I was to follow him to the Field, He complicated things to keep me from becoming conceited. But more than that, He sought to bring himself glory. You see, in my weaknesses, the Father’s power is most clearly seen. Now it will be completely obvious to anyone who sees my journey to the field that I did not get there in my own power. I have no doubt in my mind that Father will fulfill his promises and take me overseas to join in his work, but now I can praise him all the more because I know that out of my thorn in the flesh, Father has grown something beautiful for his glory. And I can truly say with Paul, “That is why, for [His] sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

 

The Suffering Servant

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*Contains some graphic material

Many members of our team have already had their turns being sick or injured. We’ve got someone maybe coming down with strep throat, someone’s got painful blistered hives covering hands and feet, someone’s got a fractured foot, and all but one of us have run fever and had body aches. We try not to whine and to pick up and keep going. This kind of thing happens all the time overseas. But in the last couple of days we’ve had experiences that have put our small aches into perspective.

Today at a service we shared communion. As we all drank, we knew that we drank a cup of suffering. We heard a message about the Son sending out his followers from the upper room (Jn. 20:19-23). We cross-referenced a few stories to compare and expound, but the bulk of the message was on the idea that the Son’s words there are about incarnational ministry. We learned that he showed his followers the scars in his hands and side right before he said, “As my Father has sent me, so send I you.” He meant that they were to suffer as He had, perhaps even to the same extent. We heard that just as the Ark was YWH’s presence among his people, so was the Son in his turn and the Body of believers in ours. We are meant to suffer and to love, for it is only by that love that people will identify us for what we are. Only through that Love can they identify the Way, the Truth, and the Life that we have.

So while the suffering may not be comfortable, it is a way for us to show love. We do have stories worth suffering for. We should be glad to endure heat, sore throats, and nights of little sleep for the sake of sharing those stories. It demonstrates the Divine Presence we wish to be in our communities here, because only something that good would motivate and sustain us through whatever suffering comes our way.

The other experience that put our aches and pains into perspective was Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields. This was a very difficult experience and I am still dealing with it in my own heart and mind, so I apologize if my writing seems scattered. I do not want to shock you with my stories. I want to make you weep. Weep for humanity and corruption and violence and mercilessness. Cry out to our Father like Habakkuk. Seek healing and wash the blood from your own hands. This issue is not political or ideological; it is about sin and humanity. I want to prepare you for what you are about to read so that you are not shocked by the words you will see: Interrogation. Torture. Whip. Beat. Knife. Noose. Electric wire. Infanticide. Genocide. Mass grave. Bloodstain. Merciless. Kill. Do not focus on the traumatic impact of those words. Run through the images and associations brought to your mind before you move on. I want you to identify with the heart of this issue.

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge invaded Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. People fled from the city and it was entirely empty twenty-four hours later. For four and a half years the country lived in fear and the constant threat from the Khmer Rouge as the unchallenged ruling power. Pol Pot and his communist Khmer Rouge party attempted a cultural revolution of sorts. The educated, the resistance, and the religiously affiliated were caught, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered, sometimes in the name of ethnic cleansing or genetic planning, sometimes in the name of totalitarianism. But these deaths were many and senseless. Some estimate 3,000,000 deaths in those years, and 20,000 mass graves have been found throughout the country to substantiate those claims.

Tuol Sleng was a high school before the takeover, but it was converted into a prison and torture facility. Only twelve of the thousands who passed through its gates survived. Captors photographed each new prisoner and well-documented deaths and torture from whips, poison, severed limbs and digits, broken facial bones, and dunking prisoners into filthy water as they hung upside down from their ankles. All who came through were tortured and interrogated to produce coerced confessions before the victims were killed. There are still bloodstains on the floor and walls. Torture instrument lie where they were left. An artist who was spared death because of his skills was forced to paint graphic pictures of the torture methods, which hang hauntingly throughout the buildings. But worst of all, hundreds of pictures of victims look straight out of wide, terrified eyes from the walls.

And the Killing Fields were even worse. Sunken pits cover the landscape, their sheer volume an indication of the number of bodies since exhumed from the mass graves. A towering, ten-level stupa houses only a fraction of the intact skulls from some of the thousands of exhumed victims. I walked past a tree where babies were held by their ankles and beat against the tree just like someone would beat out a dirty rug. One mass grave had been full of people who’d been beheaded. Another had held only women and children, most of whom had been naked at the time of their death. We walked past a shed where chemicals were kept to sprinkle on the graves to cut the stench and finish killing those buried alive. There was another painting of a child flung up into the air with a bayoneted gun primed to catch him as he fell. And even after careful excavations, bones still remained in the ground. They, along with victims clothes, wash to the surface after rain. I could not avoid stepping on pieces of bone and rags of clothes and was deeply chilled.

What should our response be to such senseless violence? How could our Father let this happen? How could we, as humans, have the capacity for such unadulterated evil? One of the signs at the Killing Fields was captioned: “In the End Justice was Found for the Cambodian People,” but how can that ever happen? How can millions of broken families be repaid? How can there be justice in the face of such extreme evil? When many of the officials remain alive today, some are even still involved in the government?

I cannot give an answer. Lost people sin like lost people. Demons and evil spirits will stop at nothing to cause and incite death and destruction, violence and chaos. Does the Evil One win this battle? We believe that YWH is more powerful. That even in the darkness he is a great light. Habakkuk asked many of the same questions, and he was given an answer that was not easy. The prophets tell us that we have blood on our hands—blood of orphans, widows, runaways, aliens, and fatherless. Our Love should compel us to reach out to them and to minister to them in their distress. We are to drink the cup of suffering with them and weep as they weep. The Son wept. As he looked over Jerusalem in Lk. 19 he pondered the corruption, violence, and lostness of the city; he was overcome with tears of compassion. But he did not stop at tears. He ventured on into the city and set about restoration and redemption. That is the work we should be about. But we should begin by weeping. We cannot hide ourselves from the hurting. And we cannot hope to make a difference in their lives if we do not cry with them. So weep with me. And lift up the lost in the darkness of the past and the present.

I have a few more scattered thoughts to leave you with, and I apologize again for my verbosity. As I walked through the museum at the Killing fields I saw an agricultural tool used for slitting throats. I was reminded of our promise that one day, swords will be beaten into plowshares, but until then, the plowshares will be beaten into swords. We live in an age in which we wait for the coming of peace. It has not yet come fully on the earth. And even as I pondered these things in my heart, I remember another who had been cruelly beaten and tortured. As I saw paintings of striped backs being burned with salt water, I remembered the back of One whose stripes healed me—who is the balm for the healing of the nations. And as I thought on Him I understood his words of comfort. “I have felt this pain too. And it was not senseless; I did it for your sake… and for theirs.” He did. He suffered as much as the faces covering the walls of Tuol Sleng. His suffering brought glory to the Father, as should ours. Suffering gives us a change to deliver up true praise. This kind of praise does not come from a place of happiness and contentment. Anyone can praise in those situations. True praise comes from a place of suffering, when you praise in spirit and in truth because our Father is sovereign—because you know that he has a wonderful, beautiful plan that maybe you don’t understand, but you know it will be for His glory. So, in the words of Habakkuk:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,

Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,

Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

He enables me to go on the heights.

A Culture of Stories

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Any of you who know me well know I love to tell stories. I study stories at college, and I’ve told them since I’ve been able to speak… some of them have been more true than others. 😉 I don’t necessarily feel called to minister in the culture I’m currently visiting long-term, but I do love it, because this culture loves stories. I’ve seen two Christmas pageants performed by children, and in each one, there was no director sitting on the front row. Each child knew his lines perfectly. They sang, they danced, they read, they recited, and they acted with much gusto. They loved the story itself, and they loved to help tell it. That is how any important story is told in this culture.

I recently saw The Hobbit (more than once), and one of my favorite lines was “All good stories deserve embellishment.” This is the philosophy of people here: a good story should be embellished with drama and singing and dancing to enhance and proclaim its value and truth. We western Christians could learn a lesson from them. Stories are important. They are the fabric of our daily lives, with plot lines and truths weaving us together. We have built our culture, our beliefs, and our understanding of society on the stories we have been told. Certainly our Bible stories should be given a place of honor.

Unfortunately, the people here honor the stories of their faith just as much as the believers here. My team and I recently visited a Buddhist temple. As someone trained to recognize stories in their various forms, I was completely overwhelmed by their numbers. The walls and ceiling of the temple were covered in beautiful murals depicting gods, goddesses, spirits and humans in divine narratives. The various Buddha statues in the center of the building stretching to the roof told stories of how their real-life counterparts had achieved enlightenment and been relieved of the burdens of this world. The small idols for sale at the back of the temple were images of various deities whose stories tell of how they are especially equipped to bring those who house them good luck, health, wealth, or happiness. And worst of all, evil spirits inhabit the statues, tiny spirit houses, and objects they are invited into. These spirits control the lives of the people with their perverted narratives. The worshippers truly believe the demons have the powers they claim as ‘gods.’ They truly believe that by appeasing the spirits with money, incense, fruits and other expensive offerings, that they can win their approval. Their narratives are riddled with lies, so the promised fulfillments never come. And the people are enslaved.

I am more grateful than words can express that I know of the True narratives. I know of a loving Father, and a redeeming Savior. I know of a God whose story is not limited to a time or place; a God who specializes in being the All in All; a God who says of himself not ‘I will come,’ but ‘I Am.’ My God has given me the stories of Life—stories that always satisfy. And He hears me when I pray. I do not need flags that wave or bells that ring or incense that rises. My God understands my voice even when I cannot bring it to form words, because I have an Intercessor Incarnate. And that makes all the difference. Join with me in lifting these people up to Father. Ask that they would begin to learn the stories that will free them from their bondage.

A Child’s Communion

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Most people have a candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Everyone celebrates the story of when Darkness had seen a Great Light by coming together as a body, sharing bread and fruit of the vine, and a single flame, multiplied to fill a room. Christmas is, after all, a community celebration. We celebrate one of our founding stories together—as the Body. We celebrate the coming of the Body that was broken for us. There is something beautiful in the cycle of the calendar and the movement of the seasons that reminds us: there is a time to celebrate the Birth, and there is a time to celebrate the Death—the single human cycle that changed movements of the world.

But that single human who changed everything came as a child. He did not have his Father. He was not living in the comforts of the home He had known since the beginning of time. Regardless of all of this, that small child had a communion, of sorts. The Body had not yet been broken, but there was a gathering to celebrate the gift of new life. Joseph and Mary were there. A ragamuffin band of shepherds even came to goggle at the birth of their redemption. In fact, the whole of the created order was present for this first restored communion. The animals in the stable witnessed the birth of this Second Adam, just as they had witnessed the birth of the First. The baby was even nestled into a bed of hay—part of the vegetation that played such a prominent part in the story of creation and was to provide for the needs of all humankind. All was brought together for one shining moment of perfect community in perfect communion. And as we are told, Mary treasured these things in her heart, just as many of us savor the taste of the bread and the grapes as we meditate over their meaning and history.

My Christmas experience this year reminded me of a few of these essential elements of the first Christmas. On Christmas Eve my team and I found ourselves in a little village in Southeast Asia. We arrived too late to find any food, and all but a few vendors with day-old bread had shut their stalls and gone home to bed. We found a room in the inn, but we shared a meditative meal of crusty bread and some liter bottles of water. Mosquitoes buzzed around our lights instead of visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads. We made due with what we had in a place with which we were not familiar. And we had our little communion. We met as members of the body and shared stories of triumphs and loss. After talking about our futures on or off the Field, we heard about the believers’ work here and glorified in their successes and ached for their disunity. We savored the taste of an already-but-not-yet redemption, given, but not yet brought to fullness.

I mulled my experience over in my head, read a bit of the Word, and went to sleep. We woke up on Christmas morning and traveled to a home for children—children missing parents or whose parents cannot take care of them at home anymore. My communion experience continued with them in a different way. I shared with them about a child born into a very similar situation long ago on this day we celebrate, missing instead a Heavenly Father and away from his home. I saw in their eyes the all-surpassing understanding of children. They too knew what it meant to be out-of-place but completely belonging. There were in a communion of the Saints, brought together by nothing except a shared grace. Their community was whole and beautiful, complete with the same already-but-not-yet redemption as in that lonely stable long ago.

Foundations of Stone

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I have heard people talk about ‘building a worldview,’ but before today I never knew that phrase was anything more than a metaphor. Today we visited Angkor Wat—one of the Seven Wonders of the World; the Khmer people’s most honored cultural site; and an all-around awe-inspiring place. Angkor was an ancient city, in fact, the capital of the Khmer empire at its peak. The city is built of stone, intricately carved into domes, archways, streets, wells, tunnels, and cisterns, to name a few. We visited the restored palace and a temple, as well as many of the ruins in the city. I was blown away by the amount of intricate detail and heavy grunt work that would have been necessary to build this city. In fact, this ambitious construction project contributed greatly to the empire’s downfall. The king and his government worked the common people so hard that they exhausted their resources and displeased their empire. Not long after it was built, the empire was taken over and the city lost to the encroaching jungle.

The city is, to all intents and purposes, the foundation and solid rock of the Khmer worldview. Angkor was originally devoted to Hinduism, but soon after it’s construction Buddhism was introduced and many converted. At some point Buddha statues were put into the complex, at which people still worship today. I think that Angkor Wat is a concrete representation of the Khmer worldview because of this superficial shift. The entire city is covered in carvings and statues of the Hindu gods and of Buddhas, just as the Khmer people today are ostentatious in their worship. The scrollwork, balustrades, and bas reliefs covered in intricate details are an example of how this culture’s religion surfaces in quite literally every aspect of life. The temples and the city represent this culture in full. The culture is based off of a Hindu-permeated society. The people worshipped a long list of gods and gave offerings to the spirits to appease them and bring health, good luck, or salvation. After the conversion to Buddhism, the culture picked up a love for stories (as told on the bas reliefs) and changed from worshipping many idols to just a few Buddhas. They still burn incense and leave offerings of money, flowers, fruit, other food, or any other gifts to their spirit houses in their front yard. The people here live in such darkness—the same darkness that caused the downfall of the great Khmer Empire.

Inside the temple and palace even today, people prostrate themselves on mats to pray. They burn incense, leave offerings, and follow the pilgrimage routes to appropriately revere the buddhas. They pay priests outrageous sums to protect their children with amulets or to send away spirits of bad health or bad luck. As Paul says, these people worship no-gods. There is no life in that stone, and certainly nothing that deserves adoration or the little money the Khmer have. But the evil spirits are at work too. The people think they are protected and safe, but in reality they have been pulled into a lie. They are literally selling themselves into bondage and working themselves into another fallen empire because of their devotion to spirits who answer their prayers with nothing but evil. These people need the stories we bring. They need to hear of the life they have been given—that the darkness has seen a great light.

Fires and the Comedy of Jesus’ Birth

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Our team has laughed a lot together. We laugh at ourselves and our mistakes and our language learning adventures. It helps us to not take ourselves too seriously and to fit into the culture. There are times when laughing is the only thing you can do. For instance, last night we lost our power because the electricity pole across the street sparked and caught fire. Over half our team slept right through it like babies while the hotel guests were filing out with their bags. Those of us awake waited it out and decided to wake the others if the fire spread. This morning we had a quite the source of laughter from teasing each other about panicking and sleeping through utter chaos. Sometimes we have to laugh so we don’t cry. And sometimes we just have to laugh at how ridiculous we must seem. I have known my savior far too long to not believe He has a sense of humor. He certainly has an appreciation for irony. Just as we are supposed to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, I believe we are supposed to laugh with those who laugh. I’m sure someone smarter than me could tell you about the health benefits of laughing—how it lowers blood pressure or releases endorphins—but they could also tell you that laughter is a psychological coping mechanism. When things are tense or difficult, sometimes our best defense as humans is to laugh.

The Khmer people have certainly been through more than their share of difficulties. Their history is riddled with persecution, prejudice, national disasters, hunger, and poverty. But they laugh. A lot. They laugh when they are uncomfortable, when people around them are uncomfortable, whenever someone is embarrassed, and just at life itself. But another reason they laugh is because they are able to do something most people can’t—they know how to find the comedy in everyday life, with all of its difficulties. How much more, then, do you think the Khmer who follow the Son laugh? They have true joy in life, despite their hardships. They know that in every situation, there is a true, giddy joy hidden below the surface, bubbling down deep. They have the Way, the Truth, and the Life. They are steadily moored no matter what comes into their lives, and they can laugh in the face of seemingly insurmountable troubles.

It should not have surprised me, then, when their telling of the Christmas story was riddled with laughter, radiant smiles, and a contagious joy that crossed all language barriers. The children put on a pageant of the story with costumes and everything. The wise men bent over their staffs and sported odd-looking Salvador Dali moustaches with attached beards. Herod was decked out in a yellow silk robe with a tiara on his head. The shepherds had their own herds of six-year-old boys crawling around on the floor in white button-up dress shirts. You see, they meant no disrespect to the story by staging and performing it this way. They didn’t mean for it to be a farce or something calling for derisive laughter. They valued this story so highly that they simply could not overlook its good tidings of great joy. Here is a story that, to them, meant the world; it meant that in their background of land mines, indigence, and the Khmer Rouge, there is a story of everlasting comfort to all people—a story of such joy that you can’t help but laugh at its brilliance and giddy delight. Unto us a savior is born! Unto us a son is given! And he means the redemption of the world. Who can help but laugh at such a wonderful gift of joy and salvation?