cambodia

Last night I returned back to Bangkok from Cambodia. I did not think I would experience so much culture shock coming home to my middle class thai home. ALthough they are neighboring countries, Cambodia is worlds away from Thailand. Because World Made Flesh Thailand is a new field, my team had the opportunity to network with some major NGO's in cambodia. We met with Cambodia Hope Organization (a Christian organization that helps cambodians in the pio pet area farm, provides housing for at risk children, started schools, provides healthcare, and church plants), International Justice Mission ( A group of lawyers that fight sex trafficking), Friends International (an organization that educates and trains cambodian children), and the Somaly Mam foundation (an organization that rescues young women and children from the cambodian brothels). We were also able to visit Mother Teresa's missions of charity for a week. At the end of our second week we visited the killing fields where the Khmer Rouge soldiers murdered approximately 20,000 Cambodians. At the entrance of the killing fields is a wat with 17 tiers of 8,000 skulls that have been recovered. Walking through the beautiful country side, which had now become a massive graveside, we literally walked over crushed bones and pieces of clothing that had not been recovered out of the ground. In the middle of the fields stood a large tree with a marker signifying that hundreds of women and children's corpses were buried beside it. Our guide explained to us that the Khmer Rouge soldiers used this tree to smash the skulls of these women and children. The soldiers, who lacked adequate weapons, sought out primative means in which to torture their victims. The trees, leaves, and many farming tools, had been used to brutally crush thousands of lives. How horrific it was to see God's creation used in such a perverted manner. Walking over the bones that were still scattered underneath my feet reminded me of Romans 8:22 were nature is described as groaning for its creature. At the end of the tour there was a large marker that described the soldiers as having "human form but with the hearts of demons.."

NOt only did the victims of the hundreds of killing fields suffer from the evils of the Khmer Rouge, but the whole country is still feeling the devasting effects of this dark time in its country's history.

AS we travelled through the small villages, I realized that many Cambodians are still experiencing shock and are just fighting to survive. I cant fathom the pain these people have experienced. Its as if many of them are already dead. Many of these people live defeated lives and have given into the misery that surrounds their lives.

Our first night in Cambodia we stayed in a little border town called Poipet. Poipet reminded me of a ghost town. A desolate, dusty, hot town that has been forgotten by the rest of the world. Our second night in Poipet we walked down a muddy little street covered in trash which served as the town's red light district. The women squatted in the corners of the small alleys beside each other in silence. We noticed the eyes peering out the bars on the doors of the brothels where many of the women spend all day and all night. No one is helping these women.

These women are too much work and are too dangerous.

A young pastor explained to us "There is so much need."

A few days later we left for Phnon Phen. The second day in the city my leader and I came across two young children who looked like they were about five years old strapped with newborn babies to them. The babies were dirty and dehydrated. The young children had no idea how to care for the infants who were barely covered in stained rags. The babies' heads flung side to side as the young children roamed the streets begging. We tried to show the children how to hold the babies, but the children were not even able to take of themselves- much less small infants. The reality is that the more sick and desperate the babies look, the more money the children will receive begging. The reality is that the babies are most likely not even related to the children holding them. Many of the babies with the beggars have been "rented" from the mothers. THe reality is that it is very profitable for the parents/ pimps of these children to hold sick babies. The reality is that if these babies do not get medical care soon they will probably die.

I went home that night enraged. To see babies, the most vulnerable of all human beings, treated as a commodity truely reveals the depravity of man.

I dont think we were made to fathom these extreme degrees of evil. And to realize that it is just not Cambodia, that the whole world is crying out for a savior, that the whole world is crying out for justice. But God has not abandoned these people. HE is close to those crushed in spirit and suffers with them. I think it is our natural tendency to question the sovereignty of God amist such evil. We want to shake our fists at God and ask Him why He allows so much suffering to happen. But I wonder if God ever looks at us and asks why we allow so much suffering to happen? Why are these people by themselves? Where is the body of Christ to share in their suffering?

Throughout my trip in Cambodia I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship and would like to close this email with a few excerpts:

Cheap Grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' ware. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?

Cheap Grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God. AN intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins...in such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of GOd, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God. Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.

Costly Grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciples leaves his nets and follows him. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus CHrist. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.