HOPE! (Written by Christy)

I can hardly believe that today was our last full day here in Cambodia. It has been an incredible trip energized by love and covered by all your prayers. The last two days we've spent in a beach town called Sihanouk Ville debriefing over all the experiences we had during this trip. Mrs. Schoon gave us a few hours of solo time and I quickly found my self crawling out to one of the rocks surrounded by the fresh ocean water. It was so nice to be sitting there with the waves splashing against the rock, the peace of the secluded beach, and of course the beautiful sky stretching off into the distance.  I can't tell you how nice it was to have that time to just think and process what I have seen and heard during this trip.  It's not every day that you encounter poverty and brokenness face to face. And it's not every day that you see the hurting past of a country carried into the present. As a team we've been able to discuss what will happen once we arrive back in Tianjin and how hard it is to leave when we do still see the hurt.  We were asked to journal some pretty tough questions during our solo time, and Mrs. Schoon asked me if I could blog what I wrote. So I hope you enjoy reading pieces from what I wrote during my solo time as well as some after-thoughts.

What did you learn about yourself and how you see people?

The people that I saw and met on this trip always seemed to remind me of people I already know. At first it was hard to see and understand that they were truly being trafficked. But slowly I began to see things. One girl in particular really struck me.  While driving down the road in our tuk-tuk we saw one of the girls we met at the Wat.  This time she was far different. She was driving down on a moto behind a man, her head down limp because of the heroine she was on.  She looked so desperate...so used. It was like the girl full of energy and openness was just gone.  Like she wasn't really there.
We sat there watching the moto drive off, without words. What could we do? Pray.

I think to a certain extent, because of the struggles I've been through I see people equally and with value that God has given them. I know they are so precious to Him. I see them with HOPE in mind. I know that God is enough. I think of Seenat and how he knew that God wanted him to live in a place that was poor. How he became thin from only eating lotus from behind their house. But God was enough for him, and He provided. He is hope. And He loves this girl so much.

A significant experience:

Praying for people at the village was really neat. It was cool that we were invited into their lives in that way. Praying with them cemented in my mind how God is the God of all. He heals all diseases no matter big or small. Despite all of the cultural differences, He is what we have in common. He brings us together.

What were three hard things that you experienced during this trip?

Seeing all of the heartache was really hard. But I also really struggled with some questions and thoughts.

I think of my testimony and how different it is from their stories. It almost made me feel selfish. As I look forward to what I will do in life, there seems like there is such a need in Cambodia. Should I give up what I felt originally felt called to do because there seems more of a need here? Maybe I shouldn't counsel TCK's who are going through tough situations?  But as Kelly and I talked we discussed how hurt is hurt. God will guide me right on the path He has for me.  I found Psalms 138:6-8 really helpful.
"Though the Lord is on high he looks upon the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar. Though I walk in the midst of trouble you preserve my  life; you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes, with your right hand you save me. The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me"

It was hard for me to see how people could hurt people in such a terrible way.  Something I think I still need to process even as I go back home to China.

And as I go home, it's hard for me to come back to what now seems like luxury. It's really hard to know what to do miles upon miles away. Alicia shared three things Becki encouraged her to do.
1. Pray for what you've seen
2. Think about purchases
3. Raise awareness
4. Sponsor financially
5. Think of things you can do where you are.
(maybe this can encourage you too even after reading this blog! :)

Did you see God at work in Cambodia. If so, how?


I absolutely loved answering this question because there was so much to write. 100% YES!  There were so many NGO's here in Cambodia.  It was so awesome to also see that they were really supporting the men, women, and children, through not only financial support and jobs, but good Christian counseling. I really saw God at work in Chab Dai as well, because that organization really helped bring people back together, letting all the NGO's work with each other. The staff and leaders in all the places we went were amazing. They were so focused on God and could love the kids so well. Knowing that their work continues as we leave is such a blessing because I know that God is working through them and they have things under control.  Going to the churches was also amazing because of the light that just burst through those places.

With all of this in mind, there is HOPE in Christ. He is in control in Cambodia. He is just amidst this injustice, and he is all-powerful. He is always enough and in Him we are more that conquerors. "Let justice roll down like a river" (Just-tees, our team tee)

Last set of pictures.

Party time!

Jesus feeds the 150. :)

Hot and tired but still going strong!!

Families waiting at the airport to say goodbye to their children who are heading
 to South Korea to work for 4 years.  They are truly sending them into the unkown.

Close to the end.

We are now done with our service time and have come to the beach to debrief all that we have seen and done.  I find myself wondering how do I debrief these girls..... let alone myself.  How do I get past the sadness of seeing the 16 year old prostitute, who Jenny and I took into our mother hearts a year ago, on the back of a moped, high and totally out of it. I can tell myself that I am really not seeing her right there in front of me being taken to be sold. But it would be a lie. We were just on our way to buy tee shirts at a shop and she came past our tuk tuk.  I wanted to jump out and grab her and take her to a safe place.  I wanted to scream and push the man off his moped in front of a car.  I wanted to break down and cry for the her.

Then that night we went to a couples house who live right in the center of the garment factory area. Such joy and hope at their house.  They live and breath bringing freedom to the girls from this area.  They open their house, give their food, time and love to anybody who walks through their door.  We brought food for 100 and saw God multiply it to feed150.  Kids who sat still and listened, and responded to love pouring out of Rotha, who herself had worked in factories and knows their horrors.

Low to High. High to Low.

The village where Vonny lives and desires to see the kids have hope in their future. He stood in front of the church and made them all laugh and smile in spite of their hard lives.  We were welcomed into a home there, and were fed and given the families beds.  I was so proud of my team.  What a stretch for them.  90 kids in a small open air church who do not speak their language, but they poured out love even though it was a hot and crazy morning.

The pain of hearing about the 12 year old girls who are sold early to make sure they are still virgins and can go for a higher price.  How do you debrief that?????  But the hope you feel when you visit and organization called Chab Dai, that works hard to bring these girls justice.  There is no clock for some of them in their day.  No quitting time.  If they need to work till 11:00pm they do it.  What amazing people!!!

The Grace and Peace Gals who work everyday in this hot and sticky climate to bring education to the children of Svay Pak. They endure all and more that I have seen but I get to fly away and they will stay to continue the fight. 

Seeing hundreds of family members at the airport to say goodbye to their young adult children who are going to South Korea to work as farmers and manual laborers and will not come home for 4 years. They are only hoping that their children will be treated well.  They have no real idea.  There have been many stories of those who think they will be getting jobs only to become slaves.  We stopped by the airport to get ice cream and were caught in the human wave as they cried and said goodbye.

This hit home to me because in 1 month I will be saying goodbye to my daughter, but for her the unknowns are so so small, and Lord willing I will see her at Christmas after a mere 3 months of being apart. 

Please pray for us as we spend these next two days in quiet times, taking, thinking and maybe even crying.  The girls have been wonderful and they have worked so hard and given so much.  I am so blessed to have led them on this trip.

Keli

A night in the village.

View from my window

Dutch Blitz a great game anywhere!

Sleeping Beauties :)
Out hosts were an amazing family who gave up their beds so we could stay the night in the village.

The 90 kids we had for Sunday School.

Blessed are the feet of those who bring good news.

Go slow and move the tarps!

Prepping the wall for painting.

Christy working hard!

Alicia working hard too!

We wrote praises and verses in the walls before we painted. 

snack time. :)

All done and all blue.

Painted toes.

Job well done girls!

A well deserved burger at Mikes. Yes, Bria and Michaila did finish a whole one of the above.

Alicia's thoughts on painting. :)

Besides being savagely attacked (cough, cough) by the 2 giant cockroaches I encountered in my bathroom, I have been so thankful that the Lord allowed me to come on this trip! I have SO enjoyed the girls – their insights and their silly-nesses, and the balance we have established as a team. They’re great.

Yesterday was an easier day for us, at least mentally. We were given the honor of painting the teacher workroom at Agape’s Rahab House. What was formally a bubble-gum pink room was transformed into a refreshing, baby blue. The walls were cleansed of the gecko poo (at least for a few hours,) and the floors were scrubbed as never before.

Ahha! But, before you think too kindly of us, this resulted not from our desire to serve, but because of our haste in painting. (hehe)

We decided that since the number of painting bodies (8) out-weighed the number of available tarps (1 cut up into 3 pieces,) it would be faster if we just left the tarps and wiped up the paint drips after we finished.

WRONG

After several hours of breathing fumes, --which we filled with fighting to break into 2 paint tubs (one inflicting a bloody wound on Keli’s thumb); writing declarations of God’s goodness on the walls as a reminder of Who owns the building, the work, and the people; singing songs, hymns, and various silly songs to one another; the occasional “surprise” paint attack, and the (through it all) continued, diligent work ethic -- we realized the lesson of the day:

Go slow and remember to move the tarps!

While we sat scrubbing on the floor for an extended period of time we learned that even though it may have taken us a few extra minutes, it would have saved us many minutes if we had slowed down and used the tarps to protect the floors.

Hmmm….

Spiritual application?

(It may be a stretch, but I’ll reach for it anyways…)

“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Psalm 27:14

Just as we discovered our need for the tarp in the (more efficient) painting process, we must depend and wait on the Lord for the godly and effective process of life. When we rebel and try to do life on our own – our “floor” gets messy. We find the consequences take us much longer to work through than if we had waited on the Lord.

I think the same can be said for trying to comprehend what we see happening in Cambodia. After we finished painting (and scrubbing,) the Grace and Peace Gals drove us around the village of Swey Pak. I had never seen such poverty except on TV. We saw the fiery brick kilns where children and parents work in the heat to bake their allotment of bricks. We saw the stick huts in which they live and we saw the fields they go through to get to school at the risk of being abused by the gangs or other people loitering there. This is Cambodia.

How to clean it?

We see that money cannot fix these problems. Education alone cannot fix these problems. Teaching them how to be “good” and “productive” cannot solve these problems. It’s a spiritual battle and they need Jesus.

“For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.” (Psalm 62:5-7)

But, praise the Lord! He has not abandoned them. The Gals also took us around the “village center” to show us the wonderful ministries Agape has established for children, women, and men. They have a school where children can learn, live, and be loved. They have a training center for girls who have been trafficked and are now being taught how to sew clothes, and they showed us a gym where men can come and be body builders.

The whole team has struggled with questions of, “How can this be?!”  How can there be such disparity between the expats (us) and them? The rich and the poor? A pretty safe and comfortable life to a life that has been filled with pain? What can we do?

Put down the tarp and trust knowing that He sat enthroned at the Flood and He sits as King forever. He is working now in their hearts and He will continue to work. His heart longs for the orphan and the widow. He loves them more than we can comprehend.

“Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him, God is a refuge for us. […] power belongs to God, [and] steadfast love. For You will render to a man according to his work.” (Psalm 62:8, 11-12)

  

Please remember to be praying for the teachers at Rahab’s House. They just hired 12 new people and many of them were not aware of the trafficking situation in Cambodia. They are also learning new teaching methods. So tough!

Pray for Jenn, Rachel, and Kim as they make decisions about planning and training the teachers.

Pray for the children of the village – three girls in particular – who recently testified in court about men in the village who openly traffick children. Their case has not yet closed. It will soon, but both groups are still living in the village.

Last day at HPC

 

Borey, pointing to his name way up at the top! :)

 

Our team and the AMAZING HPC staff

         Today was our last day at the Boys Center and the Wat. I can't believe how fast these last 3 days have gone, but each day was stuffed with exciting events. I have to admit, I'm exhausted but it's worth it, teaching English in the morning and playing with street kids in the afternoon. They all really stole my heart, from the boys repeating "floor" over and over again and still not pronouncing it right, to the little girl who told me I smelled bad. Every single kid was adorable and I'm dumbfounded to think that they might be loved less than they should be, but when I see how much the HPC staff loves them and plays with them, I feel a little better.

          But really, this week has been an amazing, especially at the Wat. When I'm playing with street kids and teaching them how to make puppets or something with yarn, their smiles are simply unforgettable. Seeing bursts of joy coming out of their sorrowful eyes, I can only thank God for using the team and I to spread His light. It truly is a blessing just to be with them and do something simple, like twirl the jump rope for them or help them fit their lego-like blocks together. I think I may even enjoy it as much if not more than they do. Although they're all coming from hard situations, I have faith that God's moving in their lives,
Michaila

Some Great Pics!

Tired girls.  I am so proud of them. They are working so hard!

The boys center where we teach English for 3 hrs in the morning.

A mid day treat. :) Ice cream!

The park where we have kids club. We use this pavilion to meet, play games, do crafts and bible lessons.

View from pavilion.

Another crazy Alicia picture.  She really can juggle.

Since the kids we work with are at high risk of being trafficked we are not allowed to post pictures of them.  We do not want them to be exploited and we want to protect their rights.  The girls understand this as they have had many unwanted pictures taken of them in China since they are "blond and blue eyed". This is a picture of something one of the boys made during free play.  It symbolizes all the kids that have captured our hearts.

Out tuk tuk driver and now friend. We warned him we would get a picture of him sleeping!! :)

Kids and Crikets

Dinner with our tuk tuk driver.

Alicia having fun!

 

We honestly did not plan the pink :)

Bria and Christy are ready to work!

Our new Cambodian friends fed us crickets!  YUM!

We think they're yummy too! :)

From Bria:

Wow! What an absolutely awesome day. From teaching English and playing go fish, to eating at Daughters of Cambodia (yum!) to playing games and sharing God's love with the kids at the Watt (park)  to trying barbequed cricket (yum) and ice coffee (not so yum for me) and then finishing it with street food with our tuk tuk driver Hun (delicious Cambodian noodles). This trip, (all three days so far) has been a whirlwind of ups and downs in terms of emotions and what we have seen and experienced. Yesterday seeing S21 and the Killing Fields, and then going to HPC (Hard Places Community) and hearing about all the boys they help was pretty hard to swallow because it was a lot of sadness. Yet today we had a blast with the kids, and though they come from some horrible situations, playing with them at the park is a time of joy and love. My favorite memory so far was when I picked up a little girl who was really small and really light and I spun her around three times. Then when I put her down she started walking and wobbled slightly. I quickly made sure that she didn't fall but the image of her walking  dizzily was one of the cutest things I've seen in a long time. Also, her (slightly) older brother who was not much bigger just captured my heart when he came up to me and reached up to be held and as soon as I bent down to pick him up he just got limp to ensure that I did pick him up. It just melted my heart :) Along with all these happy but sad moments we've also had a ton of fun as a team. God truly did handpick this team, Michaila, Christ, Alicia, Keli and me :) We're a great group and we will have so many memories together after this trip. Though it has only been three days they have been a full three days, and we have a little less than two weeks to go! Woohooo!!!

In the few days that we've been here, I've already built memories and sights that will last a lifetime:

The little boy, no older than eight years old, pulling a cart full of trash. A job that a full grown man shouldn't even have.  Babies just at walking age without clothes because of the poverty that they live in.

We also saw many thing today at 2-21 and the killing fields... Above is a picture with Chum Mey. A survivor of a prison camp (S-21). He had been tortured. As a result he was missing one of his fingernails, he was deaf in one ear, and he had undergone many eye problems.
It's hard to even begin to describe what else we saw at S-21. Images upon images of victims. One of them really hit me hard. An older woman in her 50s-60s with a look on her face of despair. Beside her stood a little boy.  She somehow reminded me of my old Ayi and her granddaughter.  I just couldn't help but but feel the injustice of it all. The sadness. The darkness. The loss. The despair.

We went to the killing fields as the place where prisoners were taken to be executed. I don't really even know how to write about it, it's so inhumane. There was this tree that babies were smashed against and killed in front of their mothers own eyes. We listened to this music, the last thing the prisoners heard before they were killed. It's purpose was to drown out the sounds of the screaming. Truck upon truck would come full of people that would be executed that night. The prisoners thought they were just being moved. They signed their name confirming their location, but what they didn't know was that they were signing their death warrant. At least two million killed. In the center of the field was a glass tower filled with their skulls

There's so much heaviness here. But we've also seen the light God shines through the local church and the Grace and Peace Gals.

We have some specific prayer requests from the things we saw today:
-Our tour guide. For 29 years he's basically exposed the deepest part of himself day by day. Exposing the hurt he's been through. According to a psychologist he saw, he should really only have that job for a year. Please pray that he would experience peace, and come to know our Father, the ultimate healer.
-The Grace and Peace gals (and all the staff!) Prayer against any spiritual attacks, and also the processing of the things they see each day. Pray that there would continue to be confirmation of what they're doing there.
-The kids that are trafficked. Please pray that they would seek God as a refuge from any of the things they are going through. Pray for healing in any broken family situations, and for HOPE!
-And please be praying that we would really be filled with God's love that will explode into the kid's lives. Pray that we'd have the energy, and also that our eyes would open to any situations.

The pastor at church on Sunday talked about hope.  There are no hopeless situations with God.  In the midst of all that we saw we talked tonight about things that we saw that gave us hope.  The survivors of the prison telling their story even though it is so painful.  The smiles from the kids.  The dedication of the Hard Places staff as they daily work with the poor.  The stories of healed hearts.  Our Tuk Tuk driver and his story of redemption.

Christy

We made it to Cambodia. Today was a cloudy day, but that lifted our spirits because that meant that it was cooler.  I had been warning the girls that it would be hot in Cambodia, but to welcome us it was  cool and breezy today.  We went to a local fellowship and then out to Mexican food.  Yes, I know it seems strange coming to Cambodia and eating Mexican food but it was good.  Tonight we ate rice and noodles from the market.

We had time this afternoon to walk around the park where we will be working with the street kids, and Becki explained to the girls some of difficult struggles in the daily lives of the kids.  It was hard for the girls to process, but I am so proud of them because they are ready to dive in and work with the kids.

Our plane was delayed so we did not get to the hotel until 3:00 am.  So this post will be short since there is still work to be done and an early morning tomorrow.

                                               Christy showing off her "CaMexican food.  :)