Well, I don't have much time at all, but I thought I'd let you all know that we're still alive and going strong. We made it to Cambodia without a hitch, and immediately starting adjusting to all the differences that we've seen here. For one, it's pretty much always hot (which is the opposite of the New Zealand winter that we left), but Jesus has really blessed our team by allowing us to stay in a place with air conditioning for a couple weeks because the nearby YWAM base is full of students! I think maybe He knew our Canadians would need a little time to adjust to the constant heat and humidity. For us Southerners, though, it's not so bad - and at least we're not here in April or May (when it gets up to 90s or 100 Fahrenheit + humidity).
The city of Phnom Penh is full of people, with lots and lots of traffic (especially motorcycles), street vendors, stores, restaurants, and people. There is a lot of Western influence to be seen, especially in the stores. Just a couple blocks away is the City Mall, which has an essentially Western supermarket, coffee shop, and fast food restaurants. It is really a city of contrasts, with rich right next to poor, developed with developing, Western with Eastern. You see Lexuses on the road (lots of them) right next to motorcycles and bicycles. Our team gets around using tuk tuks, which are motorcycles pulling little covered "wagons" with seats. They're essentially open-air taxis, and they're really fun to ride on.
We've been learning about the culture and religious beliefs here and have been so struck by the lack of hope in the Buddhism/Animism/Ancestor Worship that most people practice out of family tradition. This is a place that desperately needs Jesus, and a place that is thirsty for Him. So far our ministry has involved a lot of prayer, either in the place where we're staying or walking around the city, coming up against the strongholds and darkness that have covered this place by inviting in the Holy Spirit. We have also begun working with Children at Risk, which is a YWAM-affiliated ministry which seeks to invest in children and families around their community center outside the city. We will be singing songs, giving testimonies and lessons, doing skits, playing games, and generally showing the children (and adults) that they have value with us and especially with God. It's a really amazing ministry.
On Monday, we went to S-21 and the Killing Fields, which are a couple of the places where the Khmer Rouge carried out the genocide of many Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. S-21 was a prison and interrogation facility, while the Choeung Ek killing fields were where many executions took place. During the Khmer Rouge regime, the leaders (such as Pol Pot) wanted to immediately turn the country back to an agrarian communist society without any modern technology, currency, education, private property, etc. When they took power, they immediately moved everyone out of the cities and put people to work on farms with long hours and very little food. All political opponents and all educated teachers, doctors, lawyers, and professionals they also killed. Over the 4 years before the Vietnamese came and took control, more than 2 million people were killed or died of starvation (almost 30% of the country's population). It was an atrocity on the scale of the Holocaust, yet almost no one - at least in the US - knows about it. Maybe that's because the US bombing of parts of Cambodia during the Vietnam War may have partly led up to it. I didn't really know anything about it before I came to New Zealand. It's something that people all over the world need to remember, and something Christians need to pray for - there is still so much healing that needs to happen. At the S-21 site, several of us signed a guest book and were disheartened by the absence of Christianity in the comments. This is where we need to be because we bring hope and just our presence and prayers let the Holy Spirit into a place. Pray that Christians will invade places like this all over the world, bringing the hope of Christ!
So of course that was really sobering, and God apparently knew that we could use some encouragement. So on Wednesday we went to visit the Daughters of Cambodia store, cafe, and spa in the city here, and wow, were we encouraged! All of us felt the Holy Spirit in that place, and the saw the genuine joy in the faces of the women working there. As I mentioned before, Daughters is a ministry which gives women a way out of the sex industry by providing high-level vocational training, jobs, and support to women who want to leave prostitution. Of all the women who come to Daughters, 98% never go back into prostitution! Their approach really does work, and I'm pretty convinced that much of their success is due to the inclusion of Jesus in the ministry. The food at the cafe was wonderful, and everything in the shop was beautiful and well made. I went a little crazy buying gifts for people at home because it was all so nice, and for such a good cause. Our time there encouraged all of us so much!
Anyway, I'm running out of time, but as you can see we're all doing pretty well here. No one has really gotten sick yet, which is definitely by God's blessing! I'm sure we have many more adventures in store, which we'll tell you about when we have a chance. Thank you for your prayers!
Love,
Dan
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