Secondly; we were priveledged to be taken in by a wonderful family who served us with open arms by blessing us with food and accomodation as well as leading us to various places to minister.
And now with regards to the so called “Kingdom of Cambodia” – The best description we can possibly give, on the basis of our uninformed perception, is that Cambodia is like a ‘fruit salad’ made up of Bangkok and India. The contents being the funny smells and crazy tuk-tuk driving, just like India. The influence of Bangkok can be seen in the fancy cars. Cambodia dresses this colourful ‘fruit salad’ with the incredible 12 seater tuk-tuks that look like royalty.
In the first week we had an opportunity to explore almost of half of Cambodia and to learn about the history of Cambodia. What a privilege it is to see what Cambodia has been through!
Here are few pointers on what we did with our time here in Cambodia:
We went to the Tuol sleng genocide museum and we discovered that the former security office 21 in “Democratic Kampchea” was created on orders of Pol pot in 1975,the office was called S-21 and was designed for detention, interrogation , inhuman torture, and killing after confession from the detainees was received and documented. In 1979 the Party and Government collected all evidence in S-21 such as photographs, films, and the prisoner’s confessions Archives, tools, shackles, and victim’s corpses. Now the evidence of the criminal regime is displayed for Cambodians and international visitors.
And then we went to the Choeung ek genocidal center which is a unique and special place that reflects the most barbarous cruel crime committed by the Ultra Communist Khmer Rouge Regime during 1975-1979. Here, about 20,000 people including foreigners were executed and murdered.Obviously, 129 mass graves and about 8,000 human skulls at the site bear testimony to this unspeakable crime. In order to remember the spirits of victims at the site and as well as over 3 million victims throughout the country, a memorial Charnel was built in 1988.
A blessing to swim in ‘The Water Park’ it was!!!! Splashing all over the pools, the team went wild in there, abusing the super tubes and water slides, what a blast we had!
The outreach in the villages was fun, we played games with the children, as well as doing a drama for them and telling them about God’s creation, we also prayed for all of them, and we hope that the hand of God touched each one of them by working through us.
And we also had the privilege to go to one of our host’s family member’s village; where we went and prayed for a man who was sick; we believe that God healed him right there.
Doing physical work by helping scraping and painting the host’s front gate in high temperatures, sweating like wet pigs, but still we enjoyed it just by serving them at our best.
And we also attended 3 church services where we had the privilege to preach and give our testimonies on what the Lord has done in our lives.
With all our experiences, we as a team went through; we can really confess that He worked in our hearts as well as in the people amongst us... “The kingdom of Cambodia is only a ‘kingdom’ to us when the Lord is present at all times.” The Lord blessed us abundantly and we give all our thanks to Him...thank you LORD!!!!!