Badabing Battambang!

It's 2:18am and we've finally settled into our hotel room in Battambang! We were without internet the past couple of days, so here is a recap: Saturday we started the morning visiting New Life Church and seeing the progress of it's construction. It's amazing how much has been built over the last few years; it now has middle school and high school rooms, and the roof is completely finished. This country that has been through so much has beams of light and hope, this church a bright one. All three teams gathered together with Pastor Vek and prayed for the church, the Khmer people, and this country for the love of Jesus to be heard and embraced by all.

After a visit to the church, we went to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21) to attempt to understand what this country went through (and is still going through) as a result of the Khmer Rouge reign in Cambodia during 1975-79. This is my third trip to this school-turned-prison and it struck me a little different this year. This building was built in the 60s as place where kids could go and be safe and learn and better their lives. The communist Khmer Rouge, vehemently opposed to anyone's betterment and education, took over this school and over a period of 4 years tortured and murdered tens of thousands of people. This prison was only a representation of the hundreds of these centers established around Cambodia at that time. As I strolled through the rooms, most of them were left similar to what it was in the 70s: a discarded chalkboard and a torture bed and blood stains in building A. Building B houses rooms upon rooms of "mug shots" of S-21 victims. As I stared as the boards, I noticed that these pictures didn't look historic or old and outdated. They looked like they could have been taken yesterday. And when I got to the board of the child victims, I saw faces so similar to the kids at the orphanage. And all this happened only a little over 30 years ago... I talked with one of the directors of New Life whose parents survived the Khmer Rouge and he said they don't talk about it. Even after three trips to this prison and reading Pastor Vek's book a few times, it's still hard to wrap my mind around what happened here.

In beautiful contrast to our morning, we spent the afternoon at the Phnom Penh orphanage playing with all the kids. No agenda, just hugs, hand holding, volleyball, chatting, reading books and playing silly games. These kids are SO AWESOME and FULL of light and hope. They have a future because of New Life and their sponsors through Bright Point. (Side Note: Sponsor a kid through an organization now if you don't already. It's a life changer for them and you!) The older kids who are now attending university have enough English studies that we could carry on conversations about life and school. One of the students just finishing up his first year at university is studying Civil Engineering but his real dream he said was to be an Engineer for God and to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with anyone who wants to hear. He gets it.

Sunday morning in Phnom Penh 7am at New Life Church to hear Pastor Vek preach and our kids from all three orphanages sing a special song. It was incredible - the church was completely packed! The sermon was on the Biblical standard of living and how living according to that standard will make you stand out and look different from your culture. We were all pleasantly surprised since this ties into our theme of the week on being different as a Christian in Cambodia. The kids sang lovely as usually and we all smiled and snapped pictures like proud parents. After church we boarded the bus with our crew and headed to Sihanoukville for a vacation for the kids. It was a bit cloudy but that did not in any way stop those kids from jumping in the water in all their clothes and having an absolute blast! Soccer, swimming, looking for shells, playing guitar, chatting under the shady huts, fresh seafood for dinner - what the perfect beach day should look like. Man, I love these kids.

the bus ride was long and mostly uneventful if you don't count the roof leaking and the 1hour stop we had in the dark trying to figure out what made the loud noise and how to fix it. Honestly though, that was my "high" for the day. All the kids, probably slap happy, were dancing, rapping, singing, running around in this random parking lot with all of the team members. Some of the ones who had been a little reserved when we were at the beach were opening up and being excited we were there. Doesn't take much for them to have fun and be happy :) G'night Carrie