And I do apologize, but adjusting to life back in the States was not the easiest thing. I was not really functioning normally my first two weeks back at least. I seemed empty headed I'm sure, but in all reality my head was filled with thoughts of Cambodia, Laos, and Singapore. A constantly flashing of memories from the past 15 days kept replaying themselves, on repeat. After the thrill of seeing what God is doing in a nation so different from mine, seeing with my own eyes, traveling by bus from place to place and interacting with such a great group of people almost constantly made it hard to come back and sit in an office away from everyone. What was harder was being confronted by the American ways of life and thinking. It's an experience like no other, and for a long time everything just seemed so meaningless.
What was not meaningless, was welcoming a new life and miracle into our family, my niece Gabrielle Brynne!
But I remember walking through the mall to find our baby a new outfit and listening to the conversations and with glazed eyes watching everything pass by me and thinking "this is so meaningless."
The drama, the superficiality, the vanity, the materialism. The heaping up of an empire of dirt that fades and burns up into nothing.
So, I was pretty upset. But my life had changed. I had just come from a place where children barely had clothes, and most of the ones outside of the New Hope orphanages had clothes that were filthy.
Children walked around, seemingly unsupervised. It was just after the rainy season so everything was saturated and swampy. I remember seeing a few of the children from the village outside our university playing in about a foot of water/rice paddy.
Starting in the 70's when the civil war and Khmer Rouge turmoil happened, the Cambodian people fried spiders for food.
And we complain when we have to eat leftovers.
I felt the need to do something. I felt a desire to pour out all my efforts to help these people. I expected poverty and scenarios like the ones I saw, but when I thought "This is a person's home and life. I wouldn't want to have to live like this, in these conditions" is when it hit me, this isn't just us touring through, this is a person's life, day in and day out.
Something had stirred inside me during those long exhausting days in the hot humid Cambodian and Laos jungles as we traveled by bus over paved and dirt roads, past mansions sitting next to mud huts and past temples where impoverished people gave the best of their food on an alter to a dead god so that he would be pleased and maybe they wouldn't go hungry again.
We walked through a city stupa and shrine and I saw people who lived in mud huts come into gilded temples filled with beauty and wealth and leave their best in there, to go on and live there life with utter poverty and despair.
Buddha did not offer these people hope. You could feel the hopelessness hang heavy and thick in the air, suppressing, crushing and killing the spirits of these precious people.
You looked into the eyes of people as you drove by down the streets and saw the utter despair, the complacency, the lack of self worth and purpose.
But let me tell you about the people who SEAPC has partnered with...
These people who have such a dream and vision for the children and youth of Cambodia.
The are areas christened the "Killing Fields" in Cambodia from the mass slaughters committed under the reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
And in those same areas men and women of faith are building orphanages, agricultural centers and schools and calling them "New Hope."
Out of the killing fields comes fields of harvest. The pastors and leaders and overseers of these projects have dreams to change a communist, depressed nation.
Without EVER firing a bullet.
They are reaching the youth and training them spiritually and physically to love Jesus, work hard, get good grades, be number one in their class and go on to be managers and overseers of places of business. Children who have been raised in New Hope orphanages have gone on to be doctors and business men. In fact, the houseparent of one of the new orphanages we built had been an orphan himself in a New Hope orphanage.
And here he was, pouring back into the next generation of Cambodian leaders, doctors, lawyers, preachers, and parents.
All of this was constantly on my mind for two weeks.
But, I think I have changed my outlook. As I look back on Cambodia, I choose not to see a nation, struggling to bounce back from decades of war and killing. I choose not to see the hopelessness, desperation, and frustration of a people who can't feed their family or find a job.
I choose to see a people who have a dream, who are determined. I see hope shining in the eyes of those people. I heads lifting, and dreams growing bigger. I see potential and fields of harvest in such beautiful nations.
Sometimes wars are won with guns. But in my opinion, wars are best won with faith, hope and love. Without ever firing a bullet.
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