WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! WE MADE IT TO PHENOM PENH! Thank y’all for your sweet support and prayer over our journey! We arrived on Monday( Sunday y’all’s time), we took a tuktuk to get to our hostel which was such a great way to get to see the city. Our hostel, the Big Easy, is in the middle of the busy streets of Cambodia which is great because we get to be integrated into the culture. We have been able to see a lot and eat a lot of amazing food! We have also gotten to interact with the people, for instance, there are kids that come to the hostel every day selling wallets, scarfs and little elephant keychains( of course I bought one!) who we play with often! It’s been fun being able to be silly with the kids but it’s not hard to notice that some adults look at us with a look of disapproval which is new. There are some things that we can’t do in order to be culturally sensitive like men and women can’t touch publicly. Nonetheless, we have still been having a great time learning about the people and their culture. We learned A LOT when a group of us took a tour of the killing fields and s21. For those of you not familiar, these are places where Khmer Rouge regime tortured and executed 2.2 million people. The prison was the first stop on our tour and man, it was devastating. Some of us did the tour with audio so we walked around as a man explained to us what we were looking at. We got to see the interrogation room where victims were chained to a metal bed, the prison made of just brick and concrete with a shackle in the corner, and there was a room filled with just photos of the victims. The final room was a room filled with the execution tools and graphic photos to show how it was used. To say that you could feel the spirit of evil in an understatement. You could feel satan himself. I felt such a heaviness as we walked that I couldn’t breathe. I could feel the enemy trying to get me to doubt God’s goodness. The enemy kept saying to me, “look what your God allowed.” I said a prayer and immediately I could feel the spirit coming to help. Every time the enemy would talk, the spirit would blast worship music in my head. The entire time I could only hear worship music. I was still able to feel the deep sorrow but this time, I wasn’t blaming my father for it. The second stop was the killing field. The first thing you noticed about the killing field is about how beautiful it was. It has these trees that curl the same way my kinky hair does! There also was a river that was murky green but huge luscious trees that surrounded it reflect on it with such a beauty. The beauty juxtaposed with absolute horror, which caused me to have such conflicting feelings. I almost felt bad for thinking it was beautiful but one of my squad mates said it best, “ it gives us an understanding of what redemption is” cause there were areas in which greenery was growing above these mass graves. I will never fully understand what these people have gone through but man do I have a heart that breaks with them. We got the opportunity to pay our respects at a building that was the center of the field. we got two incense and bright yellow flowers. We were told to place the incense in a golden flowerpot filled and the flowers in a black container that was right in front of this three story building. After placing the flowers, I walked into the building and wow. There stood a three story glass container that was filled with skulls. Each skill had a colored sticker on it that told us how they died. I felt nothing but bewilderment of how a human being could have caused so much destruction. When I looked up, the skulls were arranged in a way that looked like they were screaming for dear life.The emotions that I got during this tour was so intense and feel that I can’t even describe it. The English language does not have an adequate word to describe the absolute anger, fear, despair, sorrow mixed feeling.. After our tour was over, I felt so much closer to the people of Cambodia. Just like the audio person said, I am now a keeper of the 2.2 million people’s stories. I am now united with the people in their pain, I have a deeper understanding for their pain. I of course will never fully understand for I haven’t experienced it but I have a heart to learn and listen to their stories. I also have a deeper appreciation for this beautiful country, the people are incredible kind with such a rich history. I am looking forward to getting to know them and to give them the Hope of the Lord.
Shalom,
Remy
