It’s been a long time since we last posted. Life in Australia has been very busy since returning from Cambodia last October. In between our regular ministry work we’ve spent the last 9 months working out how we might be able to return to work in Cambodia as long term missionaries. We’re very excited to say that just this month we were formally appointed to be missionaries in Cambodia with Pioneers Australia. We’ve just finished our first Cambodian mission newsletter called Kingdom to Kingdom in which we explain briefly why we are going to Cambodia and what we hope to do there. If you’d like to join us on our journey to Cambodia then please subscribe to receive our regular newsletters by filling in your details on the right. Thanks.

At the training weekend we attended to prepare for our mission to Cambodia we asked one of the trainers if they had any insights into the Cambodian people to help us in our ministry to them. We were simply told; “Go to the Killing Fields.”

Due to the political unrest in Phnom Penh and busyness of our ministry there we didn’t manage to get to the Killing Fields until the last week of our time in Cambodia. Nothing could have prepared us for this visit. What we saw and heard while there was disturbing.

The Killing Fields known as Choeung Ek are about 15
km southwest of Phnom Penh. Once a Chinese burial ground, the Killing Fields, one of many such places in Cambodia, is where upwards of 20,000 people died. Load after load of people were brought here from Toul Sleng Prison to be executed.

To save the cost of bullets prisoners were bludgeoned to death with one of a selection of implements and then thrown into mass graves. Men, women, children and infants were killed here, even members of the Khmer Rouge who were suspected of being traitors of the regime.

As we walked around the Killing Fields we could see lying in the soil fragments of bone and teeth. These are collected up with the many bones of those once
buried here and put on display to honour those who died here and as reminder those left of what
happened here.

We left this place hoping we’d never have to see something like this ever again.

At the youth program we played a game called “Eat Out”. We borrowed this game from Hannah and Rebekah’s Youth Group back in Australia. The game is a basically a relay where each member has to eat one of 5 bowls of something in turn to reveal part of a memory verse from the Bible. Once everything is eaten the team can put together all the parts of the memory verse. The first team to eat all 5 bowls of food and put the memory verse together correctly wins.

The first time we played it the 5 bowls of food to be eaten were; 1. Milo, 2. 3 Weetbix, 3. Jelly, 4. Potato Chips and, 5. Flour (not to be eaten but blown out of the bowl). The result was hilarious and very messy.

The second time we played it we gave it more of an Australian/Cambodian flavour. So the five bowls of food to be eaten were; 1. A spoonful of Nutella, 2. A spoonful of Vegemite, 3. A cricket, 4. Frogs legs, 5. A deep fried tarantula. The result? Well, have a look for yourself…

Our second last weekend here in Cambodia has been very eventful. On Friday we received an email from the Australian Embassy to say that two improvised explosive devices (aka bombs) had been found near one of the main Cambodian government buildings not far from the Australian Embassy. It’s believed that these bombs are part of the troubles that are continuing after the general election, the result of which is still being disputed by the opposition party.

So with a little trepidation we ventured out to visit King Norodom Sihamoni at the royal palace. The King was home but of course we weren’t allow to go and see him (I think some of the little ones were a little disappointed about that and couldn’t understand why we weren’t allowed to). Anyway, we got to have a look around the palace gardens, stick our head in the door of the throneroom, and walk through the silver pagoda which is named after it’s 5000+ plate silver floor tiles

In this peaceful little oasis we saw lots of buddhist monks all arrayed in their bright orange robes. We’ve seen them everywhere in Cambodia and finally we got to meet some. One of the monks could speak English which meant that we could find out a little about what it was like to be a monk.

But the highlight of the weekend was witnessing a baptism. On Sunday morning we joined the Celebrating church for a baptism of 10 of it’s members in a local school pool. Seven of those were youth involved in the program we’ve been running. It was a great joy to see these young people commit themselves to following Christ. After the baptism we enjoyed a swim in the pool, some lunch and of course some football.

After a busy month of ministry we enjoyed a weekend in Sihanoukville. This coastal city is about 250km south west of Phnom Penh on the Gulf of Thailand. It serves as Cambodia’s main sea port and also boasts some beautiful long beaches.  It was noticeably cooler and quieter than Phnom Pehn giving us some welcome relief from the hot, busy city. Most of the the time there we spent swimming in the gulf, the hotel pool and going for walks on the beach which was virtually empty apart from the half a dozen Americans from the US Embassy and a herd of cattle.

Gazing at all the photographs of those who had been tortured and executed we struggled to hold back the tears. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot, began a four year reign of terror in Cambodia that took an estimated 2 million lives. Thousands of those souls who died during that time spent their last days at the infamous Toul Sleng prison in Phnom Penh which is now a museum of genocidal crime.

This former high school has been left in the state the invading Vietnamese found it when they liberated Phnom Penh from the Khmer Rouge in 1979. It’s said that the Vietnamese found it by following the odour of decaying flesh. It must have been an unimaginably horrific sight. Room after room of cramped cells and torture chambers where the Khmer Rouge extracted false confessions from innocent civilians by torturing them in ways that are unspeakable.

While we were visiting the prison we had the privilege of meeting one of the few survivors of Toul Sleng. Chum Mey was arrested, tortured and forced to confess to working for the CIA which he had never heard of before. It was his skill as a motor mechanic that saved him from being sent to the killing fields outside of Phnom Penh to be executed

Even though the visit to this prison was a desperately sad one, we used it to talk with the youth at NaCE about the difficult issue of forgiveness.Kang Kek Lew, the former director of Toul Sleng Prison is well known by all Cambodians as ‘Comrade Duch’. He is currently serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity committed at Toul Sleng. But what is less known about Duch is that in 1996 he become a Christian. So I asked the youth; “If a man convicted of crimes against humanity can find forgiveness from God through the death of his Son Jesus, then how can we not forgive those who sin against us?”

I later learnt that Chris LePel, the minister through whom Duch came to faith in Jesus had himself lost family members and friends at Toul Sleng. He is reported to have told the court at Duch’s trial in 2009 that he had forgiven Duch for what he had done. That’s worth remembering when we are finding forgiveness hard.

Today, after 5 months of being PIrates (both here in Cambodia and back at home in Australia), the end of the Pirate theme has arrived! (Our Kids church team back in Australia will appreciate the significance of this….)

Actually, its sad to say farewell to the pirates. The kids here have all loved singing ‘Are you serving Captain Jesus‘ each day. In fact, while we were going around the island out in the province last Saturday, 3 of the kids from the Holiday program together with our kids were singing the entire song as loud as they could while being driving around in their tuk tuk through the villages…actions and all!

Over the past weeks, we’ve all had so much fun playing lots of games, acting, face-painting, and hearing from the Bible about a treasure that is better than gold or silver. With Captain Bunny becoming a Christian today, there were celebrations all around.

Being the last day for Pirates,  the kids all enjoyed playing ‘Choose your treasure’ for the last time where they could all go home with a piece of Danielle’s treasure that she bought for our Holiday club in Australia back in April….Thanks Danielle! (BTW, we’re so excited to hear about the safe arrival of your girls. Praise God! Hope you’re all going really well!)

We’ve really enjoyed teaching the Youth too. They have been very obliging and keen to do all the crazy things we ask them, like eating through milo, jelly, weetbix and blowing out flour to find memory verses, building tall towers using straws, marshmellows and boxes for the tower of Babel, putting together our Bible overview pictures each day after singing our Bible overview song, actions and all…and the list goes on and on. Thanks to Mike Dicker for all your ideas for Youth group, they love them over here.

It’s amazing how we can all enjoy hanging out even without a common language. It certainly helps that we see the youth 6 times a week. The football matches have been a great way for us to do something social too.

Well, next week, we start with our Superhero theme at the Kids Program. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes. I think we’ll need to educate the kids on some of our more recent superheroes. Not so sure they’ve ever heard of ‘Silver surfer!’ Well….we’ll see how it goes!

On one of our days off last weekend we travelled to Kampong Chhnang province, 100km north of Phnom Penh. We were invited by a member of the church to visit the province with his family to see the work he is doing there with World Vision.

So we packed 4 adults and 12 children into a 15 seat van plus the driver (yes it was a little cramped) and we travelled for a few hours along a very busy bumpy road to the province. The area we were visiting was an island in the middle of the Tonle Sap River so we pilled out of the bus and into a much more spacious boat for a half an hour trip across to the island.

We spent the rest of the day travelling in two oversized tuk tuks around the island. On the way around we visited an orphanage run by some local Christians. We spent a few hours singing songs and playing games with about 20 orphans ranging in age from about 5 to 15.

We thought that we would donate another one of our footballs to the orphanage after we played some matches but it wasn’t the football they were keen on…

After we had lunch, we pulled out the face painting kit that we brought. As soon as the kids saw it they all wanted to get their faces painted. We ending up staying longer than we had planned. We were glad we did because it was such a humbling experience to spend time with these children who had very little but who had a joy on their faces. No doubt this is thanks largely to the Christians working there who were taking care of these kids and had given them a hope in the gospel of Jesus.

As we travelled around the rest of this very beautiful little island we saw people living alongside the road in very poor conditions with no electricity and no running water. The contrast couldn’t have been more striking. Despite this, our kids waved enthusiastically at at the locals as we passed by and their greetings were returned all the way around with smiles and waves back. One of our kids commented later on the way home about how happy these people were even though they had very little.

Our concerns are nothing compared to the concerns of these people and yet many of us don’t seem to be as happy as they are. Ironic.

One of the features of Cambodia is the vast array of smells that are on offer. Some of the smells are quite pleasant others are unpleasantly pungent. Driving for only a few minutes in a tuk tuk you can experience a complex mix of burning incense, roasting meat, and open sewers smells.

Yesterday there was a distinct burning smell everywhere we went. My first instinct as an Australian was to think “bushfire” but of course there is no bush here in the middle of Phnom Penh. As we went about we saw people all the way down on every street standing around small metal drums burning things. Taking a closer look we saw people throwing in gold paper, wads of money (obviously fake) and even a brand new pair of shoes into the fire to be burnt.

I later discovered that this was a tradition of the Khmer people who have Chinese ancestry. They believe that burning what they they call joss or gold paper, ghost money and other items will help their ancestors in the afterlife.

The state religion here is Buddhism hence the ubiquitous Buddhist temples and monks. But in reality many people are animists believing in spirits who inhabit everything in the world. Clearly there are many here who worship their ancestors too. All of these practices are mixed up in some complex way that we are yet to get used to – just like the smells of the city. Yet another reminder that the people of Cambodia need to hear the good news of Jesus and the salvation that is in him.

It’s the wet season here in Cambodia. Most afternoons or evenings it rains but only for an hour or so..and the rain is really heavy. The other day when we were playing football and there was a massive downpour. We’ve never seen rain like it. The sound of the rain hitting the roof of the football centre was deafening.

It was too much for the kids to resist. After we finished playing indoors, they all ran outdoors to continue playing in the rain. The kids had a great time cooling off after a hot and sweaty day of ministry and football. We read before we came to Cambodia that if you embrace the wet season you will enjoy it. It’s pretty hard not to embrace it here….

Although….we soon discovered what an hour of rain typically does to the streets of Phnom Penh. It made for a much slower trip back home, especially after the girls tuk tuk stalled due to water getting into the exhaust. Cameron had to jump out of his tuk tuk and knee deep in water, help the drivers pull their tuk tuks onto higher ground to try to get the water out. We eventually found higher ground and thanks to our tuk tuk driver Dina, were able to find some back streets that weren’t as flooded. We all went out for pizza that night, including our two drivers and Jonothan (Dina’s 6yrs old son) thankful we’d survived the rain and the trip back. It made for quite an exciting adventure!