Why Cambodia?

God has put a burning passion inside of us to see the nation of Cambodia transformed and healed from the inside out. Many of you have heard us share the heartbreaking stories about human trafficking, prostitution, and sex slavery. Have you ever asked yourself how it got that way in the first place? In order to fully understand the vision we feel God has given us for Cambodia, you have to first understand it's past. It is important to see the truth about what happened here and see how the past has shaped our present. The genocide in Cambodia is something that cannot be forgotten. It is important to take a look at this history because of it's strong affects on the nation today. 

Please take a few minutes to read the article below so that you can fully understand our heart and vision for Cambodia. 

Kingdom of Cambodia Flag.

The Cambodian Genocide

Cambodia is a country located in South East Asia, it is roughly half the size of California. Before the genocide Cambodia was known as "the Pearl of Asia" because of it's great success in trade and exports. In the 1960's it had a population of over 7 million people, and was almost entirely a Buddhist nation.

The Khmer Rouge movement began in 1970, led by Pol Pot. He was an admirer of Maoist (Chinese) Communism and sought to "purify" Cambodia. In just five years his guerrilla army had grown to over 700,000 men. This regime believed that the citizens of Cambodia had been tainted by exposure to outside ideas, especially the capitalist West.  Overthrowing the government the Khmer Rouge embarked on a mission: they ruthlessly imposed an extremist program meant to reconstruct Cambodia on the communist model of Mao's China. 

Religion was banned, all leading Buddhist monks were killed and almost all temples destroyed. Music and radio sets were banned. Children were separated from their families and sent to separate forced labor camps. Factories, schools, and universities were shut down, and so were hospitals. The Khmer Rouge persecuted anyone they considered to be educated - such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, current and former military or police, people with education, people with glasses, and even people who spoke another language. This also included any Christians, Buddhist  or Muslim citizens. They were all murdered along with their extended families. They began "re-education" programs created to brainwash the community into supporting the Khmer Rouge. Those who refused the re-education programs were killed in the fields surrounding the commune or at the infamous prison camp Tuol Sleng Centre, known as S-21. People who were not killed were forced to do hard unpaid labor on little food for long hours. People were weak from starvation and being over worked. Civilian deaths from this period have been estimated between 2-3 million.


The Khmer Rouge was removed from power when communist Vietnam invaded in January of 1979 and established a pro-Vietnamese regime in Cambodia. Many survivors fled to refugee camps in Thailand. Since 1995 mass graves began to be uncovered revealing the true extent of the genocide. The resurrected bones and skulls have been preserved to create memorials in "the killing fields" where they died. At the center of Phnom Penh, where the Khmer Rouge terrorized and murdered thousands of people in the S-21 prison, not only skulls but also photographs of the victims are displayed on the walls. This bleak unhappy place has also become a memorial.

This is a picture I took at the monument in the killing fields.

In 1998 Pol Pot died of natural causes under house arrest in his own home. To this day only one Khmer Rouge soldier has been brought to justice....

Cambodia Today 

The nation's bleak history is a major part of why we want to bring restoration to this country. Take just a minute to think about this... How many families do you know that would fall under one of these categories:

Teacher
Doctor
Lawyer
Police Officer
Military
Someone who wears glasses
Someone who speaks another language
Religious Leader
College Graduate

Out of those categories alone how many people would you have lost?

My dad is a doctor, my mom is a police chaplain, my brother serves in the U.S. Military, my husband is a college graduate and I am a pastor at my church. For various reasons, my whole family would have been lost in this genocide. If America were to lose all of the people listed above throughout the whole nation, how would we rebuild? How can you train doctors if there are no doctors to train them? How can you create peace and security without a police force and military personnel? How can you have faith when there are no religious leaders? And how can you raise up the next generation if there are no educators? Now imagine if the murderers that were in charge of these horrible atrocities were never brought to justice. What if they roamed the streets of your city and lived out normal civilian lives. Cambodia is faced with questions and concerns like these every day.

I took this picture in one of the slums of Phnom Penh.

This information may seem distant to you, but remember this genocide ended less than thirty years ago! That means everyone in Cambodia who is thirty years old or above personally lived through or escaped the genocide. People under the age of thirty make up 68% of Cambodia's population. Many of these are orphans whose families were killed during the Khmer Rouge. Because of the extreme poverty of the nation 90% of children between the ages 5-17 work on farms to help provide for their families or are orphans and work on the streets to provide for themselves. For those children who do attend school 50% will drop out before the sixth grade. The lack of education leaves little room for people to escape this vicious cycle of poverty and forces many to work in farming, begging, peddling, or prostitution. This is the cycle that we want to see broken.

Our Vision

It would be easy to walk through the streets of Cambodia and be overwhelmed. It would be easy to become hopeless and feel like there is no way to help. The truth is, it took just one man to corrupt a nation, and we believe it will only take one man to bring it to complete restoration.... Jesus. We want to see this generation of Khmer people dream again. Our vision is to see the wounds of the past healed, and hearts restored. We actually have no desire to transform Cambodia ourselves, the yearning of our heart is to see this generation rise up and change their own nation! We want to see children educated so that they can become righteous teachers, doctors, lawyers, police officers and religious leaders that will shape their nation and bring it into revival.

Children having fun during one of the XP Mission outreaches. 

Ward and I will be partnering with an amazing organization in Cambodia called XP Missions. XP Missions has been on ground in Cambodia for several years and has many programs already established. If you would like to learn more about XP Missions and the practical things that we will be doing to transform Cambodia from the inside out, check out my blog post here: XP Missions Info.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_in_Cambodia
http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_cambodia2.html