Where hope doesn't belong.

Josh and I went to church this morning at the center here. If I haven’t said this in an earlier post, we’re volunteering for an organization called Foursquare Children of Promise that sponsors over 100 orphan homes throughout provinces in Cambodia. Our job is to coordinate teams who come in from other countries (mostly the US) to do construction work, painting, dental and medical clinics at these homes. The beauty of FCOP and what I appreciate about it most is the fact that it has at its heart the goal of raising up Cambodians to be the ones who extend the love of God to other Cambodians. It is not simply a Western methodology (and theology) imposed on a separate culture in hopes that they will embrace it. The church services are all in Khmer, with worship leaders singing songs in Khmer and pastors preaching to the congregation in their own language. A perk for me is the fact that many of the songs we sing are ones I have known for years that have been translated into Khmer. :)

FCOP does offer English language learning in the homes for the children (which the kids pick up easily from my encounters with them), and the center here in Phnom Penh also has the capacity to teach the children music, computer skills, and other practical tools. The center is currently building on a new medical clinic that I toured for the first time today. It is incredible. It will be a huge asset to the home and surrounding community.

The newest (in process) addition to the center is a women’s dorm that will house local women for a very reasonable rent while offering them safety and fellowship, along with the chance to be discipled. I am excited to see what the Lord does through this.

This all leads me back to this morning when Josh and I drove to the center for worship, knowing we’d have to leave a bit early to go pick up the team that was coming in from Iowa. After the worship team left the stage, a group of maybe 6 little girls entered wearing angel costumes with halos. I will preface any further thoughts by saying that I am not usually one to be enamored with children’s performances (sorry). I think kids are cute and that it’s fun for parents to see what their child has learned, but my emotions don’t go much beyond that normally.

But today was different. Today, as these girls came out on stage, music playing from a nearby speaker and the evidence of their rehearsals found in corresponding hand motions and gestures, I had to fight to keep my composure.

The reason for this wasn’t based solely on their performance but on the fact that these girls are living in a place where hope doesn’t belong. They have inherited a history robbed of hope, not entirely, but nearly. I learned more about it specifically today as Josh and I picked up the team from Iowa and went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum housed in what used to be a school house. It was turned into a prison created for the purposes of interrogation, torture, and eventual extermination of anyone who opposed the Khmer Rouge. What remains in the museum today are remnants of the time: chains, barbed wire, torture devices, and rows of pictures of people who went from living life to living in a literal hell on earth. It is unfathomable to read about the conditions of the people, many of them former teachers, officers, business people, friends, daughters, mothers. It is sobering.

And it is a history that seemingly could never intersect with 6 young girls dressed in angel costumes dancing to music on the stage of a church, smiling, giggling, confident in knowing that they are loved, that they are worthwhile, that hope showed up where it was least expected and made its home where it didn’t belong.