Note: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week I will be sharing excerpts from the travel journal I wrote during a recent visit to Cambodia. I traveled with a group from Park Street Church, my church home in Boston, to learn about the work in which World Relief is involved in Cambodia and to work alongside them (by teaching ESL classes to WR staff). My time there also gave me the opportunity to learn first-hand more about Cambodia’s history, to get to know some of its wonderful people, and grapple with some of the sad realities of what life can look like for victims of injustice.

On Saturday we had the opportunity to visit two historical sites in Phnom Penh, sadly known for the events that happened there during the Khmer Rouge era (1975-1979). One was a mass grave site located 15km outside of Phnom Penh where 9,000 bodies were discovered buried in shallow, mass graves. There is a tall monument/tower filled with shelves of the victims' skulls. It was one of the most devastating things I have seen.  To add to the already devastating nature of what happened during this time, the Khmer Rouge exhibited even greater cruelty by burying the dead in these shallow, mass graves. According to Buddhist tradition, one who does not receive a proper burial is condemned to have his/her soul wander aimlessly as a ghost. 

Next we visited a prison (formerly a school) where over 20,000 Cambodians passed through on their way to being executed. The rooms hold haunting memories of what happened during the Khmer Rouge era - thousands of individual photos of the victims, instruments of torture, the list goes on. Our guide from World Relief told the story of a World Relief staff member who discovered her father's picture among the thousands there. And, today in class we studied vocabulary words on the family. As the students spoke of their families, many shared that their parents and grandparents died during the time of Pol Pot. It is hard not to have a broken heart over and fall in love with the people I meet here as I am blessed by their gentle kindness and amazed by the resilience and hope they demonstrate daily as they continue to heal individually and collectively. We had the opportunity to attend a worship service (in Khmer) yesterday morning, and though I did not understand a word that was said, I was deeply moved by the enthusiasm and love these people have for the Lord.