Megan's Blog

8/17/11

This is a couple of days too late, but I’d still like to share some of my thoughts.

The other day we drove from one city to the next, leaving the Rapha girls and a chunk of our hearts behind. As the bus chugged along, I stared out the window. Every house we passed, every face we passed, every Buddhist temple we passed was all just a blur. The last week or so is now sort of… just a blur. A blur of laughter and tears, of faces and stories, of voices and places and things we did. It’s all a blur. I’m glad I’ve been journaling and keeping record of the places we’ve gone and the people we’ve talked to. I’m glad I’ve kept record of the little things, like eating at Jars of Clay. I’m glad I’ve kept record of the big, amazing things, like singing How Great Is Our God in front of the entire congregation.

Driving past all those places, though? They are blurry, but I can’t forget the shacks I saw. I can’t forget the giant Buddhist temples, with glorious gates and beautiful architecture. I can’t forget the dirty faces and bare bodies running around in the garbage just outside those gates.

It’s hard for me to see such wealth and beauty next to such poverty. It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around someone not helping the people around them. It’s hard for me to look at that wealth and not be angry that the wealthy aren’t helping the poor.

The poor that live just outside the little box that they live in.

And while I’m angry at those wealthy Buddhist monks for not reaching out and helping the people around them, I’m reminded of how many times I have walked by a beggar on the street of Orlando. How many times have I pretended to have empty pockets when in reality I had money that I was actually anxious to spend? How many times have I passed up an opportunity to share the Gospel when the door was wide open to me? How many times have I shooed someone away because they smelled bad, or looked bad, or didn’t fit my idea of who Jesus would want me to reach out to?

Too many times.

So as we were driving by those temples and poor communities and dirty faces and dirty feet and dirty hands and bare bodies, I felt a tug on my heart. I want so badly to move to one of those places and live in community with those people and love them and give to them and provide for them.

Kelsey's Thoughts...

Isaiah 40:18-23

¹⁸ With whom, then, will you compare God?
   To what image will you liken him?
¹⁹ As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,
   and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
   and fashions silver chains for it.
²⁰ A person too poor to present such an offering
   selects wood that will not rot;
they look for a skilled worker
   to set up an idol that will not topple.

 ²¹ Do you not know?
   Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
   Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
²² He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
   and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
   and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
²³ He brings princes to naught
   and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.

            Isaiah 40 stood out to me today as we toured Angkor Watt, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The temples were built 1000 years ago for the various Hindu Gods and are now used by Buddhists to worship and make offerings. There were so many mixed emotions as we walked through the temples. On one hand I was impressed and in awe of the craftsmanship and splendor of the temples, but on the other hand I was so sad that so many people have bought into the lies and based their life on creating something so magnificent and grand for pagan gods. As I stood amongst the temples I couldn’t help but be so thankful that I serve a God who doesn’t require this from me. Though He deserves indescribable glory and honor, He doesn’t demand fancy temples or idols created after Him. It hit me that as Christians our bodies are viewed as temples. Before today I never saw much significance in that fact, but after viewing these temples and the sacredness of them to the people I began to understand just how sacred our bodies are to God and how we should treat them as such. It gave me a whole new understanding and view of that scripture.

            This trip so far has been such an eye opening experience for us all I think. We are learning so much about the deep seeded issues of human trafficking and practical ways to combat it as well as personal revelations and future desires dealing with these issues. I would ask for prayer for the last stretch of our trip. After leaving Rapha House we all felt as if our heart was being ripped from our chests and that we had given all that we had to these girls and in turn had nothing left to offer. Pray that we are able to continue to pour out love and compassion. Pray that we don’t get discouraged or distracted. Pray that we stay selfless and reflect Christ in all that we say and do. Pray for energy as exhaustion is beginning to set in and finally pray for health as Hiatt has become sick and needs healing. Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement!!

With love,

Kelsey

lop lop

“You lop lop”

“No, you lop lop”

“No, YOU lop lop”

“You lop lop”

“Lop” is the Khmer word for crazy. Coincidentally it is also my name to many of the girls at Rapha House. One girl called me “lop lop” and our guide, Theara, told me that it meant I was crazy.  I called her “lop lop” back.  She laughed.  Instant rapport.  She convinced all of the other girls that I actually was lop lop and it became my name.  It is how they know me, and they reminded me of it every single time they saw me, pointing and laughing.  “You lop lop.”

On a side note, I much prefer that they call me “lop lop” than Brad, which bears uncanny resemblance to the Khmer word for ghosts that reside in Hell.  Their mouths are only big enough to slurp rice noodles, and they get the chance to come up once a year with hopes of being reincarnated, giving themselves the chance to create better circumstances for themselves.  They thought it was hilarious.

Anyway, two girls in particular spoke impeccable English.   The rest spoke very little.  They only knew maybe a few words, completely unable to make sentences and certainly unable to understand ours.  However, knowing this one Khmer word, “lop,” allowed me to create an instant connection with the girls there.  They knew that we loved them, even if I called them “lop lop.”  I think they loved us, too.  As we were leaving, many of them told us that they did.  They gave us letters, gifts, hugs, parting words and thoughts, etc.  One girl (who I must protect by not disclosing her name) gave me a letter, which on the envelope was addressed, “Father.”  The fact that this girl had known me for all of 72 hours and addressed me as father got to me a little bit.  Maybe it is a cultural anomaly and I am over thinking this entirely, but could I really be that significant of a male influence in her life that she would address me as “Father?”  Has her childhood really been so depleted of fatherly male influence that I, for all intents and purposes a stranger, stand out to her as a father figure?

Probably.

These girls need Jesus.  I told her that I love her.  I have loved her for a long time without knowing her.  I will continue to love her.  After loving her for so long before I even knew her, 3 days was not enough.  I don’t know if any amount of time would be enough.  Saying goodbye last night was easily the most unpalatably difficult thing I have ever had to do in my life, with no close second.  However, something amazing happened this morning, just hours later.  We joined the Rapha House staff devotion, but we were told the night before that we would not see the girls.  Therefore, last night I had convinced myself that it was the last time I would ever see these girls, which was painful.  Especially saying goodbye to three girls that I became particularly close to.  We were surprised to find many of the girls there to greet us after the devotion.  Saying goodbye the second time was hard, but it was easier than the first time.  I realized that I had been foolish to think that I would never see these girls again.  Because of the work that Rapha House does, I will be able to spend eternity with them.  It might be a while before I see them again, but this life is such a short time in the scope of eternity.  I told the three girls that I grew to know the best that I love them and that I would never ever forget them.

I do, and I won’t.  The word “love” has never carried more weight as it left my lips than it did this morning.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

With love,

Brad

From Hiatt's Journal...

This is the day we have all been waiting for! We finally get to meet the girls at RH! Our main reason for this trip...to love these girls! But, oh, how they loved us!

As we got off the bus, they greeted us with clapping and they formed a path in between them for us to walk through. They gave Dave one of the most beautiful flower bouquets that I have ever seen. They brought us to a place at the front of the house where we all sat in chairs as they performed several beautiful Khmer dances for us. The girls would sit with us and hold our hands and touch us and speak to us in a language that none of us knew but it spoke to our hearts nonetheless.

After the amazing ceremony, they sat us at tables where they had prepared a dinner of rice and octopus and a mixture of several delicious fruits. We ate and laughed. They would watch us eat and I think some were even giggling at the way we ate certain foods because we did not know the proper way. It was quite funny.

Once dinner was over, something amazingly strange happened. It started off slow, but in a matter of minutes, the area turned into a huge outside dance party. Someone said, "Thank you Jennifer Lopez for breaking the ice for us." The excitement of the girls to dance with us and even teach us some of their own traditional Khmer dances was all it took to get every one of us Americans with no rhythm to dance with the most freedom. The motto for this trip is "get over yourself." I never knew how much getting over myself could actually be. We danced all night, dripping sweat, heart beating out of my chest, and it was the best night of my life. We got to know some of the girls as they patiently taught us these amazing dance steps.

They are beautiful, amazing, loving girls and we all fell in love.

Rebranding

The Florida Christian College Cambodia team for the year of our Lord two thousand and eleven will hereafter be known as "The Far East Movement."

Awkward is an awkward word

            Yesterday the group went to a local market and it was very neat and interesting to see what they had there. They had everything you could have needed or wanted, including clothes, purses (most of which I assume are knock-offs), pirated DVDs (which I thought were funny because most of the movies were still in theaters), food, and random tools and car parts. But of course, this isn’t what had the biggest impact on me. What had the biggest impact on me was being a foreigner in this market full of natives. When I would walk through the narrow paths, I felt awkward sometimes because I felt like the native people were looking at me and judging me thinking that I was just a stupid American tourist. This made me feel uncomfortable because I wanted the people to know that I wasn’t just a stupid American tourist, but a person who wants to help their people. I know that it’s okay to have these feelings because I am a foreigner in their country. This experience also made me realize that American people do the same to the foreigners that go there, because when foreigners come to America we judge them and stereotype them. I now know how the tourists and foreigners feel when they come to our country and experience our stares and judgmental eyes and it makes me think about how, I personally, have been looking and judging the foreigners. Although I felt awkward the experience in the market was amazing and eye-opening. 

I forgot someone...

When I was listing the members of our team, I forgot to tell you about our lovely guide, Theara.  She is Khmer and she works in conjunction with Rapha House to put on a "Kid's Club" twice a week that is based out of her family's home.  Every Thursday evening and Sunday morning, a ton of kids from a very very VERY impoverished area of Phnom Penh come to her home to play, sing songs, learn English, and more importantly learn about Jesus.  There is also a "Kid's Club" preschool that meets every weekday morning at Theara's house.  She works tirelessly to reach the children of Cambodia with the Gospel of Christ.  But for 12 days, she has been and will be responsible for taking us to all of the places we need - or want - to go.  You can pray for Theara in a few ways:

1. For patience in dealing with us (we can be a handfull...).
2. For continued strength and encouragement from God that what she is doing is Kingdom work!
3. The resources that she needs to continue to do "Kid's Club"
4. Theara's family just bought the land behind her home.  She has a vision to build a building that can be used as a school, a place for kids to play when the weather is too hot or rainy, and a place to house foster children.  Theara has figured out that she needs $25,000 to build this building on the lot her family just purchased.  If it's God's will, it's God's bill.  Please keep that in your prayers.

Our group is so thankful that Theara is guiding us. She has been a valuable part of our group educationally, but has also helped all of us spiritually (if only understanding what it means to get out there and meet the needs you see in the community around you.).

Tomorrow (or maybe later tonight, for those of you in the states) we will have some blog posts about Bloom Cupcakes, the IJM Cambodia Office, and our visit to "Kid's Club."

With love,

Brad

Food for thought

A Cambodian proverb says that men are like gold, and women are like white cloth.  This not only implies a gender superiority present in their culture, but also eludes to the idea that men can be wiped clean of their past, while women become permanently soiled as they make mistakes in their lives.

Romans 8:1-3 says "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,  in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

Tuol Sleng

To begin with, I'd like to apologize for my last post if it seemed like I was condemning Lauren and Josh for choosing to go be with their family instead of come to Cambodia. I was not undermining the severity of Josh's (Lauren's brother) illness in anyway, shape or form. If nothing else, I'm applauding Lauren and Josh for making the decision to be with family. I would have chosen the same thing. With that said, the team and I are still in constant prayer for their family and that Josh would be healed completely.

Today after we landed in Phnom Penh we had about 30-45minutes of downtime before we headed out into the city. Theara, our guide, took us to Bloom, the western market, S.21 (Tuol Sleng), and to a really cool place for dinner. I wish I could remember the name of it.

While I'd like to say something about everything from today, my mind really won't stop focusing on Tuol Sleng.

As we pulled up to the school turned prison/death camp a lot of team members commented on the barbed wire still on top of the wall surrounding the compound.

I was looking at the building and thinking about how it looks exactly like the pictures I showed all summer at camp.

To go from talking about a place of mass death to walking around in it is apparently quite the shocker. But I can't even get into that before I tell you about the children at the gate.

One boy. One girl. Both holding plastic bins with books and bracelets in them. They marched right up to us and gave us their very best sales pitch, certain that we would buy. They were wrong, and when we all declined they started to really push for us to hand over some cash for some goods. The little boy went straight for Jordan and said, "buy a book!" Jordan is great, if you don't know him, and this was his reply: "I can't read." That little boy didn't miss a beat when Jordan said that, and said back to him immediately "you lie. buy a book." We laughed. The boy asked us if we knew Barack Obama. He may have also said something about Justin Beiber, but I'm not sure.

So we walk in. We disperse into groups. We roam the grounds. We read the signs in english, soaking up testimonies and personal histories and horror stories. They're all similar -- this woman was a prison, that man was a Khmer Rouge soldier; this man was a prison who found favor in the eyes of Comrade Duch, that woman escaped by a miracle. The same stories, over and over, and yet each story remarkably different and just as important as the last was and as the next will be. Individual lives, sadly woven together by one man's thirst for power and perfection.

It was rough, walking around. I can't imagine what it would be like to actually have been there between '75 and '79. It's unbelievable the amount of pain and suffering that occurred in the rooms we just walked through. We walked. Took photos. Took videos. Journaled. Whispered to each other. Asked Theara questions, to translate some Khmer that wasn't translated.

I can only speak for myself, I think. We all have different thoughts about what we read and the walls we touched and the blood we saw on the floor. Murder weapons sat on beds, torture devices on display. Photos of prisoners who died upon entry. Photos of tortured men and women. Photos of skulls stacked upon skulls stacked upon skulls. Photos of people being murdered.

I can't begin to process this.

And then there are the children who play on the sidewalks of the city. I don't know who they are, or where they come from, or if they have a home to go home to; but every time I saw a kid walking around or playing or sitting there on a step, I couldn't help but wonder if they've been exploited or abused. I couldn't help but wonder if they're safe. Seeing them breaks my heart.

I hope Jesus comes back soon. There's too much pain in the world.

-Megan

The Team!

I guess we should have posted this a long time ago, but if you feel so inclined to pray for the members of our team by name, they are:

David Peters
Tammy Davis
Hyatt Fields
Derek Fields
Tami Stancil
Jordan Stancil
Megan Tucker
Ryan Brackett
Kelsey Whitlow
Jillian Martinelli
Brandy Arnold
Brad Warren

Also, we would appreciate your prayers for the two members of our team who are not with us (for reasons mentioned earlier), Josh and Lauren Gaines.

Thanks for the prayers!

With love from Phnom Penh,

The Team

We made it!

We have arrived and are getting settled in at our hotel in Phnom Penh.  The culture is so remarkably different that it would be impossible for me to describe!  We will be posting some pictures to the blog a little later on so that you can get a taste for what we are experiencing!  Thank you all so much for the prayers!  Continue to pray for our team, that we would see God's will for our lives as we move throughout this trip!  More to come from Phnom Penh later tonight, so keep checking up on us!

With love,

Brad

Hi friends!

Since Megan's last post, we have boarded our second plane to continue our flight to Vancouver, Canada - and then on to Hong Kong, China. Twenty hours on a plane is not the most fun experience in the world, let me tell you. But we made it! The plane ride actually wasn't as terrible as I believe all of us expected it to be. The food was remarkably good and we were flying on one of the best airlines possible - Cathay Pacific. Hong Kong, China - is so incredible to experience, even though we're only in the airport. Also, Megan and I decided to go to Starbucks here at the airport and they serve JELLY in their coffee! For example, Caramel Frapp with Jelly. It's gross. Really cool looking, but I'm just not understanding the jelly-in-coffee concept. Megan got it though with her Java Chip Frapp, and she'll tell you more about that in a second. :) God has been so good to us thus far, and we can't believe that in just a few short hours we'll finally been in Cambodia. And able to take showers - fingers crossed. Well, that's all for now!

-Brandy :)

-2 and a layover

Currently half of our team is going to McDonald's in the JFK airport, and the other half of us is watching bags, reading books, journaling, texting, listening to ipods, and (for me) blogging. Our trip has already had some hiccups and bumps, and I think there are some things that are very important that need to be said.

Two of our team members, Lauren and Josh, have made the decision to back out of the trip. This is sad for two reasons: 1. Lauren and Josh have been an integral part of planning this trip since it was first announced that it would take place this past year. 2. Lauren's brother, Josh, (Josh is also the name of her husband) is in the hospital facing some very sudden and very serious health issues. Lauren and Josh got the call last night and shared with us this morning about what was going on. They knew at some point during this first leg of the trip that they would get a call from Lauren's family giving news about her brother, and that news would determine whether or not they came to Cambodia with us. They got the news this morning in Orlando right after we got through security, and made the decision then to be with family. This comes hard to our team because each member of the team is super important. Dave, our fearless leader, shared some wisdom this morning as Lauren and Josh announced their leaving. He said something to the effect of how God seeks to preserve and protect. What God is preserving in Lauren and Josh or protecting them from is a complete mystery to the team and myself. Perhaps God is preserving and/or protecting the rest of us from something. Who knows. All we know is that Lauren and Josh will keep us updated, and that we will be praying fiercely for Josh's recovery and that the team of doctors who's care he is under would be mighty skilled and full of wisdom and knowledge about what's going on. I know that God is the ultimate healer. We know that. So, for now, we pray and wait to hear back from Lauren and Josh. Please pray with us as their family goes through this rough time -- pray for their hearts to be comforted, for courage and strength, and for them to see the face of Jesus as the next few days and weeks progress.

-2, and still going strong. We know that God is God, and His wisdom is not like our own.

On a lighter note, we're hanging out in the gate waiting area for the next, ohh... five hours? Longest. Layover. Of. Life.

Kelsey and Brad have both brought a deck of cards and Tami brought Farkle, so I'm sure we will have something to keep us entertained for a while. After that, it's reading and sleeping and listening to our ipods over and over again. I think we all smell like airplane, which I think is a terrible smell. It's not bad smelling, it's just not my favorite smell in the world. We've filled up our stomachs with what may be our last American meal for a while, and I'm pretty okay with that.

Everyone seems content with the way things are going so far, minus the Lauren and Josh leaving part.

I think we all know that whatever happens, God is working. It's good to remember that the Lord is working in our favor, and in the favor of those we may know nothing about, as we travel and do our thing. My hope for these next two weeks is that the people on our team, both individually and as a whole, would bend low. I've heard it said that "low" is where we see the face of Jesus -- and I want to see the face of Jesus. My hope for these next two weeks is that we would become like a family, working and moving together with the same goal in mind: bringing glory to God. My hope for these next two weeks is that we would be gentle, forgiving, understanding, and compassionate towards one another. Things will happen. We will get angry at each other. We will be annoyed. We will make a snarky comment, a low blow, and we will step on each others' toes. These things I'm not surprised by, nor do they worry me too much. We have a good team. A strong team. A team that will continually seek Jesus and work at our relationships with Him and one another.

I'm stoked by the way the Lord will move in our group.

Love from JFK,
Megan (& team)

Welcome!

All of us our really excited about our trip!  We want you to be excited for us as well!  This blog will be a great place for you (friends, family, supporters, etc.) to keep up with how we are doing on our trip, what we are seeing, what we are discovering, things you can be praying for, and how we are being moved and changed along the way!  Everyone on the trip will have the opportunity to contribute to this blog, so some posts will be from the group, others from individuals, and some may even be anonymous.

We leave Sunday, and are all very excited to see what God has in store for us!

Father God, thank you for this amazing opportunity you have blessed us with.  Thank you for our team of people who want to go do something about the injustices in the world.  Give us patience, understanding, and love toward one another as we learn, grow, and share this experience together.  Help us to see your will for us while we are in Cambodia, as well as how we can work from the United States in the future to put an end to the horrible injustice of human trafficking.  Help us to show your love to the staff and residents of Rapha House, as well as anyone else we may come in contact with.  Rid us of ourselves, God, as we seek to do your will: your good, pleasing, and perfect will.  Begin to prepare us now for what we will observe and experience while we are in Cambodia.  Bless us with safe travel.  Thank you again for being who You are, and for never changing.  Thank you especially for your Son, who came to set the captives free.  A mission we must continue, and one which we are already the benefactors of.  We love you, God.  In Christ's name.  Amen.