Growing up in the 70's

A powerful thought hit me while reading the Lonely Planet Travel Guide recently. Many people my parents' age will no doubt remember what happened in Cambodia, how the country was shut off from the world and turned into a peasant work camp virtually overnight by the Khmer Rouge. If you lived there and even appeared to be educated, wore glasses or spoke two languages you were immediately executed. Others were tortured almost to the point of death, but kept alive until they confessed to "something.. anything" that could be used against them, to be accused as traitors of the regime. Only then were they taken to the killing fields and executed with the over one-million other victims.

It was while I pondered these facts that the thought hit me: "While Cambodians were suffering on the other side of the planet, I was spending my summers playing kick-the-can and complaining about having to eat my spinach" (I never really believed that Popeye story).

Now, 30 years later, as I prepare for our summer mission trip, the perspective is becoming so much clearer. Our team of six will most likely be ministering to young, orphan children, fruits of the victims who survived the tragedy of the past 20 years of Cambodian history. Children whose parents are drug addicts and can't take care of them.

Wow! That's awesome, to think that seven people who probably have never experienced the tragedy the Cambodian people have, will be able to bring faith, hope and love back into the hearts of those people, one person at a time.

More info on our trip coming soon!