I am always inspired by the people I meet in Cambodia – Cambodians and expats alike. I am challenged by them. I am humbled by them. And I always go home overwhelmed and grateful that God has created so many precious people – each so unique, so differently passionate – yet all made in the same image. And we’re all on the same team!
Kim is one of these people. I went to the clinic in Phnom Penh where she’s been working for the past six months. I went home changed. Down a dusty side road on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, next to the open canal that stinks for miles, Kim helps women who work in brothels. She loves them and cares for their babies. She gives them medecine and walks with them as they learn preventative measures so maybe they won’t need so much medecine anymore.
Thank you Kim for your work and your sense of humor and your willingness to share your experiences with us. And for reminding me that following Jesus is about love – not just justice, but justice in love. And that as we give cups of water and feed the least of these – we are serving Jesus himself.
From Kim’s latest blog post:
An interpretation of Matthew 25 by a homeless women:
I was hungry and you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger.
I was imprisoned and you crept off quietly to your church and prayed for my release.
I was naked and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.
I was sick and you knelt and thanked God for your health.
I was homeless and you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God.
I was lonely and you left me alone to pray for me.
You seem so holy, so close to God,
but I am still very hungry – and lonely – and cold.By John Stott
Land grabs in Cambodia push poor out
Global Poverty Prayer Week - Get on your knees for the world's most vulnerable.
“The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.” Albert Einstein
We might not be able to change the world, but we can pray. Jesus did say that if we had the faith the size of a mustard seed that we would move mountains. And faith starts with prayer right? Talking to God? Tear Fund UK is hosting the Global Poverty Prayer Week from Februay 23-March 1 this year. I will be praying that my heart will broken by the things that break the heart of God. And for creativity, passion, wisdom, and a heart that is willing to sacrifice for my brothers and sisters around the world who are enslaved, trafficked, malnourished, and hopeless.
- Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, looks on during a hearing Tuesday at the UN-backed genocide tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal has been on the forefront of my mind and everyone else’s these days. Everyone in Phnom Penh lives and works within 10 km of the buildings where the trials are being held, and as the new apartment that Steve and I are moving to in 10 days sits directly across the street from Tuol Sleng. From our balcony, we will see the former secondary school that was used as an interrogation and torture centre that claimed the lives of 14,000 Cambodians between 1975 and 1978.art of three decades for genocide trials to happen – and unfortunately many former high level Khmer Rouge cadres were never brought to justice. Pol Pot himself, the author and perfector of the horrific regime that claimed the lives of 2 million Cambodians, died at home in 1998. Ta Mok, another high ranking Khmer Rouge cadre who was known as “The Butcher” died in 2004.
But this is an important step. If anything, an opportunity for Cambodians to bring the many, many people who were responsible for the tragedy to justice in their minds, through Duch’s trial.
- REUTERS/ AFP/GETTY – One of the many piles of human remains that dot Cambodia. Top, Chum Mei is on the left of the survivors; middle, prisoners await inspection; above left, Duch and an unknown soldier at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison.
The long awaited trial for Duch – the infamous interrogator at Tuol Sleng’s prison has finally begun – thirty years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.
Yes, slavery does still exist. It might not be the same as the transatlantic slave trade, but it does exist. According to Kevin Bales (author of Disposable People and expert on the contemporary slave trade) there are about 27 million slaves in the world today.
This article talks about just that – that slavery does exist and the hope that Barack Obama (who’s rise to the American presidency is a remarkable example of one man’s triump over the history of slavery) will propel America into a new era of abolition.
Country For Sale - a new report from Global Witness.
Photo by: SOVANN PHILONG. Former Dey Krahorm residents gather Monday outside the National Assembly building where they thumb-printed documents protesting their forced eviction Saturday.
Forced evictions are a regular occurance in Phnom Penh these days, in favour of large-scale, glossy and new apartment complexes, office buildings, etc.
This is the latest in a series of evictions, fires and other “natural phenomena” that have seen many, many families their their homes, their belongings, their livelihoods, and just about all hope.
Read the article from the Phnom Penh Post.
“Why have we fasted,” they say, “and why have you not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed?
Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk; and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
(Isaiah 58: 3-11)
After all of the posts I’ve made about Sweatshops, maybe it’s time I threw in my own two cents.
I won’t deny that sweatshops create jobs. They do. hundreds of thousands of them in Cambodia, in fact. The textile industry makes up a huge percentage of Cambodia’s yearly exports. And every month, young women send money home to their families because of the (meagre) wages they get from cutting, sewing and packing away clothes for Western shoppers. The money they send home means rice and other necessities for their families who are largely subsistence farmers.
So they create jobs, but is that really the issue? I think the issue that is never really addressed is the demand that keep sweatshops open.
“But when jobs aren’t a pathway out of poverty, they create an asymmetric, unsustainable global economy of producer countries and consumer countries that can stand on its head only so long.” (Adam Neiman in his Letter to the Editor)
That’s the issue right there. Sweatshops are a product of global capitalist system that continues to entrench the world’s poor in deeper and deeper poverty and continues to line the pockets of the rich. And as a follower of Jesus, I am called outside of empire, and into allegiance to God Almighty alone. Dare I buy a shirt for $20 when a woman made that shirt for $1 a day? These are deep questions. And they are hard, cause it might require me to change my lifestyle.
“Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain
to set his nest on high,
to escape the clutches of ruin!(Habakkuk 2:9)
Christian women around the world get paid peanuts so that Christian women in the West can have all the clothes they want? There is something wrong with this picture. And that’s why I can’t believe that people actually dream about sweatshops. They may be a short term fix for a family entrenched in poverty, but they continue what can only be seen as a new feudalism. Unfortunately, as a member of the world’s richest consumers, I have to take a deep look at my spending habits and see whether I am contributing the widening gap between rich and poor.
Pursuing faith & justice in Cambodia...the Kingdom of Wonder.
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