The only good thing in the whole sad story is that Khmer Rouge fell. The reign of terror did not endure. But in those four short years a third of the Cambodian population died - between 2 and 3 MILLION people. The statistics are overwhelming and unbelievable.I am writing with Martin Smith's 'Great is Your Faithfulness' playing in the background. It is the only way I can... seeing the faithfulness of God even in this. As I wrote to a close friend: "It happened. It lasted for four years. It ended. The Khmer Rouge are no more... The people of Cambodia are still here. I see them and rejoice." But the wounds take a very long time to heal... and the scars are distressing and obvious.
Our first visit of the day was to the Choeung Ek, the Killing Field just outside Phnom Penh. It is the best known of these killing fields, but in fact it is just one of many sites where Cambodians were ruthlessly and mercilessly killed by their own people.
We wandered around, listening to an audio guide, looking at graves and bones and skulls. It felt numb. Unbelievable. Like a bad and tragic dream. The killing tree, where soldiers bashed in the brains of children before hurling them into mass graves. The glass boxes of bones and fragments of clothing, collected together whenever rain surfaces yet another reminder. The simple sign requesting that we keep silence in memory of the dead. The beautiful Buddhist memorial building, standing tall into the sky, with row upon row upon row of skulls, carefully grouped in age and gender. The ambiance of sorrow that pervades the place, even now.Sambo, one of our translators, and a good friend, told of his experiences. He was about 6 years old when the Khmer Rouge took power. He remembers being forced to leave his home in Phnom Penh along with his mother and his father. His father had to carry him after a while, because he became tired. But one was not allowed to stop marching; anyone who did was immediately executed.
Sambo wept as he told us his memories; memories of his parents crying; of waiting to die and yet being saved, miraculously, not once but three times (an unheard of thing - because when the Khmer Rouge decided to kill you, they killed you.) He described the horror of marching endlessly, being allowed finally to lie down and sleep in the dark of night, and waking up in the morning to find that he had been sleeping amongst the bodies of slain soldiers. He told of months of extreme hunger, of being able to count the grains of rice in his meal (no more than 20), and of going without even that meagre allowance when he became ill - if you did not work, you did not eat. He told of being separated from his parents, and of being despised by the other children because he was from the city. He told of being challenged to eat chillies with the promise (often not kept) of an extra serving of food if he did. He told of the tears. The endless, mindless work. The loneliness. The rejection. And he said the saddest thing of all: 'I didn't know what is childhood...'
My heart just broke, listening. What these people have endured....
It was really hard, going to the Toul Sleng Detention Centre (Security Prison 21), where suspected traitors, thousands of them, were tortured for information. It was hard, seeing the prison cells, the torture implements, the interrogation rooms. So hard to look at the tragic photographs of countless victims, men, women and children - taken upon arrival at this most notorious of places. To read of the few Westerners who were caught up in this turmoil and tortured to death. To look on yet more glass cases full of skulls.
And it was so hard to go on a tour with a fresh faced young man, and to listen as he described things that sounded like something from a nightmare or a horror movie. It struck me how dreadful it is that he should have to tell stories like this. That this should be part of his consciousness, his history. When in fact, his life should be composed of nothing more ugly than a sharp-shooter computer game - like my son's innocent life.
He showed us the wire fencing, put around the balconies, to stop desperate prisoners leaping to their deaths rather than face another session in the interrogation room. And he told us about teenage soldiers, who in fear for their own lives, would punish, viciously, any prisoner whose chains clinked because they moved in their cells.
It was tempting to leave; to hide from this terrible narrative. But there was another part of me that knew that I owed it to these people, dead and alive, to hear and know, to identify with their pain, to feel something of what they feel, every day. I knew that I could not presume to bring a message of hope and renewal if I had not tasted of their tragedy. And so I stayed. Absorbing every bitter morsel, until the end. And then we went home, to our comfortable hotel, where I downloaded the photographs I had taken. And this is what I saw... and it was so significant to me. I saw the Cross of Christ, reflected on the glass. Covering; sheltering the pain and the suffering. I was reminded of the One, described in Isaiah 53, Who too was rejected and alone, Who was tortured, suffered and died at the hands of fellow men, Who knew what it was to be broken, unwanted, betrayed; the only One able, once and for all, to absorb this kind of pain. And I knew, yet again, that it is impossible for our God to ignore the cry of the oppressed. And in this knowing, I was comforted.
In the evening, we went out. Our intention had been to split into three groups and to spend time praying for the people of Cambodia at different places in the city. We left in three tuk-tuks ( motorbike with a kind of trailer with seats), a popular means of transport in the city. One group was supposed to go to the temple area, another to the brothel area, and the third (my group) to the riverfront. But we had forgotten an important point. It was the Water Festival or Bon Om Tuk as the Khmer call it. And upwards of a million people gather at the river bank to celebrate. Bon Om Tuk is one of Cambodia's most important festivals. Dating from the 12th Century, and King Jayavarman VII, the festivities are intended to please the river divinities, ensuring good harvests and fishing. So Phnom Penh was absolutely bursting with people, and most of these people were on the main road that runs along the river - and so were we. It was soon obvious that we were not going to be going anywhere; there was major congestion. So we paid our tuk tuk drivers and got off and walked back along the river towards our hotel. It was amazing! An astonishing sight. And so good after the trauma of the day. Here were the people of Cambodia. Here they were! All around us.
And there was a father, tenderly cradling his sleeping child on his shoulder. Watching him, it seemed to me as if God Himself was holding Cambodia. And He was fathering her, as if she were a child. His child. The sight was so very precious; I was moved, finally, to tears. And I felt God say: 'Sing over these people!' And so I asked Him: "What should I sing?" And this is what He said:
The earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the glory
of the Lord
just as the waters
cover the sea.
And so that is what I sang, all the way back to the hotel. And it was such a privilege to bless these people, these special people, on this special feast day. This day turned for me from a day of death to a day of celebration.
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