The Church in Cambodia | Luke 10:38-42

Dr. Jeff Hogue continues our series in The Global Church by highlighting the church in Cambodia. In a Buddhist country with a traumatic past, the good news of Jesus takes root in fictive-kinship house churches. 

Jeff and his family were missionaries in Cambodia for 21 years, and Jeff has his Doctor of Intercultural Studies from Biola University. 

/// Third Sunday after Pentecost ///

The Global Church: Part 4

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Courtney and I uh we came together with um both of us had a vision for going overseas and doing ministry overseas. Um her story is a little bit different than mine. Um up to this point, um I was kind of heading on a different trajectory. Uh I had a bachelor's degree in aviation. Uh I was an aircraft mechanic and a commercial pilot, and I was kind of heading off into that realm until about 1994. Uh I was in a serious plane crash. Nearly took my life. Long story. Good story, but long story. Um, and one of the big things that I took away from that experience was that life is super short. Um, you know, we're all just kind of cruising along on our life and our our journey, and we have plans, and you know, we're not necessarily thinking about the moment, but we're thinking about the future and and where we're wanting to go and and uh what kind of life we're wanting, and how are we going to make you know our will, impose our will on the world and and to have that happen? And um, yeah, I was in this plane crash, and all of a sudden I discovered that all of those dreams and hopes could be taken away very quickly, and then what would I have to show the Lord, you know, when I met him? Um what what was it that that I would be able to um regard him, show him that I was his disciple, that I loved him, that I followed his ways. And so after that tragic accident, I uh decided I wanted to go to Bible school. And um, so that's where Courtney and I met. We were both in graduate school together, um, and um she uh she kept on making me food. So it was like, you know, I could eat in the cafeteria, or Courtney, she had uh her own little um house that she was in with a roommate, and she was a good cook, and she kept on making me food, and so that was kind of the gateway to my heart. Um she's a great Mexican cook, by the way. You know, if you ever get an invite from Courtney for Mexican food, it's a good, it's a good uh it's a good meal. Um so anyhow, um Courtney and I gave came together as we were going to through Bible school about halfway through that program. We got married. I think we were engaged for what, like eight months? No, four months. We knew each other eight months. We got engaged for four months, and um, and then we were we were married during the summer between the school years. So it was a two-year program that we were in. Um so we were both kind of headed towards missions. I think for me, um one of the things that I had uh believed about God was that he um is indeed at work in the world, that he is actively doing what he said he was going to do, that that this church activity that we're doing is not just us trying to please God in some way and make his kingdom happen, but yet God was actually in the world making his kingdom grow, making building his kingdom as he said he would. And so I wanted to see that. Uh somewhere inside of me said that this, you know, American church and the way that we do church is not all that church is. It's not all that God is doing, that there is out there in the world God making things happen. And I was curious. I wanted to see, I wanted to see him work, I wanted to see his activity. Um, and so I went to Bible school, got boned up on a lot of theology that actually really wasn't all that useful to me in Cambodia. So don't think you need to have a Bible degree in order to be an effective minister out in the world. Um, I've learned a lot of cool things. I'm not saying it was all bad. Uh, it's just that um when I got to Cambodia, um I immediately felt like somebody who had studied a whole bunch of material for an exam and then got to the exam and discovered that what I had studied was the wrong material. Uh I felt completely out of place in Cambodia when we first got there. It was a bit of a shock because it is it is so opposite to what America is. Um it was like going back in a time machine. Um, Cambodia, when we arrived there, I mean a lot of the roads were still dirt. Uh it reminded me of like a western, like a country western, you know, where uh all the houses were made of wood boards, like single boards, and none of them were painted, and there was dirt everywhere, and people were walking and milling about, and it was like this constant, this confusing sea of people moving in all sorts of directions, and there wasn't any like organized system to the city itself. It was like a it was like a village that just started to grow and grow and grow, and then it just became this big confusing mess. And that's what Cambodia was to me when I got off the airplane. It was it was a shock, you know. You had restaurants, you had barbershops, you had car fix-it shops, you had brothels, you had another school, you had all of these things, and it was just this hodgepodge of human activity that was just this huge mix. And um, it was it was um it was shocking. Um, but in a good way. It wasn't shocking in the sense that I was afraid. It made me super curious. How does this work? Because from my American mindset, this none of this should work right. You know, there should be accidents, there should be people, you know, you know, getting hurt, there should be, you know, crashes, chaos. But yet there was this underlying flow to everything, and I was curious about what is this, what is this that makes Cambodia work? And so I geeked out on it, you know, like I normally do on things. So airplanes, I kind of geeked out on that, and then you know, uh theology and Bible school geeked out pretty heavy on that, and then Cambodia was my other big thing that I just I just wanted to know, I wanted to learn. I was super curious about the way that they worked and um how it was that they could be a cohesive society, and I wanted to see the beauty that was going on in Cambodia as well. So um, so yeah, that was us. Uh next slide, please. So uh Cambodia uh is a tropical climate. Um, it's about the same uh latitude as Hawaii. So it's pretty close to the equator. Um so it's hot and humid, hot and dry, hot and wet. Um, those are the two main seasons. Um hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. Uh hot and wet was better than hot and dry, in my opinion. But um so everybody in Cambodia gets around on motorcycles. Uh grandmas and grandpas, um nursing mothers, nursing their babies on motorcycles. Um what it takes an American, a full-sized truck to move, Cambodians can do with a 150cc motorcycle. I've seen Cambodians carry uh refrigerators, full-size refrigerators on motorcycles, just strapped up, and the guys all the way against the handlebars, and they're just scooting down the road. Um I have seen uh pigs on the way to the market. Uh and I I remember driving alongside on my way to language school with Courtney on the back, and I drove up next to this pig that was, I mean, it was a full, I mean it was a it must have been a couple hundred pounds. I mean, it was huge. But its head was cut off, and its hooves were dragging behind this motorcycle, and on top of this pig was this little old lady who was sitting up there cross-legged, like she was, you know, crisscross applesauce, on the back of this pig, on this motorcycle cruising down the road. Um so it's just it was just wondrous, you know. Um motorcycles, bicycles, there was the occasionally domesticated elephant that would come through town. And let me tell you, they make big messes. Uh it was like a bad day when you was cruising down the road and the elephant had gone before you because it was it was all of the debris is was right there. Um so yeah, it was a wild place. Um but Courtney and I, we learned how to live there. We learned how to, I learned how to drive motorcycles there. Um Courtney, this was her motorcycle. She had to have the uh hibiscus flowers on the fender, her little 125cc motorcycle, and we would just be going off and on these adventures. Um and so basically what Cambodia was to us uh looking back on all of this was a 21-year-long pilgrimage. Um anybody know what a pilgrimage is? We don't really use that term in the US very much, but it's a spiritual journey where you're going and it's not just it's not just the the the destination, it's like the whole trip. It's like getting ready, going out, traveling, arriving, and it's all about try and ex having a supernatural experience. You're you're trying to get a new perspective on your world, and you go on this journey. Uh when the your your old perspective doesn't work anymore or isn't helping you uh get meaning from your environment and your circumstances, it's time to go on a pilgrimage. It's time to get a new perspective. And Cambodians do this, they do this actually several times a year. They caught they call it the yatra, but uh for us we call it a pilgrimage. It's it's uh it's getting a new perspective on life, and that's what Cambodia was for us. We we went there in order to experience God in a special way, in a new way, to see what he was doing, and to offer our small effort in order to nurture what he was doing, our small little effort and skills, whatever it was. We wanted to not just see it and observe it, but we wanted to be an active participant in this kingdom-building thing. And and it was kind of uh theoretical in the beginning when we were this age, you know, we hadn't experienced very much in the American church, but we had a dream and we had a thought that God is out there and He is He is fulfilling His promises, and we wanted to see that, we wanted to be a part of that. And so here we were on motorcycles in Cambodia. This was about 2000, I think. Next slide. This verse was not necessarily on my mind, but it encapsulates what it was in our head as we were going, or at least in my head. Uh this is from Psalms 107, 23, if you can't see it. Um They that go down to the sea in ships that do business in great waters, be see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. Uh not everybody wants to go out on a ship to do business, right? Back in the Old Testament days, going out on ships was a pretty dangerous thing. Going it was risky, there's no Coast Guard, there's no nothing to be able to rescue you if you have problems. It's a risk. But what was the reward? These are the ones that see the works of the Lord. He's at work. Great, wonderful things were observable. And people can go out and see these things and to witness God at work. And so that was kind of what's in what was going through my head. Not everybody wants to go out and do what we did. Um, I don't want to lionize missionary work and say everybody should do it. Um, I don't think everybody should do it. Um, I think we should all be in participants of it in some way, either supporting, sending, nurturing, uh, or going ourselves out into the world. And it doesn't have to be as far as we went. We can go outside of our doors in Oregon and can't, you know, we don't have to go all the way to Cambodia. But it's just this going out and saying and having this mindset that God is at work outside my door, and I wanna I want to participate in that. Um so we just had it in our head to go a little bit further than most people go. Um not saying that that we were anything better. I think for me, what I learned about this is that uh uh I am far more terrible than I thought I was, um I am far more broken than I thought I was, um and that God is far more gracious and loving and generous than I thought I was and powerful. Um and so that was the new perspective that I I had I had walked away from um from Cambodia. Next slide. I don't want to lionize Cambodia either. Uh Cambodia's they're they're great people, they're wonderful people, they're not they're broken people too. Uh I don't know if you know Cambodia's history at all. Um, it's not really taught in schools so much, and so it was all new history to me as I was preparing to go to Cambodia. Um so we all know about the Vietnam War. Um, the United States and Cambodia had a very tenuous relationship. There was Cambodia was a monarchy, had a king. Uh his name is Sihanouk, and Sihanouk was doing what kings do. He was kind of playing the field. He was placating the Americans because Americans had money and reputation. Uh America could open doors for the king of Cambodia into the broader world order. And so he was very much wanting America's patronage, but he was also selling weapons to the North Vietnamese through ports that he had and that America had actually built for him. And so he was importing weapons from Russia, from China to the North Vietnamese. And so he's kind of this duplicitous guy. Well, the Americans got mad and tired of this guy, you know, playing them. So one time when Sihanouk went to China for a medical trip, he often went into China because the medical situation, the medicine there was a lot better than what they had in Cambodia, and then um the Americans just didn't let him back in. They did a coup or had a coup, where they placed a general, his name was La Nol. Uh, they placed him uh in charge of the country, and they didn't allow the king of Cambodia to fly back in. So it was kind of this coup that happened that didn't have any bloodshed, uh, or very little bloodshed. Um the people of Cambodia didn't like that. Um, little did we understand as Americans was that the king of Cambodia was more of a demi-god, a a god-like person. Um, and so basically what we did is we messed with Cambodian cosmology by taking their king out of the story, and uh they didn't like that. And so um while all this communism was brewing in North Vietnam, it started to spill over into Cambodia, and there was a Cambodian uh communist movement uh mainly along the border regions and in the north. And um first it was kind of like this guerrilla movement, um, and it started to gain and more and more uh support by the population because uh the Americans took out, removed their king without asking or without their permission, which they never would have gave. So what happened was this um this civil war started to brew. Um, and then in 1973, when America moved out of Southeast Asia entirely, the communists uh had so much weapons and momentum that they took over the whole country. And so I think it was 11 days after we left Saigon, uh the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and that started this communist revolution that happened. And I don't think the world really realized how evil communism is. Um it was um, you know, we kind of knew Stalin was a bad guy, but we thought maybe, you know, you know, communism was okay. But it it turned out to be this mechanism machine where the revolution became super violent very early on, and that started Cambodia down this trail called the Killing Fields. A very famous movie was put out many, many years ago about it. Um, but it's where roughly one-third of the Cambodian race was wiped out in a self-inflicted genocide, a communist revolution. And um before that time, the Christian movement had been going on. Uh missionaries had arrived in Cambodia in the 30s, and about 10,000 Christians were in Cambodia. They 10,000 or so Cambodians called themselves Christian. Um, and then the revolution happened. Of course, all the missionaries were forced to leave. Some of them were reluctant to go, but they ended up leaving in the end, and um this revolution happened, and there was less than a hundred Cambodian Christians numbered at the end of the communist revolution. So um somewhere between 1.5 and 3 million people died. Um, and it was a violent death. Um, and so everywhere you go in Cambodia, that was another shocker, was there were bones everywhere, bones. Uh we you could find these mass graves. They were they were just where they put the dead bodies and they buried them over. And of course, the earth, you know, over rains and erosion, you know, caused the bones to come back up again. And um you could find, you know, skeletons and skulls and stuff like that. Uh, there was one particular place north of Pun Pen, uh, that it was the main place where they would kill a lot of people. Um, and about 14,500 people were killed in this one location. Um, and um, that's where all these bones were at. So so were Cambodians, are they are they a noble people? No, they're not. They're very, very broken. Um, and they were coming out of this atrocity, this terrible civil war, and they just had elections um before we arrived in 2000. So they were kind of coming out of this, out of the ashes as we were showing up. And um our goal was to start small house churches. You show the next slide. Here is uh what a Cambodian house church looks like or a church building, um, much like their houses, uh, they're made out of uh grass, uh bamboo, um, and some wood planks. Very, very simple dwellings, just enough to keep the rain off. Some churches that we started didn't have buildings in the very beginning. We were just underneath uh palm trees, uh, you know, or out in restaurants or things like that, or in homes. Mainly were in homes. And um we would start these little house churches where we would be teaching a Cambodian leader um, you know, what it was to be a bivocational pastor. Usually they they worked, they had a job as a farmer, and they would um also run a small house church. And so their house church generally started out to be their families, you know, like uh a husband would come to faith, and then he would then evangelize his wife and his children, and they all would kind of gather around and read the Bible together, and then they would invite their neighbors, and it became this kind of organic kind of thing. And then once there was so many people that the house couldn't hold them anymore, or it became dangerous that the house might break and fall over, because all their houses were on stilts, they're up high, uh, and so it they would then have to reproduce and start a new church, or sometimes they would build a building like this. Um, so very, very organic, simple house churches. Uh, there was some um Christian material that was available to us that we could use for training, but not a lot. You know, we had some stories, um, we had a chronological study of the Bible where it goes through the Bible as story through the beginning all the way, from Genesis all the way to Revelation. So we we'd use those kinds of materials. Um, and there was just a lot of reading and talking. Many Cambodians were illiterate. I think only like a third of the population knew how to read and write when we got there, which was kind of shocking because most everybody in America is literate. Not, I mean, it it's more super common, right? Um, but in Cambodia, having somebody who could read was, you know, you might not have that, you know. And so it made it another obstacle for us as we were training people to be these bi-vocational church leaders. So simple, simple churches. Next slide. This is kind of what they look like. It's kind of hard to tell, probably because of the light, but um, you know, they're just they're just uh um a humble group of people, you know, all walks of life, no kids program, um, no youth ministry, um just them coming together and being like a family. Um many people who have studied the Cambodian church often call it just an extended family where they're not you know naturally brothers and sisters anymore, you know. They're they they build what's called fictive kinship systems where everybody's aunt and uncle or everybody is brother and sister. Uh in fact, Cambodians will often call each other brother, sister, aunt, uncle just as a term of respect, and they they they do that sometimes with even strangers. They'll call each other aunt uncle. And um, but it became this extended family, and usually there'll be one guy who's kind of the pastor leader and directs things, he'll do the study and lead the study, and then you know, um it just became a very family type group. So this particular church was um up in the north, up uh in Previhia, which is uh right near Laos, right on the the northern border, and um they uh they were made up of people that were many of them were handicapped from landmines. That was another thing that was very common in Cambodia was unexploded ordinances and landmines. The communist favorite way to protect themselves was to put out landmines so that they couldn't get snuck up on at night, and of course you forget where you put your landmines when you lay them out there. And many, many Cambodians were harmed because of landmines, their missing limbs. And so there was this one particular organization that um helped people that were missing limbs, and they had a silk weaving factory where they they would weave natural, you know, they would make silk like from silk worms and harvest it the thread and then dye it and then make these beautiful you know, textiles, cloths, and stuff out of silk. Anyhow, that's where this church kind of started was relationships that were based around this one uh silk weaving group. And um, we fell in love with this group. Um, they're they were wonderful people. Um so uh that's me in the middle. So you can see me up high. Um Cambodians tend to be short in stature, uh, not because of their genetics, it's because of malnutrition. Um so yeah, they they tend to be um when they're fed really well, they can get super tall. Uh but um most Cambodians that we knew there, they had a uh you know a rice diet, and so they would eat nothing but rice. But um, yeah, so they they ended up to be shorter in stature. Next slide. Uh over on the left side, that's Phnom Penh, that's the capital city. Um, motorcycles, taxis, they had these things called cycloths, which were rickshaws uh that were powered by a bicycle. Um and so uh usually that was like poor farmers who would come in the city during the dry season when they couldn't farm, they would have these these little taxi services where it was a bicycle rickshaw taxi, and they would they would take people around in these these ciclos and they would transport port goods and things like that. Um many Cambodians would get around on public transportation. This is the city bus right here. Um it's a a little 150 cc motorcycle pulling a trailer. Um sometimes 10, 15, 20 people would be on one of these trailers, you know, going down the road. Um but it that's that was the chaos of Cambodia, and and um there's a beautiful chaos. It there was a rhythm to it, a um a philosophy of life, and some of that I want to go over with you um as we uh go through the next couple slides. Go ahead. Oh, Cambodian uh is a Buddhist country, uh, but their Buddhism is uh different than most any other country. I don't know if people know this. Buddhism is not like one monolithic religion. There's I think 2,000 different variations of Buddhism out there in the world. Um, and so Cambodians had their own variation on it. It's called Theravada Buddhism. Um basically it um uses a lot of Sanskrit uh language, the old, old language in which Buddhism was first written down, and then the Cambodian monks would recite these these uh verses from the the text, and it was lucky verses. I guess that's the best way you can consider Buddhism was that the monks were are men who can uh give luck, good luck, which is good karma, basically is what we would know as karma, but it was like it'd make people lucky, and so they the verses, the actual words, were the charm that made that transferred luck to other people, and so Buddhism in there was was quite different than what you would have. It's not very philosophical at all. It had one kind of mantra, which is do good, get good, do bad, get bad. Um, which I think is the most the the I think it's the worst thing that a society could adopt, that kind of Buddhism. Because basically what it happens is that if you are suffering, if you're hurting, if if you have pain in your life, you're doing that because the universe is working against you because you have bad karma. You're guilty, therefore you're suffering. And so that's the proof that you're you're uh an immoral person. And so poor people uh were suffering, people who are rich, who had nice houses, who had good jobs, who were wealthy, they were ones that had good karma and they were morally good. Um, which was in the Christian perspective, was often not the case. So that was the um the trouble that we had. A karma is also something that can be transferred from one person to another. It's like uh a metaphysical substance that can be transferred from clothing, from objects, from items, and so people who had good karma or who weren't suffering didn't want to help people who had bad karma because it could transfer off onto them, and so you had this huge gap between those who had and those who had not in Cambodia, and um so uh uh yeah, Buddhism. Um they also had a monarchy. This is the royal palace, by the way, in Cambodian Phnom Penh. Next slide. Uh we um raised our children over there. Um we couldn't have kids uh for 11 years. We were married, he couldn't have kids. Um, and of course the Cambodians wanted to tell us, you know, what we were doing wrong. They wanted to lecture us, right? Uh so um the well one thing we did do right is we investigated adoptions and um through the Cambodian adoption system, we um adopted this young fellow here. He's five months old, uh cute as a button. He's still cute, he's right over there. Um and um so Weston was our first child, um, and we adopted him in 2008. And then next slide, and then these guys came along after um Emma was uh a surprise. We didn't think we could have kids. Um, and then she came along. Um she was born in Bangkok, and then soon after Emma, we had Danny, and she's over there too. Both of them are pretty cute still. Um and um we raised our kids over there, and um we felt very happy to do so because uh we felt like it could give them a perspective on the world that most American kids might not have. Um and so it ended up to be, I think, a pretty good thing. It's been struggles here and there, you know, there's challenges with everything, but um our kids are are wonderful and we're glad that they they survived Cambodia with us. Next slide. Oh, yeah, and here they are again. This is uh how Cambodians hang out. Uh the most favorite Cambodian pastime, which I think is a very good pastime, is um sitting in a hammock, uh often with a little one snuggled up with you. Uh you find a place where you can get a cool breeze, uh, and you snuggle up with your your youngins and they fall asleep, and it's it's pretty close to paradise. Um and here's Courtney and Danny here. Next slide. And that's us. That was um about maybe six months, I think, before we left Cambodia. Maybe not quite even that, maybe like three months. Um and so we uh we got to see the the elephants, the they have wild elephants that you can go to these parks and go and bathe with the elephants and ride the elephants, and it's quite quite fun. Anyways, um that's us with uh one of the elephants. Next slide. Uh I put this in for Jarrell because I know he likes uh dirt bikes. Um I got um but you get take the good with the bad. I mean, it was fun getting around on dirt bikes, lots of adventure. Um it was kind of a bummer when you're out in the woods and um you sink your motorcycle up to the axles in mud. So um bit of a mess. This is also a truck that we had that got stuck. Next slide. Okay. Um what I'd like to go over just briefly toward towards the end here is what would Cambodian Christians say to us? Uh, what kind of wisdom can we get from Cambodia that could help us as Christians? So we're gonna go kind of on a short little virtual pilgrimage here. So I've highlighted a couple things that I think that Cambodians could offer us a different perspective, you know, pilgrimage being that that activity that we go through to get that new perspective. So I'm gonna try to simulate that here with us. Um so I've I identified some points of tension that Westerners or Americans might have in terms of values. Um when I'm talking about values, I'm talking about priorities, uh, things that are important, things that are not important. Um, you know, list one, two, and three. Um so one of the things that we came up against with Cambodia was was tensions with Cambodia in terms of time. Um Americans tend to be very time-oriented. Uh, we prioritize things based on time. We order our schedules, um, we use time to its maximum potential. You know, time is money, we value time. Um, so we're very time-oriented. You know, church starts here, church ends at this time, you know. Um Jeff only has 35 minutes to talk, you know. That's time-oriented, right? Uh Cambodians are not time-oriented, they're in they're event-oriented, where they probably prioritize the quality of human interactions regardless of how much time it takes. So a Cambodian holiday might say on the calendar it is, I don't know, May 15th. But it will go on for days and days after, you know, before they'll go back to work, you know. Um they live for holidays, and there are a lot. There's like 20 more, 20 times more holidays in Cambodia than there are here in the West. They'll work, you know, seven days a week, but when the holiday comes, man, they just let loose and they will they will go and hang out with family and they'll maximize the human interaction. So uh regardless of how much time it takes, they don't really care. Um and so this is the uh Martha and Mary kind of trap that we fall into as Westerners, right? We prioritize the efficiency of time management, you know. We think of this whole sitting, you know, with people and relationships as generally unproductive time, where Cambodians prioritize that. They they think that that is that's the main thing. That is the main thing, is in their minds to be uh with people and to uh maximize that that that um that quality time with people. And so Cambodians tend to be event-oriented, meaning they try to maximize the event, as make it as long as possible, and try to squeeze out all of the enjoyment they can out of the event, regardless of how much time it takes, which is a struggle for us as you know Westerners, because we want to get stuff done. Um, but they weren't as um they weren't motivated that way. And I think that there's a benefit to that, and I'll get to that to the end. Next slide. Uh this is the Martha um Mary and Martha uh text that we read earlier. Um you are worried about and upset about many things, but a few things are needed, or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her. And I think that um I think that there's uh a word of caution for us time-oriented people from the scripture that we need to um we need to prioritize the people in our lives, the community that we have. We need to focus our emphasis not to the exclusion where it's going to harm or hurt, but we need to maximize the relationships that we have and glean from each other um and and become that that community. So I think that that that is a better way. So next slide. Um Cambodians uh struggled with Americans in the 10 in in in regarding of judgment. Uh we as Americans are what we call dichotomistic thinkers. We look at the particulars of a situation and we see things in terms of right or wrong, black and white, lawful or unlawful. Um, and Cambodians are holistic thinkers. They are interested in understanding the broader context in which the environment takes place. So, for example, um and I'm not sure if it was Courtney or me, because the story's been retold a couple of times, but uh I think it was Courtney. We were walking down the road and we saw these kids, and they were riding their motorcycle very aggressively and recklessly, uh, weaving through traffic. And I think Courtney had made mention that boy, those kids are reckless, they're so reckless. Uh, and I think a Cambodian older woman was there with us, and she said, Yeah, but they're young and they just got out of school. You know, they're just look at how much fun they're having, you know, where she they're look, she's looking at the broader context, and that's informing her judgment, versus us where we see the one small event and we instantly say, you know, that's wrong, that's right, or that's dangerous. Um I think that we rush to judgment when we should understand the whole story or the larger story of what has motivated people to do what they do. Um just because somebody thinks differently than us or acts differently, then it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with them. Um we need to be uh more inquisitive um about uh the um the activities of people and why they end up what they're doing and not just throw them into a category or you know, quickly. Um next slide. The Lord does not see what man sees. Mankind looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. There is a diff there is a larger context in which we should rightly judge uh and not just the small little snippets and interactions that people do and behaviors that we don't like. Um we should be very hesitant in casting uh harsh judgment on others. Next slide. Cambodians handling crises. Uh we Americans are very crisis-oriented folks. We have uh seat belts, we have car seats, we have airbags, we have all of these things to protect us in case of an accident, you know. Um Cambodians are not that way. They are non-crisis oriented. They don't think about the crises until the crises arises. And when it does, they just naturally believe that there's going to be options available to them to solve the problem. They just have faith, I guess if you will, that there will be options. And so they tend to do things that we Americans would say is super risky, like riding on the back of a pig, you know, on a motorcycle. You know, that seems pretty risky to most of us. Uh the Cambodians believe that that the problem can be resolved in the moment. So an example of this is um in 2012. Courtney was in a bad motorcycle accident. Uh, she needed to be Medevact into Thailand and then back to the U.S. And um she was broken pretty badly. We spent nine months in the States trying to get her back up to shape. Um, it was a uh a terrible event. Um and I went back to the Cambodians during all of this, and I remember meeting with my disciples and kind of debriefing on what had just happened and Courtney's situation, and I was like, I'm a terrible role model for you guys because you can't do what I just did. You know, you don't have the money to go into Thailand to go to the ER, you know, then to fly to America to get help. I'm a terrible example for you in terms of handling crises. And they said, no, no. God, God's gonna be there for us. God will have us when uh if we have trouble. God will take care of us just as he's taking care of you. It might look differently, but we know that he is going to, he's able to do that. And I was like, man, I wish I had that attitude, you know. I always go through things with contingency, you know, uh solutions. Even before a problem arises, I'll be thinking, what if this happens or that happens? What should I do? You know, and I get wrapped up in these these kinds of thoughts. And uh the Cambodians are like, no, God's got our back. We know it's gonna be different, but we will get through the obstacles if God wills. And so, next slide. This is a very small text, I'll read it for you. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. God's going to be there for us. That was the attitude of the Cambodians, and um it encouraged me. Uh it's this kind of attitude that allows them to handle life with a very light-hearted, um, unburdensome way, and to take risks, um risks for the gospel's sake, uh, and and see, again, God at work in their lives more more clearly. Next slide. Um Cambodians have tensions with Americans over uh goals. Uh we're very task-oriented people. Cambodians are very person-oriented people. They find satisfaction in pleasant human interactions. Uh, we found usually Americans find satisfaction in um reaching our objectives. So um, an example of that was me working on my broken truck one time. Uh, I my my truck was broken, it was at a person's house. There were all of these social interactions going on, but I was so wrapped up and frustrated because of this expensive truck that I had purchased was now not working for me, and I was having to make it work because we had to do this next thing and this other thing and this next thing, and I had all these tasks that were on me, and I wasn't able to enjoy the human interactions that were going on all around me and the joyous occasion because I was wrapped up in my tasks. Next slide. The thing is about Christian ministry, it's not task-oriented or person-oriented. In Christian ministry, people are the task, people are the focus. Here we have uh the apostle Paul say um in Thessalonians 2, 6 through 8, nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ, but we were gentle among you, like nursing mothers taking care of her own children. So being affectionately desirous for of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. That's a very, very beautiful verse that describes the heart of what Christian ministry should be. People and tasks. It's not one or the other, it is both happening at the same time. And we need to be um we need to be aware of the social uh situation that we're in, the community that we're in, and nurture the people around us and put those tasks into the back burner when necessary. And the last one I want to talk about is um tensions over vulnerability. Um Cambodians uh are what are people that tend to expose vulnerabilities, um, either their own vulnerabilities or your vulnerabilities, um, which is unnerving to us. I think we as Westerners we tend to conceal vulnerabilities. You notice how politicians never admit they did anything wrong or anything, or they always point in other people's, you know, nobody wants to accept their own vulnerabilities, and we tried to hide those vulnerabilities. You know, it's uh with the Cambodians, the vulnerabilities were spoken very openly, you know. Um, and it wasn't necessarily a cause for shame. It was like a critical friend. Has anybody ever had a critical friend before? A friend that is willing to give you the criticisms that you need to move you forward, and how valuable that kind of friendship is. Cambodians have been that with me many, many times where they will speak into my life and they will say, Hey Jeff, your wife speaks Cambodian way better than you do. You need to step up your language learning, you know. And they would do that, not in those, not they would be much more uh tactful than that. But necessarily that was kind of the way it would work, is they would be that critical friend. And and I came to value that and uh wish that. Now I I love to have friends that will be that for me because often it is that criticism that I need to to push me to the next level of what God is wanting me to do. And um so yeah. Last slide. Oh, therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you might be healed. We need each other. Uh we need to expose our vulnerabilities to be that transparent people. Um because that's when we get our healing. Next slide. What Cambodians would say, the posture of a servant. All of these things bring into um it gives the Cambodians a posture of being that servant. You know, God's kingdom is this upside-down kingdom where the servants are the great ones in the kingdom, and those who serve are the ones that are the leaders. And the Cambodians, because they're of all of these values that I just laid out for you, they are positioned in such a way to where they can serve one. They're very ta they're very tactical in their ability to serve, they can make decisions very quickly and they can move into situations of ministry, take risks, be that critical friend, uh, maximize on that human interaction, and they they it has equaled all of this together, equaled into a people who are have the capacity to serve in wonderful, beautiful ways that I think could be an example for us as Westerners as we move forward in our work. We they need us to help them get things done, to move forward. We need them as well to be able to maximize this uh our ability to be a community, to be the church, to go beyond where we're at to the to where God wants us to be. So um I won't I went way too long. I'm very event oriented, Drill. Uh but I appreciate you guys. It's a pilgrimage. I try to give you a bit of a flavor of what of what Cambodians could offer us.