Pastor Jeremy Stephens

Today is a day that I will remember for a very long time.

I’ve tried to process what I have seen today, but I am struggling. More on that in a minute.

This morning started well. We explored the Russian Market for an hour, I helped some friends find good knock-off watches and I bought a few things myself. That was the easy, lighthearted part of the day. We left from the market to meet the rest of our group at Tuol Sleng. This was formerly known as office S.21. It’s a high school which was turned into a prison for the district around Phnom Penh. In the four short years it was open, nearly 20,000 people were processed here, tourtured, and eventually killed. Furthermore, this prison was one of hundreds in this country. We walked through the tiny cells, saw pictures of the victims, gazed in horror at the blood stains which still remain, and read the countless stories of atrocities which centered around facilities like this one.

After our time at the prison, we traveled to the killing field which was attached to it. Every prison had a killing field, and the field was the designed destination for all of the detainees.

The horror I felt at the prison was quickly eclipsed by the killing field.

They have only managed to excavate about half of this field and have found over 9,000 bodies. After careful examination, the skeletol remains of these people were placed in a large charnel for people to see. But piled skulls, while gruesome, were not what ultimately shook me. While in the middle of our tour, we were hit with a torrential downpour. After the rains subsided a bit, we were able to see bits of clothing and the edges of bones along the paths. The bodies of those who still remain buried began to surface. I stood next to the tree where the regime killed babies by hurling them against it’s trunk. I couldn’t take it anymore.

I have asked myself every day of this trip, “how will I use this to be a better pastor?” some days there are just no answers.

Tonight we were invited by the woman who is our tour guide for the week to visit her mosque. There is an ethnic minority of Muslims in Cambodia and she draws her heritage from these people. After visiting the mosque and meeting with a few people there, we were invited to her home to meet her family.

Her parents are in their very early 60’s, and her father is a doctor. None of this made sene to us. The Pol Pot regime targeted ethnic minorities, the educated, and this happened in the late 1970’s when her parents would have been young. They shouldn’t be alive.

Turns out, her father lied his way through most of the revolution. He pretended to be unable to read, moved from villiage to villiage, and even escaped from prison. His body still bears the marks of his torture. This is a harsh reality. From 1975-1979, 2 million people of this country, nearly a third of the population, were murdered. It was amazing to hear his story and know that they lost their siblings and our tour guide no longer has an older sister because of the genocide.

I don’t know what to do with this as a pastor, but I take refuge in the fact that we serve an amazing God who dearly loves his people, especially the mistreated and disadvantaged. I’m praying for the broken nation of Cambodia tonight. I hope you can join me.