A couple days before I was to start lecturing I arrived in Phnom Penh. I wanted to see the city before I checked in with t
he mission school so I took a room a near the Mekong rented a bicycle and peddled around for a couple days.

This is the first thing I learned and anyone from the West who has been to Cambodia will attest to this fact. Before venturing onto the streets either on foot but more so on a bicycle one should complete and sign a last will and testament. Phnom Penh is every woman and man for himself and it is impossible to look in every direction a vehicle is approaching. Traffic is like the nest of billiard balls just after the first player breaks the set. Miraculously none of the balls collide except when they do. I survived. I have been to Calcutta, Thailand and Lao they do not compete.

The first morning I peddled to a restaurant that served an American breakfast with free wifi. While seated outside on the veranda Europeans and a few Americans came and went. CNN was on covering the Republican conventions. In the two hours I sat eating and reviewing my lecture notes western guys showed up with Cambodian women for breakfast. One guy came with a tribe of three Cambodian girls in tow. The youngest was between 14 maybe 16. Another European fellow also brought three. I think poverty and wealth often create an ugly synergy. I had read about this now I had seen.  I think at a certain level of poverty most people will do almost anything for money and at a certain level of economic power many people will do almost anything they can get away with. Economic power and economic weakness both present temptations and my experience and belief teach me that human beings are fundamentally weak. This might be why the wise man writing in Proverbs asks God for neither riches nor poverty. Both, he asserts, present forces which can potentially jeopardize the soul. With more and more in Asian societies getting a piece of the pie I think it is harder for the poor to survive the psychological social effects of poverty let alone the physical burden. In fact NGO’s are playing a big role in Cambodia among other things to crack down on the sexual exploitation of young people. Probably because I do not dress like a back packer more like a teacher the European guy with the especially young girls cancelled his order and took his tribe and abruptly left. Times are changing.

I have now traveled in several South Asian countries and more than any other Cambodians are able to handle English and not a few are proficient. It seems Cambodians are entering the modern world perhaps with less baggage than other developing countries. Their monarchy is not top heavy. The dark chapters in the country’s recent past while inflicting a terrible price has also rendered them leaner more open to the future and with less political and cultural structures to impede their advance. They are not the least bit apologetic for using the American dollar as a second currency and English as a second language. No heavy nationalistic fiction compromises their interest in entering the modern world but this does not mean they are lacking in pride for their land.  Great ancient cultures thrived in Cambodia and amazing cultural landmarks are to be found unrivaled by their neighbors.

The fabric industry feeding western corporations – the giant clothing chains we all know so well are to be found in Cambodia and Vietnam. It is possible for a Vietnamese or Cambodian to work 28 out of 30 days a month and earn 80 dollars. But 80 dollars is enough to live on and save 20 or maybe 30 dollars. My impression is that this work is not viewed negatively here. The people are grateful for any economic branch they can grasp hold of to lift them if only a little.

The Cross Cultural Mission School is a small potent endeavor backed and organized by Chinese reaching out to Cambodians. Everything of this nature no matter how small takes organization and financial backing – in this instance China has provided these. The Koreans are the primary leaders in mission Asia but now the China is building mission cells in more and more countries. My class was a cultural cross section of Cambodians, Chinese and Malay. There were 11 students in all each one working out their own mission project and set on advancing their education. All the students were in there 20’s except a couple who were in their early thirties. They were pastors, teachers and missionaries. The course they requested was “ Luther’s Evangelical Breakthrough and its Implications for the Reformation of the Church –Then and There & Here and Now” The plot of the course was to first show Luther’s seminal Breakthrough [which the reknown German theologian Gerhard Ebleling once summarized in a single theological phrase (..) and then show how this one insight of necessity changes how church is understood and practiced. By the time the class ended we had given this goal a fair run with many applications to the present time. Sheneequa Mackal, a Malay and leader – teacher of the City Church prayed at the conclusion of the course and her prayer was my reward. Confident the Lord had showed them the way the gospel could be taught and preached by the new generation in Cambodia she gave thanks and prayed that nothing would be lost as time slipped by. I am now loved in Cambodia by a potent small group of young up and coming Christian leaders who with me look forward to my return. My supporters are thanked by 11 sturdy young leaders in Cambodia.