Mission to Cambodia 2013
from Taylor Bonds

There are not many things that push you physically to a place where you can hardly stand, but after working on the house today I almost fell over from the intense labor we all poured out while sleep deprived, dehydrated, and with a very hot sun. This feeling of working as hard as your body will allow you is one special feeling that not many can experience. As I pounded the cement barrel into the concrete flooring, carried basket after basket of sand, bucket after bucket, and mixed concrete I could truly feel God’s love pouring out of my hands into this wonderful house.

Me.

He chose me.

My unworthy, selfish, and controlling self.

“So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.” Luke 17:10 NIV

He put me here in Cambodia, SO far away from home to help this one family have a place to grow together as a family, a place to gather for dinner, and a place where they can sleep safely at night. Instead, of the 4 boys sleeping in the cow’s home they can now sleep in their house with the rest of their siblings.

Wow.

I am blessed.

When we finished the house we had a ceremony for the family and it was one of the most moving ceremonies I have ever been a part of; as we watched two parents infected with HIV/AIDS accept such an abundant gift from him. And we also got to celebrate Morgan’s birthday with the kids singing to her and spraying silly string on her! So fun! Jesus says “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” On this day not only did we watch over the orphans, we built them a house from scratch so that they may one day know you from this wonderful house.

Covered in cement from head to toe and drenched in sweat from working on the house we arrived at The Killing Fields completely unaware of the intense sorrow that we were going to feel after walking through the audio tour at the Killing Fields.

The Killing fields is by far one of the most moving places I have ever been to. The Killing Field is where the Khomer Rouge brought the prisoners to be tortured and executed in some of the worst possible ways. They would arrive blindfolded with their hands tied around their back. Then, they would quickly execute them and bury them so they could execute the next group of Cambodians that arrived the next day. We did an audio tour and at each stop we had a narrated story that described one of the sixteen spots located throughout the Killing Fields. Then, there was an optional walk around the most beautiful lake that boarded one side of the Killing Fields and I never knew that I could feel such immense joy at such a dark place. As I walked around the lake I listened to ten testimonies from survivors of the Killing Fields. At this moment I looked at God’s perfect and beautiful nature and then at the same time listened to the some of the most disturbing, grueling, intense,  stories I have ever heard. These testimonies ripped my heart into shreds. It is a reminder of how sinful our hearts truly are. I could not help but crying thinking about how great Jesus’s love is for us knowing our sinful hearts yet still dying on the cross to save us. How Great is OUR God.

“For the message of the cross is foolishnessto those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” 1 Corinthians 1:18 NIV

The last stop is a monument that holds 17 shelves of skulls that have been found at this site. This monument is considered a “sacred” place for the Cambodians to rest in peace.

The hardest place I stopped is where they would execute the women and children. They executed the children because they believed if they killed the family they had to kill the children as well so they could not live to hold revenge against the Khomer rouge. At this horrific place there is a huge tree. Another example of how they used God’s amazing beauty for such horror.

There is literally not a word dark enough to describe the execution of the women. First, they would rape them in front of their child. Then, they would take their child and hold the child by the ankles and smash the child into an enormous tree trunk until they quickly died. After the child died, then they would whip the woman to death and then throw her into the women’s grave pit. As I looked at this pit, I could not breathe, think, or say a word. All I did was prayer for these women, their children, and their families.

To type these words makes me sick, but I believe it is so important to know about went on from April 15,1975-1979 so we are aware of the suffering, hurt, and post traumatic stress that these Cambodians that made it through the ruling of the Khomer Rouge feel. 3 million of the 8 million people died during this reign, almost all of them being very educated people of Cambodia.  I am so thankful to be an American. WE ARE BLESSED.