It is finished - by Paul

Today was our last day at Rahab's House... and we knew that by the 3:00 p.m. it would all have to be finished... the painting, the cleaning up, the rearranging of the little furniture that exists at the moment. What would we feel leaving a place where we toiled for ten days?

What a priveledge it has been to serve our Lord. He used ten ordinary people from Vancouver to transform an oppressive life-sucking building into a place of hope. In physical terms, here was our contribution:

• Cubicle walls torn down and hauled out.


• Pedophile pink paint scraped off the walls, in many places down to the concrete.


• Wall footings chisseled out and filled in with concrete.


• Walls filled in where cubicle walls were attached.


• Ceiling and wall removed from upstairs rooms.


• Kitchen removed and floor leveled.


• Cistern emptied and cleaned out.


• All walls painted either sunshine yellow or bright white.


• Ceiling of front room painted bright white.


• Rafters denailed and painted white.


• Front of building scrapped and painted.


• Louvres cleaned of years of dust and painted.


• Upstairs door painted white with a yellow cross on both sides.


• Louvre glass windows washed.


• Front sliding door fixed, lubricated and painted.


• Tile floors scraped, swept and mopped.


• Staircase sanded and varnished.

There are probably a few things I missed, but all in all, we accomplished more than we expected. It is finished.

Well not quite. Ratana came by today. He is the young man who has been called by God to work in Svay Pak, just like the ten of us... except that he is going to be part of the next chapter of God's story. Ratana has been working with the girls who had been rescued from brothels in Svay Pak, including the building that is now Rahab's house. They have been coming out twice a week to share the love of God through teaching, medical outreach or food distribution. Until now they have only used the front room and the small space that was unoccupied by the brothel cublicles. They now have a huge area to work with, so their mission will be able to grow and evolve and spread out and shine brightly to light up all the dark and grungy recesses of this... come to think of it... NOT God forsaken village.

Leaving was hard. Our immediate work has come to a close. I will follow as best I can to what God will be doing in Svay Pak. I will wonder what became of the little children who came to play with us, but really wanted to abscond with our belongings. I will pray for the little girl who had an injury on her forehead, which Barb lovingly attended to everyday, and for her mother and sister... the only three people who seemed to love each other, and responded by bringing a small bag of fruit to Barb. Will they come to Rahab's house to learn of the love of God? I think they have already experienced some of it while we were here.

It is finished for us...

We left Svay Pak with lots of emotions still perculating inside of us. We didn't hop in the van today and drive out. Instead, we walked the road to the highway. We wanted to make sure that all the villagers saw a bunch of white middle aged guys and a couple of women walk out of there without having abused or raped any of their children or slaves, and that this would signal an end to their lifestyle and a new beginning for the village.

I'm finished here... and ready to come back home. Thank you all for sustaining us in prayer. Thank you Lord for calling us to serve you.