Redeeming the Land - by Paul

I'm sitting on the steps of our hotel today. Having spent the day inside Rahab's House, and getting tired of the four walls of our room and the hotel lobby, I decided to blog with a view. It was cloudy with an occasional small drop of rain until five minutes ago when he heavens opened with a clap of thunder and a deluge of rain. Right on time... 4:00 pm plus or minus 20 minutes.

The tuktuk drivers quickly dropped down the walls of their tuktuks and dashed inside. My friend Mr. Black is waving to us in this picture. Unfortunately, the rain had slowed to a shower in the time it took me to rush up to my room to get my camera. Such is the weather here in Cambodia just before the monsoon season starts.

After yesterday's day of pulling nails from the rafters, a team of us proceeded to dust down the wood and the wall in preparation for the big paint down. The upstairs room is looking so good and can't wait to slap on the paint on the main floor to see the next step in the transformation. By the end of the day, we had most of the rafters painted with the first coat of white pain, and all the previously hideous pink walls covered in white (our base coat to make the sunshine yellow much brighter). I stood in amazement, looking at what was an oppressive and dark interior with all the lights on just a week ago, and seeing a room that was open and inviting with only the ambient sunlight and half the fluorescent lights on.

Back in 1999 when our worshiping community started our first project in Cambodia as part of our 100th year anniversary, we called it "Redeeming the Land". For a long while I didn't fully understand the power and beauty of the work "Redeem" or "Redemption" - to take something that is evil and turn it into something that is good. Only when I saw first hand the destruction that the Khmer Rouge had brough on its own people, and the near total absence of social care from the government, did I understand how God can transform something that is evil into something that is good. It also gave me a greater appreciation of his grace, his unconditional and immeasurable love for all his people here on Earth. "If not by the grace of God go I" always springs to mind.

As I watch our team do the physical work of God in transforming the former hell-hole brothel into a place of hope, I can once again see redemption in action, first in this building, and I am confident in the lives of the inhabitants of Svay Pak. I leave the village much more positive every day. Praise God.

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