Stains - by Paul

When we walked into Rahab’s House today, we were a bit disappointed that some of the painting we did yesterday didn’t quite survive that afternoon’s rainfall. Rahab’s House needs a new roof. The old one was repaired, but there are still far too many places where the rain leaks through. The back room with the half cemented shut door was brilliantly white yesterday… and today some of the paint had washed off. A few more places on the side walls also had rivulets of water and washed off paint running down them. And my beautifully painted white rafters… had water stains showing though the first coat.

For all of you who have tried hiding a water stain with regular latex (water based) paint, you will know that it just does not work. No matter how many coats of paint you apply, the stain will somehow work its way into the next coat. Maybe after sixty-four coats, you may finally hide it, but then you have one thickly painted surface… which often is not the look you are going for.

So fruitlessly we applied a second coat of white paint to the undersides of all the rafters. I was wondering why I was wasting my time doing this, as no sooner had I run over the length of wood with my roller that it looked as if I hadn’t even applied any paint. Actually, that is not quite true, the unstained sections looked much whiter… which meant that the contrast between the brownish wood stain and the white paint was much more pronounced.

So I took a break from the work and went outside to interact with the children. We have all noticed that Svay Pak is a strange little village. In our visit to Marie Ens’ Place of Rescue, we noticed that when we turned off the main highway onto the dirt road, the inhabitants along the way were smiling and waiving to us in response to our smiles and waves.

For the past eight days, with only a couple of villagers, we have not been afforded one smile or wave by the adult population. I have come to the conclusion that this is because this village has a serious absence of love. We can see that in the hateful stares and unwelcoming looks. We can see that by the way the parents treat their children, screaming them and hitting them. We know this because the village has resolutely held on to its culture of enslaving children for paid rape despite hundreds of raids by the police since 2003.

We know that renovating an old brothel will not change this village. We could do a lot to pretty up the village, but the stains will still show through, because it is the wetness inside the wood that is the problem. Only God’s unconditional love will be able to break through the calloused hearts of the villagers and change them from the inside so they will truly love God and their neighbours… and repent from their evil ways.

I know that I won’t see that miracle while I am here, however I am confident that it will happen, and glad that I was able to be part of his story her in Svay Pak.


On the lighter side of life, on Toph’s suggestion, he and I took a tuktuk to find a restaurant more than one block from our hotel. It is the 55th birthday celebration of the King today, so our voyage took us by the Royal Palace to a restaurant on the waterfront. We had just taken our first sips of beer when the fireworks started. After a fine plate of Fish Amok, we took a brisk walk back to the hotel, meandering through tens of thousands of Cambodians, all out for the evening. I was thinking that this would have been a wonderfully romantic date if Karen were here with me. Maybe next time.

As I head off to bed, I think of Kelvin, who will soon complete his last Bronze Cross swim class and Megan who is preparing for her ballet recitals this weekend. Hope you both enjoy the experience. Karen, hope you are surviving this hectic week without me. I love you all.