When two worlds collide

Marty's Daily Diary #7

How can I deal with these two worlds that are colliding?

Yesterday, when we entered the ARC the first stop on our tour was the "counselling room." The room resembled the playfulness and innocence one would expect to see in a child's nursery. Yet it is the place where young girls are counselled about the abuse which has stolen their childhood away from them.

All week we have worked in Sway Pak which is quite literally a dump. I described it as a cesspool. It is poverty stricken, yet has had and still has large amounts of USD pouring in to it through the depravity of child sex prostitution.

This morning we went to Choeung Ek, the Killing Fields just outside Phnom Penh. It is a solemn place. The museum is one thing but as you walk around the mass graves you can still see clothes appearing out of the ground and human bones are still being found throughout the place. One mass grave reads "Mass grave of 166 with out heads." Then I reached the "Killing Tree," against which executioners beat children. As I stand there in shock, despair, disbelief, two boys appear with an English speaking girl and 'casually' mention to her that the bones at the side of the tree are kids' bones, probably arms and legs. And then they LAUGH. It seems to me that what they see at the side of the tree is NOT a reality for them. It is just a fact of their history which people remember. The Killing Fields is just a place of statistics. "Is that all it is?" Are we really affected by the evil that goes on in the world? I mean, do we simply know about it but it never gets in to our guts to cause us to become physically sick? I had had enough. I went to buy a green tea and be with my own thoughts and reflections.

As I sat, a man spoke to me. He is a taxi driver. A Cambodian. He mentioned how sorrowful the place we where was. "Yes," I agreed. Then after 2 mins of small talk he asked me if I knew about the place where I could go and shoot guns near to Choeung Ek and if I wanted too I could shoot something living. Has he ever walked around the Killing Fields and allowed it to reach his spirit?

Maybe I am being too harsh? Probably. Or maybe not. All around me there seem to be evidence that two worlds are colliding. A kingdom of pure and utter evil and a kingdom of holiness. What kingdom do I want to associate myself with? What kingdom is the everlasting kingdom? What kingdom is the Kingdom of God breaking in to the world?

Perhaps today is the day I will look back on for the rest of my ministry as the day I sincerely prayed that I would never again pray the Lord's prayer from my memory but rather from my gut. Our Father, in heaven, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, use me as one of your servants in your in-breaking kingdom to defeat the kingdom of evil on this earth.

Amen.
Marty