Recently Soeun and a group of Bible school students spent a few days in Preah Vihear province. Visiting this remote location was a cross cultural experience for Soeun- even though he is Khmer.
A church in Preah Vihear province
A lady about 27 years old makes multiple trips on her motorbike each Sunday to pick up kids from all around her village in Preah Vihear province. She takes them to her house, where she lives with her 2 children, the eldest is 11 years old. (Someone younger than me has an 11 year old! They tend to get married young in villages. Her husband is a farmer and often has to live out in the fields so she is home alone with the kids.)
Each week they sing Christian songs and memorize some parts of the Bible. There were only about 5 Bibles for around 20 people. They don’t have a pastor (or a church building), so their meetings are different from what I know as a “church service”.
Even though they don’t have the plans and strategies that a Phnom Penh church might have, they have continued meeting each week for years. Soeun was really struck by this. So much human effort and planning goes into church as we know it. In contrast this church is planned and held together by God, in a way that is more obvious than it might be in a city church.
When Soeun preaches in Phnom Penh, the church members sit and listen. But when he tried to preach in Preah Vihear it was a whole different experience. When they understood something or were excited it was obvious by their body language and comments. So it was obvious to him when they didn’t understand what he was saying as they sat their looking confused. He had to work hard at using language they can understand easily, rather than the sort of language used in a Bible school.
One sermon was on a passage they knew by heart so he got them to recite bits of it though out his talk.
Currently there are two students at the Bible school from Preah Vihear. They are planning to go back when they have finished their study. Soeun is really excited about this, there is so much need for them there. Generally in the Cambodian church leaders and church members with a good Bible knowledge are needed.
When it was time for the team to leave, the children had already gone to school. Soeun was sad the kids couldn’t see them off as they had so much fun together.
Remote, unexpected, different.
Until recently Preah Vihear was ‘cut off’ from the rest of the country as there was no road access. Also it was one of the last strong holds of the Khmer Rouge so it was known as a place of fighting.
Siem reap province is known for Angkor Wat, Kompong Cham is known for rubber trees, Battambang is known for rice and oranges but Soeun doesn’t remember hearing anything special about Preah Vihear province.
It now boasts a World Heritage site- the temple on the border with Thailand. The Bible school team went to visit; there are photos elsewhere on my blogs.
Before the team headed up there they made a program of events. They knew they would probably need to be flexible as they didn’t know what to expect. This was true- even more than they thought. Lots of surprises.
Some of the things Soeun wasn’t expecting included the fact that there were schools and markets and the crime rate seemed to be less than in other parts of Cambodia. We don’t know any official stats on this, but from the way people live it seems to be the case. Parents were happy for groups of girls to walk home in the dark, and it must be really dark as there is no electricity (apart from people’s generators which they turn on at certain times). Surrounded by thick jungle too. There didn’t seem to be gangs there as there are in other places.
One of the boys got a nail in his foot. When this happened Soeun was surprised to find the community didn’t seem to have access to medical care.
Lots of jungle and dust, like in R’kiri we visited at Christmas.
That’s just some of the things that Soeun told me within the first few hours of getting back to Phnom Penh, plus the fact that the team had brought back a boy. Buts that’s a story for another day… maybe an email rather than a blog.
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