Searching for the sea

Hearts Connect From Worlds Apart
Deu’s Little Toe
A Pnong Evangelist
Survival before Salvation

Hearts Connect From Worlds Apart
I hesitated at the top of the hill before descending into Boan Village.  Several days before I’d experienced the strange and awkward situation of being an honored guest at a spirit ceremony.  I could now see the place we’d gathered for the bloody sacrifice.  I could still hear the eagle’s scream of the paan.  I wondered, once again, if I’d done the right thing by simply attending the ceremony as an honored guest.  Was Liu able to see that my God was different?  I paused for prayer once again.  Yet this time I wasn’t alone.  Gretchen, a friend from our home church in Tennessee, and her elderly mother Serena, had come to meet our Pnong friends.  And I had just explained to them what they were stepping into.  “There is a war raging around us,” I declared.  “Though we can see little, powerful beings are engaged in a spiritual combat and we’re about to step onto open battleground.”  With that I began speaking with the Lord of the Universe, Korain Pruh in the Pnong language – Chief God.

“Oh Great One, we have come once again to this beautiful Pnong village.  We love the people who call this their home.  Just days ago I witnessed a ceremony to the forces of evil right here yet said little.  I give that to You now and ask that today you use us to spread light in the darkness.  We’re so blind.  We see so little of what’s really happening here.  It’s so easy for us to forget what’s happening.  But please remind us.  As we talk and fellowship, laugh and play, don’t let us forget the invisible war.  Give me wisdom to face the situations today.  Give me the right words for the right moments.  Give me the right expressions and the correct responses to whatever I face.  Let this day be a day of victory for You!”

As we continued down the hill past the little spirit houses and bleaching bones, Gretchen began to encourage me.  “Braden, you did what you felt the Lord was leading you to do during that spirit ceremony.  You may not have been able to say much, in words, but don’t forget why Liu invited you.  She knows you worship only Chief God.  Thus, by inviting you, she was inviting Chief God.  You’re the only representative of Chief God she knows.  And she doesn’t understand yet the war that is raging between light and darkness.  Thus you were Chief God’s personal ambassador at that event.  He led you to say nothing.  Trust Him!”

We’ve always loved Gretchen.  Every time we meet her she has a way of affirming us in our work for God among the Pnong.  She too has a deep love for the people of Cambodia.  Though unable to live at the ends of the earth, she’s visited this country five times.  This was her second trip to see the Pnong.  As I parked the truck in the village, considering Gretchen’s words, chills ran up and down my spine.  Me Chief God’s ambassador?  Her words shook me.  I hadn’t thought of it quite like that.  In my heart I prayed, “Oh Father, what an honor you’ve placed on me.  Please guide my every move today.  I’m so far from representing you.  Please shine through!  Please…shine through!”

I was delighted to find Liu at home with all her daughters.  To my surprise though, Jyam was there also.  Jyam is another widow in the village.  She has two grown sons.  One just got married.  The other is engaged to be married this summer.  Now she and her teenage daughter stay at home alone.  Jyam has been a widow like Liu since her children were young.  She’s had a very hard life.  Now she and Liu work together to survive.  Though they each have separate fields, they often work them together.  They’ll cut back all the underbrush in Liu’s field before moving on to Jyam’s.  Then they’ll plant Jyam’s and move on to Liu’s.  Today I found both of the women in one home with one heart.

After quick introductions, Liu got right to the point.  “I have been struggling with anger, deep in my heart.  I’m often quite cross with the girls.  I feel like screaming at them and I know that’s not right.  They start playing together and talking loudly and I just feel like I’m about to explode.  I don’t know what to do with it.”  At this point Jyam jumped in with, “It’s so hard not having men to help us.  We women don’t know how to build field huts.  We can clear all the underbrush as well as any man, and even cut down most of the trees for a new field, but the biggest trees are too much for us.  We don’t have the strength to fall them.  No one seems to notice us or care.  They all have their own families to think about and worry about.  Thus we pass without a notice.  Thus we struggle on alone without a thought from the others.  I often get home and just cry.  No one hears.  No one cares.  And then I too get angry.  It’s not fair.  It’s not right.  Why me?  I too feel like screaming or lashing out at my children.”  Silence filled the hut. Then Liu, looking right at me, asked, “Can Chief God help us – even at a heart level?”

I was shocked.  I could hardly believe the question.  But before I could think too much about it I answered with a smile, “Chief God made our hearts.  He made our bodies and he knows how we feel.  He can certainly help when we feel angry.  In fact, he can change our hearts.  He can help us treat our children gently and patiently even when we’re feeling helpless, hurt, and angry.”  The women were smiling as I translated the conversation to Gretchen and her mother.  To my surprise, Gretchen started talking, asking me to translate.  What followed was an amazing bonding between women of two completely different worlds.  Immediately Gretchen could relate to the women before us.  She shared her own heart and her own struggles of being single.  I was suddenly translating back and forth, connecting hearts that could feel each others rhythm but had no words in common to share.  I felt like an intruder to be listening in to their words.  But somehow God was using my mouth to unite these precious souls who were so far apart.  Gretchen could say, “I know, I understand, I can relate.  Chief God hasn’t promised to take all this away.  But He has promised to be near.”  The beauty of the moment washed over me and I felt tears stinging my eyes.  I watched as My Father brought them together as one.

Later, I knew the time had come for the Bible stories.  I asked if Liu would enjoy hearing a story about Chief God.  Her face lit up and the girls all started giggling with excitement as I pulled out the first story of the set.  As I flipped the cover open and turned to the first page, I was shocked when Rien, Liu’s eldest daughter began reading.  I knew she’d been learning to read the Pnong language, but she was reading it as fast as I could.  “In the very beginning there was only Chief God…”  The hut became quiet as Rien continued on.  Though her speed was good, she read each word separately and I joined her to help the story flow smoother for the room full of listeners.  Liu was listening as well as Jyam and all the children.  We read how Chief God created all the angels.  We read how Satan dreamed of rising higher than God and eventually set his course to reach that height at all cost.  We read how Chief God fought against Satan and cast him and his angels to the earth.  We read how the fallen angels then turned on the people demanding sacrifice and homage.  “Today we Pnong have forgotten Chief God,” Rien read.  “This book tells the many stories from the ages past.  These many stories try to help us Pnong remember Chief God as we did in the beginning.”

The room was silent but the minds we whirling.  Liu smiled.  Rien reached for the next story and we dove into the story of creation when Chief God created the world and everything in the world.  Next we read the story of the serpent and the great deception and the terrible fall.  The listeners were thrilled.  They were talking among themselves about the God who created the world.  And then Rien’s little sister, Kuis, picked up the first story and started sounding out the words.  Liu was thrilled and said, “See my girls?  They are smart.  They can read even these stories of Chief God from the ages past.”  We left the hut that day with the crowd of children still gathered around the stories helping each other sound out word after word.  My heart was flying high.  God had spoken!  His Words are alive and active!  I rejoiced that He had used me once again to speak with his Pnong children.  And it thrilled my heart to leave His words, His stories, for the people to read over and over again.

Deu’s Little Toe
Gretchen’s mother, Serena, is a retired nurse.  Even at seventy she had eagerly agreed to accompany her daughter to the other side of the world if it meant doing something for her Lord.  “I could have chosen some tourist place,” she told me.  “But I wanted to see the people and do something to help them.  I’ve read about these mission lands and the foreign people with their unique and strange ways.  Now I’m happy to see them for myself.  I’m here to do whatever it is God wants me to do.”  With that I led her down a small footpath through the village, past an old sow with her eleven piglets suckling frantically, around several thatched houses, and down to Deu’s hut.  Here I knew Serena would find something she could do – something she might never have done before, but something she could do.  It was Deu’s little toe.  That may not sound like much of a problem, but while falling trees, a limb had crashed to the ground pinning his foot firmly to the soil through his little toe.  The bone had snapped and the toe now stuck out to the side at an ugly angle.  Worse, it had been 12 days since the accident and he now lay in misery with the toe badly infected – oozing with puss.  Deu found a syringe and illustrated to the women how the toe had exploded the day before by forcefully expelling water from the syringe.  “It hit the ceiling,” he told them.

Gretchen found herself struggling with nausea, though no one could tell.  But Serena carefully examined the foot, noting the red and swollen flesh around the sore.  “This man needs to get to a hospital as soon as possible,” she explained.  “Otherwise it may go systemic.”  I handed her my first aid kit with a couple of gauze bandages, tape, and some triple antibiotic ointment and explained, “He’s been to the hospital four times.  They’ve cleaned it some and then told him he should have it amputated.  But they won’t actually perform the surgery.  ‘Come back tomorrow,’ they tell him each time he goes.”  Serena bravely picked up the few medical supplies we had and sat down next to Deu on the raised platform.  “Theoretically I should have gloves on to do this,” she said glancing up at me.  “But this is the Lord’s work and I’m going to do what He has given me to do in the best way I can.”

I smiled as I watched Deu’s face through the bandaging process.  “This woman is a medical worker from America,” I explained to Deu.  That word in Pnong basically means doctor.  Anyone working at the hospital is a doctor.  Deu smiled slightly.  Finally he was being cared for by loving hands.  Finally someone actually cared.  “I want to go to Phnom Penh,” he exclaimed.  Within a few minutes I had made some phone calls and arranged for him Savouen to pick him up the following day and take him to the hospital.  Meanwhile Serena did her work carefully with plenty of gauze and tape, lovingly wrapping the foot over and over again.  “We can do this again tomorrow before his trip,” she added.

Now I’ve often helped Deu and his family.  I provided his family with formula for their infant son when Deu’s wife had no milk.  She’d lost a baby the year before simply because she had no milk.  I helped his seven-year old son get to Phnom Penh to get his leg examined.  For years this boy had an open abscess on his leg no antibiotic would heal.  Finally the doctors diagnosed him with Tuberculosis of the bone and we were able to help him recover with the right medications.  I’d told the family about Chief God, but each time I did I felt I was pushing it on them.  Thus I simply focused on sharing love, knowing that spoke louder than any word.  As we sat there together looking at his toe I suddenly felt impressed to ask him if he’d like me to pray to Chief God about his toe.  I hesitated a bit, wondering how he’d respond, but the impression was strong and I thanked the Lord for making it clear.  I simply said, “Deu, would you like me to talk with Chief God about your toe and ask him to make it well.”  Deu hesitated and once again I wondered if he were feeling uncomfortable.  “Do you mean me talk to him right now or what?” he finally exclaimed.  “Well, he’d love you to talk with him also, but I had just offered to talk with him if you’d like.”  This time without any hesitation at all he said, “I would like you to talk with him.”

Thus I simply started talking to the Lord of the Universe.  “Oh Chief God.  Deu has a terribly hurt foot right now.  He’s been to the doctor’s and they won’t help him.  Thus we come to you now and ask you to heal his foot.  We don’t know what to do since we aren’t doctors, but we know that you made people and you know how to heal his foot.  Thank you!”  We sat in silence a short while before Deu said, “My foot is hurt.”  I looked at him wondering why he had just said that.  I said, “Yes, yes, that is true.”  Then he continued.  “It has been hurt for 12 days now and it still hurts.”  I again glanced at him wondering why he was repeating himself.  But he continued, “So I’d like to tell you right now that I don’t know what to do and I’d like you to come and help me.  Please, Chief God, come and help my toe to feel better.  It hurts terribly and I’m afraid it will spread through my whole body and I’ll die.  Please help.  Thank you!”  I sat in stunned silence for a bit.  My heart was racing.  Due had just prayed to Chief God!  He had just called out to the Master of the Universe.  And he’d done it so simply, so beautifully!  I left his house in a daze hardly able to believe what had just happened.  Wow!  Wow! Wow!

The next morning Deu arrived at our house with his son-in-law ready for the trip.  Serena again bandaged up the foot.  Then she and Gretchen gave him some money to pay for the trip and to help with the costs in the capital.  “We can’t do much for you but this,” she told him.  “But we will be praying to Chief God and I know that He will help you.”

After nearly a week in the hospital at Phnom Penh, Deu returned saying that his foot was much better.  He can now walk on it.  The doctors did do a minor surgery, but they choose not to remove the toe.  They cleaned it well and gave him some strong antibiotics before allowing him to return.  But Deu is still in danger.  I recently heard that his toe is still not healing right and I’m worried that it’s become infected again.  He needs our prayers.  God seems to be using this event to draw Deu to himself.  Please be praying!

A Pnong Evangelist
I was excited to visit Yau’s home again with the Bible stories.  This time Maiyn, Yoh’s eldest daughter, sat with me and read the stories.  Just as Rien had done, she read the story as fast as I could.  I was amazed.  Yau and Yoh listened carefully to the creation story and then the story of the serpent.  Yoh kept saying, “These are true stories.  These are the same stories the elders speak of.  We call Him Jyang Tang, but he’s the same God for sure.”  Then she added, “We’ve been having Maiyn read the stories to us every night over and over again after you leave.  They are really great stories.”

A week or so later I received a phone call from Yoh.  She said, “I just returned from Trong Weh Village and my younger relative is dying there.  She has no one to look after her.  Even her husband has said that he doesn’t care if she dies.  ‘I’ll get another wife if you die,’ he told her.  The elders in the village have told her that she can’t eat anything except white rice and salt.  They think the sickness is from the spirits and say that if she eats anything else it will only make the spirits angrier.  That’s why I thought of calling you.  Will you come out there and pray for her to Chief God?”

I was amazed.  Yoh hadn’t even mentioned using my truck to take her to the hospital, though I figured that was what she had in mind.  What seemed important to her was that we go out there and talk with Chief God for her.  “I told her all about Chief God,” Yoh explained.  “She says that she very much wants to know more about Chief God since she’s frustrated with the evil spirits that make her life so unbearable.  I told her that I too want to turn to Chief God only.”  Then Yoh said something that I didn’t quite understand.  She said, “I’ve told my husband that if he keeps treating us so badly I’m going to move over to the side of Met Mbut Keenan.  I know that Chief God will watch over me.”  I couldn’t tell, by her words, if she was threatening to leave her husband and come live with us (which I certainly hoped was not the case) or if she were talking about choosing sides spiritually.  Whatever the case, I sensed that she was specifically stating that she wanted to know more about Chief God and be on His side and that she was willingly telling others about him.

We made arrangements to go to Trong Weh Village the next morning.  She asked if I could come all the way out to her village first to pick her up, but I declined.  Diesel is expensive and my time is valuable.  But also, it’s important for her to be part of this and be willing to sacrifice as well to help this sick woman.  When I said that she’d need to find her own transportation she said, “It will be rough since my husband is gone and most of the villagers are in the fields, but I’m going to find someone with a moto and I’m going to come into town so we can go and get this woman and pray with her and take her to the hospital.

Yoh kept her word.  She was several hours later than planned, but she came.  “Everyone was gone,” she explained.  “I spent all morning trying to find someone who would bring me in.  I’m just glad I was able to get here.  I brought Maiyn along so that she can stay at the hospital and care for the sick woman until she’s well.”  We hopped in my truck and we were off for Trong Weh Village.  It’s so hard to know how to help.  The past few times I’ve been to Trong Weh Village to help “dying” people I’ve found sick people for sure, but not dying.  They could still ride a motorcycle and there was really no reason for a truck.  Would this time be different?  I silently prayed as we continued on.

We arrived to find a very sick woman sitting in front of a small hut.  Her two month old baby lay next to her, pale and sickly.  She also had a three-year-old girl who was taking a nap next to her.  I could tell she was weak and feeling miserable, yet she was not on her deathbed by any means.  I was a bit frustrated again, but I kept thinking about Yoh’s words, “The elders don’t care about her.  Will you come talk to Chief God?”  I realized that I may be here for more than transportation.  I was answering a request to pray to the God of the universe in direct opposition to the spirits who had craft fully worked to destroy another human’s life.  Thus I silently talked with the Master God as Yoh helped the woman pack for the trip to the hospital.

After checking the woman in at the hospital we couldn’t find her a bed.  All the beds seemed to be taken by others.  The large hospital rooms, with six beds, were packed with families who had already claimed the beds.  Finally, one of the hospital workers asked someone to move (most likely a family member of a patient) and we helped the woman spread out her mat and unload her meager belongings.  And it was at that point that something amazing happened.

I simply sat down next to the woman and said, “I’d like to talk with Chief God now.”  At that point Yoh turned to everyone in the room, who were all staring at us anyway, and said “Chief God is the Creator God.  He created all people.  I was sick and loosing my mind a few weeks ago and we asked Chief God to help.  I’m completely better now!  Chief God is very powerful and He is able to help us when we call out to him.”  I turned to the sick woman and said, “Talking to Chief God is easy.  You can talk to him anytime you want.  Yoh here knows how to speak with him.  You can ask her to talk with him with you anytime you’d like.”  Then I simply started talking with Chief God.  I didn’t close my eyes.  I simply talked.  Everyone in the room was listening.  “Oh Chief God, this woman is sick.  No one has been watching over her and she is alone.  She feels sick to her stomach…”  Then to my joy Yoh started adding things to my prayer.  This is something the Pnong do when they’re talking to the evil spirits, so it’s the natural way to talk with God.  “She’s also got a headache and she feels achy all over,” Yoh added.   Every little bit she’d add something else to my prayer to that God understood all the details.  When it came to, “Please help her to feel better and please make the evil spirits run away,” Yoh added, “And make the soul eating sorcerers run away and the witches and the evil spirits of the hills and the evil spirits of the trees.”  I started liking this type of public prayer.  It certainly was a better way of telling God everything on our hearts.  It was so simple, beautiful, natural.

But when I ended I thought we were done.  Yoh said, “Just two rooms down is an old man from Dumchi Village.  Can you please come and pray to Chief God for him as well?”  I was shocked.  For years I’ve prayed for people.  But I’m almost always the one to offer.  Few have asked for prayer.  But now here was Yoh boldly declaring what God had done for her and asking me to pray for others.  I followed her out the door and down the hallway to the old man’s bed.  There must have been 15 people standing around his bed.  The old man’s wife on the bed started introducing them all to me as her children and in-laws.  They all watched me as I sat next to the terribly sick man and place may hand on his shoulder.  Everyone in that entire huge hospital room was also vying for a better view of what was happening.  That’s when Yoh again boldly declared to everyone, “We’re going to talk with Chief God for this sick man.  Chief God is the Creator of the World.  We Pnong have always called him Jyan Tang.  Our elders tell many stories about Him.  He created humans out of the earth with his hands.  This same Creator God helped me to get well just a short time ago when I was terribly sick and out of my mind.

Someone in the group around the bed said, “So you’ve entered this foreigners religion then, huh?  Now you want to make us try to believe it?”  At this Yoh looked up without hesitation and said, “I haven’t entered anyone’s religion.  I’m simply talking to Chief God who is the Biggest God.  Chief God is bigger than all other spirits or gods and he loves people.  He made people and he feels compassion for them.  That’s why I talk to him.”  To my amazement, everyone in the circle began nodding their heads and grunting in agreement.  It was obvious that Yoh’s words agreed with them.  They seemed eager now for me to talk with this Chief God.  The old man’s wife said, “Please talk with Chief God then, this Great God, and tell him how sick my husband is.  Ask him to make my husband well again.”

Then I simply turned toward the old man and started talking to the God of the Pnong.  “Oh Chief God,” I began.  “This old man, this great elder of his people, is sick.  We don’t know medicine or how to make him well but we know that you love us people who you made from the dirt.  We ask you…”  But once again Yoh jumped in to make it a communal prayer.  She kept adding different symptoms the man had throughout my prayer and that we wanted to talk with Chief because we knew he was the biggest God.  Once again, I was overwhelmed to be in the midst of the Pnong, most who had never heard about Chief God before, as one of their own prayed to him.  It brought tears to my eyes.  I have waited for this day for years.

I left the hospital that day subdued.  I realized how small I was.  I’ve spent years trying to find ways of telling the Pnong about Chief God.  But in just one fleeting moment, Yoh was able to tell friends and family all about this God and how real and powerful he was.  She shared her own experience with him and it suddenly meant more to the people gathered in that hospital room than years of my own work.  Yoh sees God as the God of the Pnong.  She sees him as her God.  And she’s willing to declare that to others.  Now that’s an evangelist!

Survival Before Salvation
It’s easy to imagine that having just witnessed such events I’d be riding high on a cloud for weeks to come.  Seeing God at work is always thrilling!  But when writing about the events later it’s easy to pass over certain other events that aren’t as thrilling.  The woman from Trong Weh Village did get steadily better day after day.  Unfortunately, Maiyn, the girl who stayed to care for the sick woman, got terribly sick the day after arriving at the hospital and the doctors checked her in and gave her a bed right next to the sick woman.  It was beautiful when she asked me to talk with Chief God.  And the sick woman’s husband arrived shortly after to care for her.  “But we don’t have anything to eat,” he explained to me.  “All we have here is rice.”  Thus I went shopping in the open air market every couple of days to find them food.  “We don’t have water,” they complained the next day.  So I brought them fresh drinking water every day after that.  “But we don’t like the food very well,” I heard after that.  “Can’t you find us some beef and chicken and maybe some ripe mangoes and oranges?”  I began to feel irritated.  Here I was providing everything for them and they still weren’t happy.  “I won’t get better unless I like what I eat,” the lady wined.  I did buy some fish after that, but I wasn’t happy.  I wondered how to handle the situation and asked the Lord to guide me.

After a few more days of providing all their food and water needs, they met me at the door and said, “The doctor’s are letting us both go home now.  Where’s your truck?”  I had ridden my motorcycle and Johanna was anxious to get back to the Bible Story writing.  It irked me that they would assume I would take them all back to the village in my truck.  “Oh I’m far too busy to take you home today,” I admitted truthfully.  “I’m really thankful you’re better.  You’ll have to hire motorbike taxis to take you back.  I don’t think they charge much.”  The looks on everyone’s faces made me feel terrible.  “How can you do this?” they seemed to be asking.  “Don’t you have any pity?”  I filled up their water bottles again for the road trip home and someone complained that I hadn’t brought enough.  Someone else asked to borrow my phone so they could call relatives in the village to come pick them up.  I agreed wanting to help but not wanting to spend the day taking well people on a joy ride back across the hills.  Soon they’d contacted someone and I dismissed myself with a smile.  “I’m just so happy to see you both so much better today.”

Later in the day while Johanna was busy typing downstairs, I heard a knock at the door.  “The man from the village couldn’t come,” Chay explained mournfully.  “Can’t you please come get us all in the truck?  We’re stranded here.  What are we supposed to do?”  I was more than irritated.  I said, “I guess you’ll have to hire motorcycle taxis.  They should only be about 2 dollars each.”  “But we don’t have that kind of money,” he complained.  “The hospital only gave us a few dollars a day to stay there and we can’t afford to pay for motorbikes.”  When I heard that I was even more frustrated and irritated.  The hospital paid them?  I realized it had actually come from an organization who tries to help poor people buy food while they stay at the hospital, but since that’s what I’d been doing, where had the money gone?  “You’re just going to have to pay for them or walk,” I responded flatly.   Maiyn, Chay’s daughter, looked at me sadly as if I’d broken her heart.  Chay looked down sadly and turned to leave.  With sad good-byes they both turned and began slowly walking up the hill, heads down, back to the hospital.  I watched them go, standing there aching.  I had been irritated, but now I was sad.  What was I doing?  Had everything I’d said to them about a God of love just gone down the drain by my actions?  Arguments were raging in my head.  “But I can’t just do what everyone asks every time or I’ll become a full time taxi service.”  “Yeah, but what you just did was cruel.  How can you leave them stranded?” “It’s not my fault they are stranded.  Lot’s of people have to find rides back to their villages.  They can pay for it.  They just don’t want to.”  “But do you think Jesus would have just turned them away like that when the truck is sitting there unused right now?  What does that tell them about God?”  “We are working on the Bible stories right now.  The truck needs to sit there unused because we don’t have time to drive well people around.  If they are neigh unto death that’s one thing, but…”

The fact of the matter is that people here are in need.  Some use that to feel sorry for themselves and become beggars.  Others quietly endure it.  There are many reasons for poverty.  Sometimes the people are in need simply because they didn’t work hard enough.  Sometimes it’s because they’re traditional ways are no longer providing enough food.  Sometimes it’s because sickness and death seek to destroy all of us.  But unlike us, with governments that make sure we all get medical help, or insurance provided for us through our employment, or friends and family to help, they have nothing; no hope.  We are working to give the people stories from God’s word about hope.  But when I go to the village with a story and face dying people, the story seems so unimportant.  When I spend hours and days helping sick people, I wonder if I’m using my time wisely.

It’s always a challenge knowing when to help and how.  A day or so after Chay and Maiyn left our home, I received an urgent phone call from Rote.  “My sick relative in Yuk village needs a truck badly.  He’s going to die without one.  Can you come get him tomorrow morning?”  The following day was Sabbath and I didn’t feel like skipping Sabbath School to go get a sick man.  Especially since nearly every time I go to get a sick person “neigh until death” it turns out they could have easily ridden on a motorbike but wanted the free convenience of a truck to show themselves important to all the other villagers.  I asked how sick he really was before talking with Johanna and deciding to go.  It turns out he was very, very sick.  He had been deteriorating with a hugely swollen thigh for three months.  “Why didn’t you bring him to the hospital?” someone asked the family.  Several of them sighed and began explaining together, “Well, you know, we didn’t have the money and we figured he’d probably get better and we didn’t want to go all the way in to the hospital and you never know if they could help anyway.”  I was thankful that I could help him get to the doctors.  But not long after leaving him there, one of the family called me back and said, “The doctors said we need to take him to Phnom Penh and we don’t have any money.  Can you help?  If you can’t, what are we going to do?”

The fact of the matter is that people often die here because they can’t or won’t go to the hospital.  When they do go it’s often far too late.  I didn’t feel like getting involved.  There are so many like this man.  I kept thinking of the precious one-year-old boy who had ridden in the front seat with me though.  He would be loosing a daddy.  I didn’t know what to do so I prayed and did nothing.  The next day was Valentines Day and we had planned some extra special fun.  But the man at the hospital made me feel terrible.  What should I do?  It would be hundreds of dollars to pay for him and the family wasn’t about to help with any of it.  Most likely he was far too gone anyway.  But wasn’t it worth a try?  But what about everyone else in the hospital – was I supposed to help all of them too?  My friend Freddy from the Bible translation team gave me a number to call of someone who may be willing to help him get to Phnom Penh.  I called the number but it was disconnected.  Once again I prayed and then did nothing more.

The following day I asked our helper if she happened to have the person’s number I needed.  She did have it and gave it to me.  Within a few minutes I was at the hospital with the woman and she had agreed to help the family evacuate the man to Phnom Penh if the doctors gave the order.  The family was so happy to see me.  I assured them I’d been trying to help but couldn’t do much.  I introduced them to the nice woman who would help them.  The woman explained that she’d get the man to the capital and arrange for the medical bills to be paid, but the family would have to pay for their own food while there.  I felt that was very reasonable and thanked the woman.  The family too was thankful.  But the wife turned to me and said, “We don’t have any food here.  We’re eating only rice and salt.  Can you please help us?”  Once again I was in the market buying food and once again they were thrilled.

The following day though I found them still at the hospital.  The man was beginning to look stronger though his leg was still swollen.  The doctors had asked him to stay a few more days to see if they could help before sending him to the capital.  But the wife began to plead with me, “We don’t have money for food in the hospital if we go to the capital city.  I’ve asked relatives to loan us money and no one will help.  Can you please help us?”  I thought of a man recently I sent down to the capital.  I’d given him plenty of money to cover expenses and food and he came back early, without the doctor’s permission, saying that he’d run out of money.  I had to wonder where it had all gone.  It’s so difficult to help people with money.  I can see now why Jesus and his disciples helped in other ways.  Jesus said things like, “Rise up and walk” and “Your sins are forgiven.”  Oh Lord, show us Your ways.

Today I stopped by the hospital again.  The family is still waiting for money before they dare go to Phnom Penh.  I know some of you are wishing you could just give them the money they need.  It seems that would solve it all.  But it wouldn’t.  What about the man next to him who desperately needs AB blood.  I’ve been working to find someone, but no one is willing to give.  After testing 14 of his relatives, they finally found one man to give, but he needs more blood and soon.  What about the leprous man in the room one building over?  We must find ways of helping beyond money.  It would only make beggars of everyone and they still wouldn’t be interested in our Message.

Yesterday, Kaak called with an emergency.  Her younger brother’s wife was terribly sick and nearly unconscious.  I rushed to their home in the truck and helped the husband carry the woman to the truck.  She walked some but would have fallen if we weren’t holding her.  I was really worried and drove fast back to town.  But the family told me to stop before the hospital. They wanted to get out at a private doctor’s house.  It was the same private doctor’s clinic I’d found Koin in years before writhing in pain.  The doctor had only given him vitamins and an IV and charged him at least five times as much as the hospital.  I was irate at the thought of taking this dying woman to this quack.  I told the family, “I would never take my family here.  He doesn’t know what he’s doing.  People die here.  And there are no organizations to help and make sure he’s doing what he’s supposed to do.  If you need to go on to Phnom Penh, there’s no one who will help you unless you’re at the hospital.  I’ll stop if I must, but I don’t think this is the right place to take her.  Kaak’s mom starting begging me with, “Please don’t be unhappy with us.  But we want to go to this doctor because he knows how to use natural healing medicines as well as regular medicines.  We think he’ll do a better job.”  I remembered visiting with him back when Koin was there and seeing his large collection of charms and spirit paraphernalia.  He had bragged to me how good.  Then he told me about the spirits who talk to him during the night and tell him where to find his bones and rocks to use for healing.  I didn’t like him then and I didn’t like him now.  But I didn’t think forcing the family was right either; at least not at this moment.  I could always explain to people on the phone in the future that I only take people to the government hospital, but not this time.  Thus I helped the poor woman into the clinic.

The doctor met us at the front and said, “She’s too sick for me to treat.  Take her to the government hospital.”  He said that twice looking at me each time.  The family began begging him and I said, “I told them the same thing.  Finally he agreed, though you could see he wasn’t thrilled.  He only had two beds and both had people’s things on them.  Since the patient was absent from one of the beds, he led the woman to that bed and went in search of medicine.  I was angry.  I felt like I’d been forced to help a dying woman die.  How could she get better at this place?  I was so upset.  I whispered to Kaak that I was very worried about the woman getting the right treatment and then I dismissed myself.  I had to check on the sick man at the hospital.  I got there to find several doctors out front just waiting for patients to arrive.  The emergency room, with life support, was empty.  Now, as you know from my letters, the government hospital is far from perfect, but when I saw the difference and thought of where I’d just left a dying woman, my heart ached and once again I felt angry.

I found out the doctor dismissed her a few hours later after giving her who knows what and told her to go home.  I couldn’t help wonder if he had just needed the bed.  For those couple of hours he charged four times as much as the government hospital takes for a week of in-hospital care.  I was furious.

God is certainly at work here.  But this is a land of darkness.  It’s hard not to get irritated, discouraged, and even angry.  I humbly ask for your prayers.  We need God to help us respond to every situation correctly and it’s difficult.  When should we give and when should we not?  When should we support someone’s ignorance and when should we not?  When should we call on the name of the Lord for instantaneous healing and when should we not?  When should we expect miracles and when should we not?  These people don’t need our money or our medicine, they need our God.  But so often we have to find a way to help them survive before we can tell them about Salvation.  We need your prayers in balancing these two.

Love,

Braden, Johanna, Keenan, and Jaden