Traveling in the Kingdom Day 2

This was originally written on December 7, 2015 and follows the first post of a while back by the same name. It is a continuance of the first post from December 6, 2015 actually.

Our arrival to the guest house was after 10pm last night. A short cut ended up being a long addition. Cambodian roads at night frighten me a bit. The only lights on the road are the ones off motorized vehicles. Motos are only visible head on. Animal laden carts meander down the road with whatever attached to them. Bicycles and people are a black moving object not visible till you are almost on them. It’s black out there.

A side jaunt west from our destination of Preah Vihear temple brought us outside Siem Reap to eat dinner with his Excellency. Pastor told me that I’d need my Khmer stomach henceforth and was it ready? Tonight’s meal was at an open roadside stop. We hung out with the rice and cooked sauces and bits of meat. No problem.

Our guest house is basic but very adequate. The loudest old fashioned TV had one BBC channel of 30 and spoke only in a whisper. There was an AC in working order, a gecko to sing to us on the wall, and a shower willing to give us a cold wash. This one had a top sheet on the bed, a first in a while.

When you have certain representatives along for the day, I’m presuming that there is certain protocol to follow. A picture taking spot would be one of them, so this is what we did first. Beautiful lake found and photo shoot accomplished. From there cars caravanned a plethora of dirt roads to our final morning spot. Getting out of the car last, we followed the parade of those arrivals just ahead of us, into a two sided column of clapping smiling children into adult women and men in military dress extending their traditional hand clasped greeting. We were ushered to a lovely canopy area of red plastic chairs.

People scrambled to get a place to sit under the canopy. The children were ushered to the ground to siton a plastic tarps. In the background we hear “How Great Thou Art” in Khmer followed by “Just As I Am.” Hey, a mini Billy Graham thing here.

The start begins with singing in front and is followed by a sequence of speeches by various persons, Vannarith included. Earlier in the day he also tells us that some of the men from this area will join with LISA training next month. That is great news.
One person in particular is pointed out to me. He is a lieutenant colonel in this military. He was the same in the Khmer Rouge army. Now he is a Christian. Thank you Jesus.

The last speaker is Sopheat, an energizing charismatic guy who is there to share the gospel message. No, I can’t understand much of his verbiage, but it’s clear to me that the earthly business details are done, and he is going to engage these people closer to God. As I walk around and watch, I can see the audience’s facial expressions change as he speaks.

Concluding this morning would not be complete without distribution of packets and crosses to the children and the Christmas story to each who was there. A gift to the area also included some well appreciated boxes of bibles and song books for Sunday worship.

‘Jesus loves you’ was spoken to each child as a cross and a packet were handed out with a paper version copy of the Christmas story.

God was praised today. God was also glorified. God was seen. God is good. We were humbled to be able to see it all and be a part of it.

PS: meal #2 Khmer style. We ate ‘in the bush’ with these lovely folk. Again, we stuck with rice noodles and sauce meat. It was delicious. No problem