One of the more obvious cultural differences we face is the attitude to social chit-chat. I haven’t yet worked out what fits in the category of ‘own’ in the context of, ‘mind your own business’. Personal issues for me are public issues here. Questions such as how old are you, how much do you earn, how much rent do you pay, are as commonplace as discussing the weather back home. Everyone stops and watches everything and everyone talks to everyone about what they see. The market is characterized by a constant chatter between stall holders about how much stuff costs, how well the foreigner speaks Cambodian, and how long his hair is.

Recently I met a couple visiting Cambodia who were about to visit Tuol Sleng genocide museum, the site of the notorious prison where tens of thousands of prisoners were kept during the genocidal regime of Pol Pot (1975 to 1979). Cambodia is still waking up from that nightmare in which an estimated 20% of the population were murdered or starved to death.

The question this couple was asking was how could a nation let this happen to itself? And the answer that they had been given is that Cambodians are inherently violent people.

Recently, my wife Wendy read a Cambodian traditional story that ended with the conclusion, “Fear is stronger than love.” My first thought on hearing about it was how sad! But then I recognized that in practical terms it is very true. In general we are more easily and forcefully motivated by fear than by love. In Cambodia it can be seen in the way many people wont speak out against injustice because they are afraid. People are more likely to vote for a leader they are afraid of than one who cares for them. In their experience, those who are feared can inflict great pain and suffering, whereas there is little experience of those who love them taking away pain and suffering.

I have just watched the movie “Five Minutes of Heaven”. It's a very powerful and gritty Irish movie touching on some really important issues such as retribution and reconciliation.

It sounds almost blasphemous to mention the two symbols, cross and swastika, in the same sentence and yet in some ways they have much in common. Let me explain.

I seemed to have developed my own semantic differentiation between the words ‘skepticism’ and ‘cynicism’. Skepticism is questioning appearances in order to reveal the truth. Often this is healthy, but occasionally, surrounded as we are by post-modern influences, it can slide into cynicism, a despair that the truth can never be found.  

Cynicism and despair threatened to overwhelm me today as I considered the work of a local Cambodian company called 7NG. 7NG is the company that has ‘purchased’ illegally the land that the community of Dey Krahorm was recently evicted from. 7NG refused to pay compensation but they have offered a house to some of the landowners who were evicted (although they are yet to give land title at least they have promised!).

Sometimes when we look at the suffering in the world an understandable response is to ask, “Why?” Why is there all this suffering and pain? I could give a long-winded theological response to that question and many have but it doesn’t really help. It doesn't take away the hurt and pain. For me, the most important thing isn’t to explain why suffering exists – there is suffering and we all know there is! But what really matters is what God has done and is doing about it. And the answer to that begins with Christmas.

Sothea pushes her cart along the muddy pot-holed road. The recent rains and the constant flow of motorbikes and trucks through this developing area of Phnom Penh have turned the dirt road into a treacherous series of ruts and ridges, so although her cart is nearly empty, every meter traveled robs her of more of her limited supply of energy.

Her 2 year old son, La, lies placidly in the hammock suspended across the cart. His tiny body racked with diarrhea but the cost of medicine has become prohibitive on Sothea’s meagre budget. Her first priority is to get enough money to buy food for the day, for herself and her three children. Her husband works sometimes on construction sites but she only sees him about every three weeks, when he turns up to get money, leaving her with a beating if she doesn’t have enough. She doesn’t complain. As far as she understands it’s the way of the world.

Recently I read an excellent book called “Christianity Rediscovered” by Vincent Donovan, a missionary to the Masai people of Tanzania. He makes the following statement;

“A missionary essentially is a social martyr, cut off from his (sic) roots, his stock, his blood, his background, his culture. He is destined to walk forever a stranger in a strange land. He must be stripped as naked as a human can be, down to the very texture of his being. St Paul said Christ did not think being God was something to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. He was stripped to the fiber of his being, to the innermost part of his spirit.”

This year my birthday fell on a Saturday and so for a special treat Wendy and I arranged a babysitter and went out for a quiet night at our favourite Phnom Penh rooftop restaurant. Little did we know that our favourite Phnom Penh rooftop restaurant was to be shared with the local Democrats Abroad conference celebrating Barack Obama’s acceptance as the democratic nomination for the US presidential elections with Obama himself loudly proclaiming his acceptance speech from the podium on the big screen.

Efren and Becky Roxas relocated to the slums of Phnom Penh from the slums of Manila in 2006. With their wisdom, maturity and experience they have been a huge blessing to the Servants team in Cambodia. In particular Efren has become a good friend and inspiration to me. Currently he is working with the TASK Teenage Drug User Rehab project (TDUR). The following is a story from Efren illustrating the vulnerability of life for the urban poor…  

Around the time of the first Gulf War, I was hitchhiking down to Dunedin and I got a ride by this guy who knew the answer to all the world’s ills. Like most of us, this guy did not like the idea of war. He strongly believed that the way to get world peace was to get rid of Saddam Hussein. For him, like most of us, world peace was really important. But I remember thinking, “How ironic, to go on about world peace and yet he had ‘HATE’ tattooed in big letters across his knuckles. This guy saw world peace as necessary and important. He was quite happy to see other people’s role in that but he didn’t see himself as having to live up to the same peaceful standard. The more he went on, the more he pointed his finger at Saddam Hussein, the more he was actually pointing a finger at himself.

A while ago I had the awesome experience of a concert by U2, arguably the biggest rock band in the world. It was a truly spirit-filled experience. The same week I had been reading about John the Baptist. The comparison between Jono the Baptist and Bono the lead singer of U2 popped into my mind and wouldn’t leave me alone. Here was Bono, set apart from the core of institutional religion, in a religious sense out in the wilderness, with crowds being attracted to him. Here was Bono, just like Jono, preaching a version of, “repent, for the Kingdom of God is near”. 80000 people in NZ heard the gospel message that weekend. Not from pulpits and lecterns but through rock music and the spiritual gift of a contemporary prophet.