A Drop of Water - Documentary about christians in Cambodia

How's it feel to be back in Cambodia, Charlie? -It feels great to be home.. there's Randy, my man! There's Randy! (laughing) What's up guys? Let me take a picture right there. Charlie! It's so good to see you, man! Welcome to Cambodia! Before I arrived in Cambodia, a place that's as different as it is distant I thought I prepared myself by asking questions and researching the problems and circumstances But nothing could prepare me for what I experienced unimaginable kindness, love and beauty. All growing in and amongst the ruins of a country decimated by genocide only 34 years ago. when the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, massacred 2 million people. Today, 54% of the country is under the age of 30. And unwanted, malnourished orphans litter the streets, thrown away like garbage. And despite the UN occupation of the 90's, political corruption infests every level of government. But could the problem originate in something less obvious? Cambodia is approximately 96% Bhuddhist. A religion that teaches people to accept their karma and be content with whatever happens. Because of this mindset Cambodians rarely make any attempt to make improvements or fight for justice I came here to visit with a group of christian missionaries who run an orphan home The message they bring is the exact opposite of the traditional Khmer attitude. Their work is simple. They provide food, shelter, education, bibles and love. By doing this simple job every day, they are enabling a generation of Cambodians to lift themselves up. To reignite their self worth and give them a real future worth fighting for. The house is called Water of Life Consisting of over 2.3 million people, Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city in Cambodia New construction projects are everywhere, but nearly all developments are funded and run by foreign investors leaving the country's fate to the control of outsiders There are few cities in Cambodia and so almost all growth and development is centered on Phnom Penh. This is also where NGO's or non-government development organizations concentrate their efforts which are integral to providing relief to the poor There is a longstanding tradition of bribery, which can get you anything in Cambodia The heritage of their society dating back 1,000 years to the Angkor Empire is built on corruption Unfortunately this appears to mean that they can never fully realize a modern society with social justice without the help of outside influences Our dream is to one day see more men of God here in Cambodia, in the government so we can bring the good news and the hope to this next generation to this nation Because about 30 years ago, Cambodia was in the darkness Under Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge And the Khmer Rouge taught the kids how to kill their parents THey said the parents are the enemies And this generation, we want to teach the boys to grow, to be mature men of God to lead this country Cambodia is about 95% Bhuddhist and the monks teach pacificity and complacency. Their core principle is that contentment is wealth and they discourage all personal aspirations saying that people's karma is responsible for the good and bad things that happen in life This has created a severe uphill battle for organizations in Cambodia trying to help increase productivity and improve human rights issues Water of life, which started as a small home for boys in 2007 now has over 50 boys and girls living there from ages 14 to 24 and even more who attend their nightly bible studies They've also started an offshoot orphanage with a primary school called Children of Hope. They have classes every day in math, english, music computers, and just about any subject the kids want to learn. As I came here more and more, I really liked Cambodia. I really loved the people so much. I met a great pastor here, Pastor Sarin, and I very much loved him and his family. I just thought it would make sense if I would live somewhere and get to know the people and know all about them from the inside to the out and know their way of life. I myself had understood what it was like to be in foster homes as a child. So I had that experience and in my mind that experience of wanting love. I asked a friend of mine, Jeff Jackson, what to do. And he said, there's enough of you in America get out of America. So.. I did. Various organizations have tried to help Cambodia improve for nearly 200 years. The Vietnamese, Thai and French all tried to help Cambodia improve their farming as far back as the 1830's but all of them quit because they thought the Khmer were just too stubborn It's been proven time and again that top-down initiatives do not work in Cambodia But this approach, from the bottom-up, person to person may be slow, but it gets results. One time the street was flooding in front of our old house. And when the streets flood here, it comes all the way and it floods into the house. So when it flooded all the cockroaches would come up out of the ground. I looked over and I saw the neighbor lady and her house was much more flooded than ours. Because we had a 4 story house so we had safety upstairs and everything would dry out, it was all cement. Hers was wood and it was one story. It was all flooded and she had cockroaches all over her. And at that moment I thought, I want to go back to America. I can't wait for the moment I get to go back to America And not have this all around me. That thought, in my head right then crucified my own heart. How could I even think that way? How can I think I can leave, when they cannot leave? So God touched my heart right at that moment and said, "you go over there and pick the cockroaches off her. This is your home, too. You said you wanted it to be your home. You have nothing in America anyway, so this is your home too." So we did that. Ok Lord, I want them to be my people. As long as you have me here I want to not think it's those people and us. I want to think that even though I'm white skinned and old and gray haired, I want to think that we are one people together and what they go through I want to through with them, and understand their attachment to the Bhuddhist culture so that I can help them to understand what Jesus offers them. I can't explain that to them as well from the outside but I can explain it better from the inside "There's a song of praise inside of me, God is good, God is good all the time" To help us understand what the country experienced under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge some of the boys brought us to Toul Sleng prison, also known as S21. It was a school that was converted into a prison where suspects were interrogated under torture before being executed. The first group of people brought there were former members of government, the military and police. Then it was journalists, writers and artists. Then it was anyone with an education. Even people who wore glasses were suspected of being enemies of the people So Pol Pot came in and said, "ok, let's all just go to the villages, go to the far away. Were going to help this country develop very well" And the people didn't know, they believed that maybe this is true so they went to the village. And they called everyone one by one To find out who was educated and kill They said, "come, we need you to help the country" but we didn't know. They brought them here and if you are an educated person they killed you. And they said "the parents are your enemy" That's not your parents, their enemies. And they killed the parents. All three floors in this former school were converted into rows of crude prison cells and torture rooms. These cells, many of which were in near total darkness measure only 3 feet by 7 feet and were crammed with men, woman and children. The unfortunate people held here would await their interrogations in which they endured unspeakable torture sessions, beatings and starvation. This would often last for months if the Khmer Rouge interrogators wanted a particular confession. Prisoners brought here would almost certainly be executed. He's a murderer. He's very evil, just like Hitler. You know? That's what we think about Pol Pot today. So the family, the husband and wife, they're not together. They have to separate. And the children have to be separate too. Once in a while the family can come and visit the children. Or the husband can come visit the wife. All the girls go to one place, and all the guys go to another place. When you go to the other place (The Killing Fields) they hurt the children badly They hold the children and throw them against a tree. -What did they do with babies? -They killed babies. You think about what they could have been. What was negated because of this senseless slaughter. And that's what breaks my heart the most. To just look at these faces and imagine that their future could have been so different And their heritage could have been so different. That's what break my heart the most. I think one of the most destructive legacies of the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese occupation was just the destruction of family. And, you know, they have a slightly different view of the nuclear family and the extended family already but once that was completely destroyed you're seeing a lot of what some people call post traumatic stress generation who are now parents So they don't have.. since they didn't grow up in traditional families they don't have a strong model and example of what it means to be a mother and a father, to have a good marriage. But a lot of times there's so much disconnect. Because of Pol Pot the family environment is broken. It's just so easy for to just let go of their kid. It's really sad. Pol Pot took away their ability to dream. Pol Pot had an idea that he could take, as if possible, a chip out of their brain and make them people without a dream, without hope. So he made them an agrarian society and he managed to do that to a whole generation of people by making the young boy kill his young sister, or kill his own mother. or making the husband kill the wife or the wife kill the husband. So Pol Pot was able to take away from them this ability to love and to dream for the future. So most Cambodians just believe all they can ever be is a rice farmer. So when you tell them they can grab a star, they say "no we cannot, all we can ever do is rice farm." The man responsible for overseeing Toul Sleng prison was known as Commrade Duch After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 he fled to the Thai border to reunite with his family He changed his name and became a math teacher moving between several schools. One day in 1995 he attended a prayer meeting at Golden West Cambodian Christian Church Duch was later baptized and stated to his church family I don't know if my brothers and sisters can forgive the sins I've committed against the people. In 1997 a joint tribunal was founded in conjunction with the United Nations. It's purpose was to try the remaining leaders of the Khmer Rouge for war crimes. In 1999 while working with the christian relief agency World Vision, Duch granted an interview with a reporter from a foreign newspaper who had identified him as the former Khmer Rouge officer. After the interview was published he was tracked down by police, arrested and put on trial for war crimes. He was later sentenced to life in prison. While on a visit to Toul Sleng prison in 2008 as part of his trial he reportedly collapsed in tears while pleading "I ask for your forgiveness I know that you cannot forgive me, but I ask that you leave me the hope you might." To this day he is the only member put on trial to admit what he had done and ask for forgiveness. When a prisoner's interrogation was completed they were transferred by truck to a location 15km outside of the city known as the killing field. Today the site is memorialized and has been named the Choeng Ek Genocidal Center. There are over 300 known killing fields and mass graves in Cambodia containing about 1 million bodies. But this is the most widely known location. There are almost 9,000 bodies buried here comprised of mostly political prisoners. Visitors can see victim's clothing and bones still surfacing through the dirt due to erosion. 5,000 skulls have been excavated and collected into the memorial stupa at the center where people can pay their respects You're passing signs "This is where the trucks dropped off the people" You're seeing signs as you walk along, "This tree was used... "The soldiers used to kill babies against this tree" And you can see bones showing from the ground and some clothing and I actually had tears in my eyes when I saw that. I went back to where that... it was a gingham shirt that was someone. You're in this beautiful landscape, everything is green and blossoming And I can't imagine it I can't really conceive what... what happened Everything I saw, clothes, bones of babies When I saw that, I just wanted to leave the place It started me thinking, like, the guy driving my tuk tuk or the person who made my coffee who's of a certain age. Were they part of the Khmer Rouge? Or, not or, everyone lost family, but who did they lose? After 4 devastating years the Khmer Rouge relinquished control of Phnom Penh in 1979 after they were defeated by the invading Vietnamese Pol Pot and his cadre retreated westward and retained control of the jungles where they profited for years off gem mining and rare timber Pol Pot finally dissolved the Khmer Rouge in 1996 He died a free man two years later never having faced trial When violence finally ceased and relative stability was restored Cambodians returned to their villages and began rebuilding their lives. What followed was a baby boom. Cambodians typically have large families. Even in the poorest regions. But now that many of the older people and almost all of the educated had died during a decade of violence all that was left was a country comprised of mostly the young and uneducated. 54% of the country is under the age of 25 which makes the median age only 23.3. Since nearly one-quarter of adults are completely illiterate the vast majority of these young people do not have the employable skills that are needed to grow an economy. Add all of these facts together and what you get is an ever growing number of orphans. There is an estimated 630,000 orphans in Cambodia. That's 10% of all children. For the purposes of comparison approximately 2.5% are orphans in the United States We were helping an orphanage down the street here and we've been helping them for about 4 years. And the leaders of the orphanage were doing incorrect things to the children. Katherine became alarmed about it and her heart was breaking seeing the things going on and I was getting very upset at the leadership because they were doing terrible things to the children. So one day we saw all the children walking down the streets with their knapsacks everything they owned. And they were walking down there and we asked them what they were doing and they said "we've been thrown out, we have no home anymore and we're all leaving". I said where are you going? They said "we don't know but we all have to leave". We saw them right in front of our house here. At that moment then Katherine and I looked at each other and we knew what we had to do. I run a children's home here and I have 32 kids. Right now it's about $1,500 to $2,000 to run a house of 32 children $2,000 is housing, their food, doctor bills, stuff like that. Most kids that are running the streets or living on the streets like living their own life. They like their own rules. They can get whatever they need by stealing it or something like that. They don't want to go to school, they don't want to work. They don't want to submit under somebody because they've already become a young adult. Even at the age of 5 they can be a little adult running around. They know how to protect themselves. Little girls will dress up as boys because they know it protects them. They learn how to be very very hard and calloused. For me, it's my heart to take in a street child some day but it's a whole other ministry, it's a whole other ministry. Right now as it stands, American citizens cannot adopt from Cambodia. It used to be possible but the U.S. State Department put a stop to that because of perceived abuses within the adoption program they found out there is some corruption in the system. There were some stories about children who maybe weren't actual orphans that people were putting them forward to be adopted so money could be made off it. If we can't get them adopted to beautiful families in the United States or Canada or other countries then what we do is we try to love them right where they're at and try to bring family to them and step into the shoes of their missing parents and come to the rescue Obviously it would be great for every kid to be able to go to the States, right? Because there's lots of opportunities. But with doing foster care and orphan care here in-country then what you're helping to do is build the next generation of people within the country. And so if you look at the long term impact that can have on a country it's pretty powerful to see that. 80% of the kids within two years of emancipation from an orphanage have been swallowed up by the streets. That means the girls are prostitutes the kids are on drugs, they're in prison or their dead. And why is that? Because the state provides for their needs up until a certain point and then they get put out. And what do they do when go out there? You don't have anyone that cares about you, you don't have anyone to show you a way to go in life. You don't have any skills. Well there are some people that are hovering out there on the edge of society that have an answer for you. You come into the brothel. Or you start peddling drugs or something like that. And so what we want to do is be Jesus to these people. Not just when they're kids. You know God's love doesn't stop for someone just when they're a cute little kid. And so we want to help them transition into life. Rin Yame, the co-director of Water of Life has a story that is all too common in Cambodia. When Rin was born his father abandoned his mother and 4 older siblings. Unable to pay their rent they were forced to live on the streets and struggled to earn enough money for food. He was orphaned at the age of 8 when his mother died. He began sleeping here at the stadium. A popular place for the homeless, gangs and drug dealers in the city. And then when I was 8 years old, my sister ran away from home because some of my relatives looked down and spoke badly to my family. And then my mom just went around to find my sister but she couldn't find my sister. She just kept drinking and smoking cigarettes. And one night she had a medicine to kill herself. When my mom came back home and slept an early night. I kept calling my mom. "Mom, wake up" Wake up, mom!" But my mom couldn't wake up. And when I knew that my mom passed away I just lost hope. I didn't know what to do I cried, I said "I want my mom back" but my mom never came back. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know where to go. And later on, one of my aunties took me to stay with her for a while. But unfortunately some of her children disliked me. My body, full of a beatings. Full of a lot of bruises. Like my ear, like that you know? And the shoe, the broom, the mop and everything over my head. And sometimes, even when I open the door for them while smiling they hit my face, too. I never feel what is happiness in my life. Mostly, I got beaten. And then later on I became a very bad boy, I started to run away from home, I started to do a lot of bad stuff. I ran away from home because some of her children beat me a lot and I didn't know what to do Mostly, I slept here at the stadium. This was my home. I cheated people, I almost went to jail two times. And stealing and I did a lot of bad stuff. And the stadium was a dark place. If I didn't have Jesus I might die by *** over here or by disease or by accident or by starvation One day at the age of 16, Rin met Daryl, an American missionary who was walking around the stadium. Rin pleaded for his help and eventually Daryl took Rin to the Cambodian Christian Arts Ministry. This opportunity changed Rin's life. I learned music, drama, singing, dancing and especially the bible. Because I love music, I love art but I didn't know anything about art and then he put me in the art school and I'm so excited. Yes I want to learn! But in the beginning I didn't know anything. Two years, the Lord just drew me close to Him by reading His word. At first He wanted to change what is inside of me. He wanted me to know who Jesus is. And one day, one of my teachers. My "spiritual mom" I called them. They taught me about hell and heaven. The Holy Spirit really convicted my heart. I cried out "no Lord I don't want to go to hell, I want to go to heaven with you!" And then, suddenly I was fulled with God's holy spirit And then, son's name, God grew me very fast. WIth all education. I found one gift and after that another gift Rin left the art school after living their for nearly 10 years He was now an accomplished flute and piano player in addition to singing and dancing. He continued to pursue his art and was given an exhibition for his drawings. But after this, Rin struggled to find work and was tempted to give up. Until one afternoon while sitting in an internet cafe Rin felt compelled to introduce himself to an American sitting nearby His name was Randy Fleming Rin had said to me he had a dream to start a music school. I said "Ok, Rin" "That would be fine, I would help you do that" because I like to help people do things and give it to them. I said "I could help you do that" He drove me to this side of town and he said "there's a building for rent" And at that time I was paying $300 or something, I can't remember It was a small amount for renting my pastor's house. But Rin said "would we rent this building?" and it was $1,000 a month. And he said "Brother I just believe that God would do something like this and we could start a music school". Well I said "Rin I don't have the faith, but I'll do it on your faith". So we rented the house and we thought we would take a few boys and help them. Rin would help them learn music and I would just do the bible with them. Read the bible each night with them so we thought maybe 10 or 15 boys would be good and just study with them and help them through and get them skills. I had watched "Mother Theresa" and I really liked the movie about her life, and I'd seen "Nacho Libre" at the same time and they had a big impact on my life. So I put him and Mother Theresa together and I thought, "There is the seriousness of Jesus with the joy of doing something fun with the kids. Do you love -do you love My Jesus... So Randy and Rin started their house for boys. At first they had just two teenagers, Rith and Long. But the house quickly grew and now only 5 1/2 years later has 50 boys and two other offshoots Children of Hope and Holly's House for girls. Rin's dream of running a school for orphans has come true and he now gets to teach and disciple Cambodia's youth full time -Yes I love my Jesus! -Deep down in my heart! I never wanted this to be my house I wanted this to be Rin's house one day. I never thought we would have Water of Life as our own house. I thought it would be Rin's project. But then Rin and I are so connected we've been doing it together but I really wanted to give Rin the project. So he would take and run with it And he is running with it, but I don't want it myself. I don't want to own or do anything because I have to think too much. I have to stay awake at night if these are all my projects I have to stay awake and think about how to deal with them and how to run them all and how to get the kids up on time and get off to the project But if the project belongs to them they will think through all that. They'll go through all the discipline issues and go through all the issues that would come up in trying to run a project. So it helps me in that I don't have to be so industrious. I can still sleep, uh, sometimes. As for the first two boys taken in by Randy, Long is now known as Pastor Long and preaches every Sunday. He also has a degree in agriculture and works full time at a fish hatchery. And Rith, is now finishing his degree in english and teaches several classes a week He also leads outreaches to the villages every weekend. The Khmer people of the Angkor empire were originally Hindus. The famous Angkor Wat was built as a temple to the Hindu god Vishnu in the early 12th century AD. But Theravadist buddhism became the state religion in the 13th century. Admittedly, Cambodians see themselves as farmers and laborers but this thought goes back much further than Pol Pot It was the predominant thinking dating back to king Jayavarmen the 2nd who ruled the Angkor empire in the 9th century Cambodians have always been taught that they served at the pleasure of their king that meant that they lived, worked and died at his command. The poor farmers toiled their whole lives in the fields to produce rice, the wealth of the kingdom which was confiscated at tax time. The kings of Angkor were brutal and unforgiving taking all of the food, the young woman for their large harems and sometimes even practicing cannibalism when they ate men's gallbladders to absorb their power. A practice that persists in modern times. It's possible that buddhism caught on because its principles of contentedness and karma help to reinforce their traditional culture of helplessness Rith Sang, although not an orphan was the first boy to come live with Randy. He invited us to travel with him to his family's home in Takeo province. On the way, we stopped at Mt. Chisor, a major Bhuddhist temple in Cambodia. On the way up the mountain, one of the boys named Vannak, stopped to talk to this beggar sitting beside a shrine. He put his arm around him an uncommon show of affection and told him about Jesus and that he didn't have to make sacrifices or pray to the spirits. This boldness is typical of the youth living at Water of Life. -Right now we are on the top of Mt. Chisor. And it's like, 138m from the bottom and this temple was built during the French colonies, like, 1907. People came here to worship. Buddha was born in India into the royal family. After he got enlightenment, he could see a thousand lives that he had before. So it takes long years, like many lives, like thousands of lives for him to become Buddha. They believe that what they do, or what they get is from what they have done in the past, a past life. For example if they get suffering it means they have done something bad in a past life. If they become rich, or become, like, the king or the leader of the country it means they have done something good in the past life -This is karma? -That's karma, yeah The buddha died and he went to nirvana. And nirvana means you have no suffering, you have no.. you have nothing It means everything is done. Finished. He believed that people suffer because of the thoughts in their mind. Like being jealous being like "I want this", our desires, like that. And the thing is he tried to get rid of the desires that people have. So if you want to follow buddha you do your best to make to make your desire go down to zero. When do the sacrifices to the spirits they believe that all the offering that they sacrifice is sent to their parents, their ancestors. For example if they send a chicken and they believe that when a monk prays the monk sends that chicken to the ancestors. They give the offering in case their parents are in hell. The offering goes to hell to feed their ancestors There are a lot of people that come here in order to give the offerings to their ancestors and especially during Pchum Ben, Cambodian people believe that for 15 days the doors of hell open and all the spirits, the evil spirits in hell are released to the earth. They have to go to different pagoda at least 7 pagodas, 7 Bhuddhist temples to give the offering if you don't give the offering to them and when the ancestors come to the earth and go to different pagodas and do not find their food, they're gonna curse you. When they accept Jesus, often we see families becoming more prosperous. Because they stop sacrificing their animals to Buddha. They buy the best food, the really expensive food and they give it to the Bhuddhists. And with their health care also, they look down on people who are sick. They are so mean to them. They think it's because of their past sins. That's the reason they are sick. We made a stop at the home of Vannak's grandmother to deliver some food for his young cousins. Fruit is a luxury in this area, usually bought as a sacrifice to the spirits. 37% of Cambodia's children suffer from chronic malnutrition and the kids in this area are no exception. One of the things that I noticed is that some of the kids in this area are very small. They're very undersized. They're very small because they don't have enough food to eat. The thing is, they eat only rice. They don't have good food. They eat rice with soup. And the soup is like water with some herbs. They are not healthy. They lack vitamins. They lack protein. Some of the children are very short. Because they have lacked nutrition. Often they have a problem with their brains. Sometimes their parents or their mum makes them take drugs so they do not need to eat so much food. They're very susceptible to every cold and every flu and everything. And because everything's so dirty they cannot build up enough immune system to fight anything off. So we take them to the doctor and they're so used to kids being so ill that it's just normal "oh that's fine, they'll be ok". My name is Rith, RIth Sang. And I'm now working at Water of Life. My family's I have 7 members, my parents and my two brothers and my two sisters We do a lot of things here, like farming with rice. Also we raise a few pigs raise some chickens, some ducks but most of the time that I spent here, my duties are with the rice like rice field, doing farming So this is the house I told you about, it's made of palm and bamboo So if you see, the whole house, most of the things are made of palm tree The leaf of the palm tree Also the bamboo. It's a new idea. The farmers do it now. 0:36:04.210,1193:02:47.295 Crickets! -You raise crickets? -Yes! And now they start to lay eggs. And we put all these in order to keep the eggs And you know, if you sell eggs One bowl of eggs.. one dollar, one buck So if you got a hundred, one hundred bucks -10,000 reil -10,000? -Yes, 10,000. More than that. -Oh so that's even more. -So two dollars then No, $2.50 -Yeah But I don't now if it's going to work or not. -So you haven't sold any yet? We just started last month. -Do you think it's going to work? Um... I don't know. We'll see. One day when I was in grade 11 I had to move from my house and I first lived in a pagoda in a Bhuddhist temple. Because the temple is very close to my school. I became really sick. Because I studied so hard at the school Like, I had headaches so bad I decided to stop studying for one year. For one year, every single day I had a headache so bad in my brain. One day there was a team Randy's team, they came to the church close to my school. Randy talked to me, he said "Oh you have very good smile". And that really encouraged me a lot You know? I had my mom and parents to care for me I lived with them all the time, they care.. but I still feel lonely. When Randy told me such a simple word and it really touched my heart and encouraged me a lot. And then one day there was a camp near the bridge. A lot of youths, a lot of teenagers went there It was really good, I saw the difference between my life and their lives And just how people changed their lives and they shared a lot of testimonies to me. I learned so much from that camping just for those 3 days. We worked hard, we studied and worshiped together The Lord really spoke to me during the 3 days I was there The last day, I was filled with the Holy Spirit and I cried so hard and accepted Jesus from that time I prayed so hard, I prayed even when I went to school and I was riding my bicycle, this and that. I prayed very much, very hard and I trusted in the Lord and you know what? God healed me completely. Without any medicine. It's not an accident, but it's what God did. So my sickness is gone completely. This is my Dad. I thank God very much because I got a scholarship from the government so that I can continue my studies in college I have a scholarship but I didn't have a place to stay and I didn't have food to eat. So I asked Randy, "please can you give me a place to live and food to eat?" I didn't speak english and Randy didn't speak Khmer it's very hard to communicate, but what we can do is, like, he gave me a bible reading plan and a bible. We started to read the bible every day. So by reading the bible, my life started to change so much. I started to go to different orphanages. And, you know, the first time I didn't know how to do it. How to teach kids. And then he said "Go, just do it" So I did it. And right now, I'm working at Water of Life as the english teacher. I also got a job part time to teach english at a school in order to get some money to support my family, my sister and myself as well. I graduated from college at one school, and I'm doing another bachelors in another school in english when I finish that bachelor, I can be a teacher of english. God really blessed me through Water of Life and through a lot of people. And God really blessed me with my brother and sisters and even though I have a poor family, we really love the Lord and the Lord really blessed us so much We would do medical clinics out to the village and I would bring over teams and we'd do those clinics a lot. And at one of those clinics I met Rith And he had come and he had a lot of issues with his mental.. brain problems. And at that time we didn't know if was brain tumors or whatever, but it turned out later that he thought too much, that he was too smart. Hah, not that that could be a problem And he was living at that moment at a Bhuddhist temple because it was close to his school We realized that he need to take a break. The doctor gave him some advice and some help. I had told him, Rith, if you ever need help I will be here for you. And I don't know why I said that because I normally wouldn't say something like that. I don't think it's wise for a missionary to make promises that he wouldn't be able to fulfill. But I never really thought of myself as a missionary so I could break that rule. So I said "If you ever need something boy I just believe that God has a work in your life". And some years later I would be across town, on this side of town, still living with my pastor and Long and Rith would call me. I could not speak Khmer very well and they certainly could not speak english at all and they were explaining to me in Khmer that they wanted me to help them. And I'm like, what does that mean? And they said, "we're at your house right now and we want to live here. And we want you help us go to college." So when I left from this side of town to go to that side of town God and I had a long discussion and I had a lot of breaking to do inside. Before showing up at that gate I had a lot of attitude changes that needed to be made in my own heart. And then when I showed up at that gate I had to be willing and able to make the next step. And as soon as I went through the gate I was willing and able to take the next step. It's widely understood that Cambodia was devastated from the 4 year rule of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge and the 10 year occupation by Vietnam But in start contrast to city life the farmers in the provinces live the way they did 1,000 years ago with thatch roofs and improvised farm tools. Electric service and indoor plumbing are many years from being a reality in the provinces. Typically Cambodians resist change. And that includes modern farming techniques. They have no irrigation or any way to use it and so they have the lowest rice yield of southeast asia. SInce their economy is driven by rice production, widespread poverty is assured in the provinces, particularly in drought years. And I'm very encouraged because now the boys and girls not only study the word but they go out And they do their own projects. And this was not my idea. I just would go out and do the projects and take the boys with me sometimes. And then they started asking me could they do their own projects. They said "dad, dad" or "grandpa, grandpa, do you mind if we go to that village or that village" and I would say "do you need something from me?" And they said "just your love and the fact that you're behind us" I said, "uh, I can give you that" you know? I can do that for you. So they would start these projects in these villages. And as you've seen already they would grow from, like a few kids to hundreds of kids. I don't think of these things for them, they think of them themselves and they go out and they do them. This is a part of the world where the knowledge of Jesus is largely unknown And so what we're doing is trying to not only help people with their practical needs but equip pastors to reach their own people. At Harvest Bible College we have two main groups that take advantage of our school. The first group is what we call the Phnom Penh group. Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and that's the city. So the people that we draw into Harvest in the city tend to be more educated. They can speak some english they have some school under their belt and some knowledge of the word. Samnang, a member of Water of Life leads weekly trips to the provinces. Though not adopted by Randy he considers him a spiritual father and uses Fleming for his last name. After stopping to pick up some food supplies we took a 5 hour van ride east to Svey Rieng. A sparsely populated area very near to the Vietnam border The second group of people are the village pastors What we discovered with the pastors in the village is their education level is just super low. We met a whole group of pastors on the border with Vietnam and Svey Rieng province, also Prey Veng province and when we met these guys we could tell these guys love Jesus but as Randy explained to me, "John, their knowledge of the word is so slight that a lot of times these pastors just keep repeating the same sermon over and over again". These guys are almost all bi-vocational it means they're tuk-tuk driver, you know, like taxi drivers for Cambodia it means they're rice farmers and other things like that. Every month we go out to the village, several hours and we'll have these day long conferences which will be an in-depth inductive bible study method really trying to ground these guys in the essential doctrins No matter how far we are separated from each other (Speaking Khmer) We serve one shepherd. -We're all underneath one shepherd. And his voice is not hard to discern. It's the voice of love, it's the voice of grace. And whenever I go there I don't want them to look at me and say this is an american pastor, he is above us, in some degree. You know? We're all on the same plateau. I think it's important for them to understand that. It's a theme that needs to be said over and over and over again. That we have the same shepherd. We can all hear the same voice from God and His name is Jesus. And there's no levels of Christianity That's why I go there and I say we're one family one God, one father, one savior, one Holy Spirit, one church. And we're all underneath that one shepherd. No matter what language we speak, Khmer, english (speaking Khmer) We can still hear the voice of Jesus. So it's the voice of love that we run to. I think that's a message that need to hear over and over again so that they can be empowered. to grow, that they can be something more, they can do better in their lives than maybe just working a rice field. You know? There's hope, you can further yourself. There's more experience in life than just thinking you're set in this culture and there's no way out. Pastor Chann Sarin is the senior pastor in this community. Today, seven pastors from the surrounding area joined together to hear teaching from the visiting americans. They traveled about 8km or 5 miles by bicycle or motorscooter to join together here. It's not easy to be a christian pastor So he wanted to encourage all the pastors All the pastors have joy, they know the bible clearly They learn more from God when they read and pray together He's very thankful to God for the blessings of supplies The food brought through the team from the U.S. So thank you God for all the blessings It's a very small gift but it's so important for them It's so important for them because they need food He said that all the christians, most of them are poor families The poor families who become christians, it's so difficult for them Their situation is hard, it's so difficult for them It's not easy to find food, enough for them Sometimes they don't have food One of the things that we do is.. we'll pay for the gasoline that they need to get there riding their scooters and then provide them lunch Recently we had a conference in Svey Rieng province. We got an email back from our team members in Cambodia and they said in order for us to host this conference for 37 pastors we're going to need to get them $150 for food and gasoline for everybody. $150 is all it took to train 37 pastors. Jesus said "to those who much has been given, much is required" Hun Sen, the prime minister from the Cambodian People's party has led the country since 1985. He was put in power by the withdrawing Vietnamese and claims that the economy is a free market. Though cronyism and anarchy are much more accurate terms. Though he has been given huge sums of foreign aid money over the years he continues to make poor use of it by allowing as much as 50% of the country's income to be lost to insider corruption. While Hun Sen has worked hard to consolidate his power, he has introduced certain laws that make the work of missionaries much easier. For instance, there is a law that permits freedom of religion in the country as long as you don't overtly criticize buddhism or the government The Cambodian government is eager to hand over social responsibilities to openly practicing christians because it removes burdens like orphan care from its budget. World Orphans, based out of Castlerock, Colorado is another member of the close-knit and cooperative christian community in Cambodia We met Jesse Blaine, their country director who invited us to come along with pastor Hung Roth to a pastor's conference in Kampong Chhnang province We just met together with a group of pastors. And the goal was to encourage them as they're having a few issues in the community It was a great all morning meeting. Sometimes it's difficult for pastors out here to get education and training in the bible. So the main purpose besides encouraging them in their faith was to work through a way to help them learn how to do inductive bible study Because it gives them the tools to be able to the study and teach the scriptures on their own Well, the beauty of inductive bible study is that it's basically allowing the word of God to interpret the word of God. And it's important to teach them to draw their answers from the bible so if they're teaching in John chapter 10 you should be able to go to other shepherd passages in the scripture and allow the scriptures to interpret itself You know? Go to Ezekiel and find that "woe to the shepherd that feed themselves and not the flock". They need to understand that the bible is fully capable of interpreting itself. There's a report called the portrait of the church in Cambodia which has guesses it's really impossible to know final figures. But their guess is that something like 10% of pastors in Cambodia don't read the bible And 1% don't own a bible. Which is crazy.. they're pastors. But pastor Hung, who we hung out with, or Hông as they would say in Vietnamese. He's in the bible morning and night. He's working through the Calvary Chapel inductive bible study method and just goes into it. And part of his goal is to really pass on that desire and love for the getting into scripture to other pastors So the biggest point and reason that we went up to Kampong Chhnang, which is a province about an hour and a half north was to work with pastors that pastor Hung is friends with and encourage them in the midst of some of their troubles and issues that they were having and rather than offer them a lot of point by point solutions he just kept pointing them to scripture and pointing them to scripture and telling them how he tries to get through scripture once a year. Which for a Cambodiann to read through the whole bible once in a whole year, right? It's a lot for an american, but for a Cambodiann that is in the province that doesn't have as much education, that's a real undertaking. He says that you can tell there's a lot of people that really love the Lord here because many of them continue to love the Lord despite their conditions despite the push-back from their society and culture. So it has a way of purifying people very quickly. (speaking Khmer) So one example of that is this morning we had a whole morning of bible teaching and when they finished they said "is that all?". They wanted to know more and more even though today is a word day when they can go earn money A big value here is harmony. So, appeasing the spirits and being in harmony is the number one value. -Non-confrontational -Right. Not necessarily individual rights, but the harmony of the group That's what's important. So if you have this group of people that aren't appeasing the spirits and aren't trying to stay in harmony because they're going with a different religion. It's hard for them to accept. It's not within their framework of thinking about the world. They don't like to confront each other, they don't often confront each other. They don't go anywhere close to that line. Whereas in the states we'd be more ready to confront people. But here, once you cross that line, you can never go back oftentimes. So if you confront a police chief, that's it. He's going retaliate in some way. -Here in Cambodia, another issue is that you have two different types of populations of people. One is the traditional Cambodiann, the Khmer people. And one is the Vietnamese people Hung has an opportunity because he's half Vietnamese to be able to speak Khmer and Vietnamese He has a desire to see the two churches work together to reach their respective communities together (speaking Khmer) Especially to the community of Vietnamese living along the banks of the Tonle Sap river and lake. During the Vietnam war, 10's of thousands of refugees fled across the border When the Khmer Rouge took over they closed the border, trapping all the Vietnamese inside Cambodia. When the borders were reopened they weren't allowed to return to Vietnam without proper identification Now their numbers have swelled to a half a million people who are denied entry to their homeland or the ability to take up permanent residence here. These people are the among the poorest and least educated in the country The boats, on the river, a Vietnamese church -Really? Yes, I want to go there but I don't have time. Yeah.. On the river, 300km have half a million Vietnamese stay on the river -Half a million people? On the water? -Yes, on the water From Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. -Living on the river exposes them to numerous health problems. But dysentery, malaria and dengue fever spread by mosquitoes are most common. Nearly in tears, Hung told us that he had to stop helping the Vietnamese because he cannot afford the time or money for gas to visit them anymore At their church they have a school which reaches out mostly to Vietnamese kids. They do half Vietnamese and half Khmer He charges $1 a month for their tuition and then ends up subsidizing 70% of the student's tuition. He uses it as an outreach because a lot of these kids are from families that would never come to church so as part of the school they share the gospel with the kids and then he runs a church, he's got 6 kids, he has a van that he drives for occasional teams that will pay him money and I'm sure there's 3 other things that I can't remember right now He's a really dynamic guy that's doing a lot Hung where are we right now? -In my church here. What happens in the front? -For school How many students do you have? -97.. 97 students I have Monday to Friday, have them study... Vietnamese, Cambodian, English I have three languages in here. What is your name? -My name is Charlie Charlie -Yeah, you can call me Cha-lee -Cha-lee Kanye is one of Hung's 6 children and is part of a team of teachers led by Hung's wife. This school provides a safe place for the neighborhood children to play and study in the mornings. It is likely that the majority of these children's parents have no more than a 3rd grade education. Yet these kids will be tri-lingual with Khmer, Vietnamese and English, giving them the opportunity to break the cycle of incredible poverty that they were born into Children come here, learn Morning here... afternoon government (school) But first thing they learn, for students Christianity, about bible Hey, Suslei! (hello) -Suslei! (hello) I want to tell you about one missionary on our team. His name's Andrew Andrew is a guy, 22 years old from Austin, Texas. He had a job, trying to figure out what he really wanted to do in his life. He came on this trip with us, never expecting that at the end of the trip he would feel the call of the Lord to come over here permanently So he went back to Austin, sold his car, quit his job and came back over here as a missionary. You know, he's a self starter He didn't go and try to find who he could help, he started his own things. He also started a ministry out by the dump. There's a village by the old city dump. These people are so poor that what they do is go and pilfer amongst the trash trying to find the little plastic bottles or some recyclables, something that they can eek out a meager existence. Andrew's a very interesting kid. I had the honor and privilege of being his room mate on my first trip in April of 2012 It wasn't too long into our conversations that I realized this was not a man of the world. This was not a man who was deeply immersed like myself growing up in the Bronx and seeing all the things and doing all the things that I've done I was a very worldly man Oh, I can see why you love it here, bro translation: 1, 2, 3 I instantly called him Saint Andrew just watching those kids jump all over him. Here he is walking into a basically a hut for a church and he has to bend down to go into the doorway -He's a big guy -Yeah, he's a big guy! But I was so encouraged to see a man, I think he's 22 years old just to see a man say, you know what I'm leaving everything in Texas and he comes from a wealthy family and just see him say "I'm going to leave this", whether it's forever I don't know. Even just for the time, he's sharing the love of God with people that are in a dump. It's just marvelous to watch. -I'm here 6 times a week -At the dump? -At the dump. 2 times on Monday One in the afternoon and one at nighttime. I bring food, I teach them English, teach them the bible I do small outgoings to people's families, children's families to tell them about Christ and share God's love Counseling, just kind of fixing people's problems, helping them with their problems "do you love my Jesus, deep down in my heart" "yes I love my Jesus" "deep down in my heart" I grew up in a great family, Christian, almost my entire life I was homeschooled, lived on 108 acres just had a great family and wonderful siblings (singing in Khmer) Here we're actually standing on part of the dump. This whole city's built on part of a dump. And it's the retired dump. There used to be a lot of their family's income to shift through all the trash and they shut down the dump and buried it over there. Over there by that big mound. A lot of families lost a lot of jobs. And they just pick through everything they can recycle and they'd sell that. -What kind of an income would they get from that? Uh, maybe a dollar a day. Or maybe 50 cents. Maybe. Now they're just kind of piling on debt, trying to stay alive because they don't have jobs. -And the people who live here, they have to pay rent for this property? Yes, someone's bought it all. Some major corporation's bought it all. They very much have lots of diseases very rampant, like ***. Jobs are very scarce because they don't really know how to do anything. What they can really do is just sell themselves, or sell drugs or panhandle, or shift through the rising trash from the buried dump. So this is the school that the government set up. And every single time they go between grades or have tests they have to pay the teacher in order to pass it. Or the teacher fails them. So if you don't very much money, or don't have any money you pretty much stay in first grade or just stop going to school. Most kids here, if they go to a public school, end up having to bribe their teachers to be able to make it through exams, it's not a matter of just knowing the material it's a matter of bribing, or paying your way. If you look at that system, a lot of times the teachers really don't make enough here, so they're doing whatever they can within the culture to be able to make enough. So a lot of parents don't have the value for education because their education system was wiped out. So why would they push the kids that they're taking care of to have education. So you have destruction of the nuclear family, destruction of those values, destruction of the value of education and then you have where we are now, where they're moving really quickly and trying to develop very quickly but it's not based on a really strong foundation just yet. I notice that nobody has any protective equipment, like gloves or shoes. And no one is entitled to supply that to them because no one is contracted to work for them They just come and show up and do the work and they get paid for the labor So, if they don't like the conditions they can just leave. Yeah, these people are just so desperate for any kind of job This alley, this house, there's about There's... 6 rooms. Yeah, there's 6 rooms. And there's probably about 20 families in there. 20 families? And they live right next to the recycling building. -Yes. "Telephone to Jesus, telephone to Jesus telephone to Jesus every day Jesus says I love you..." When I first came here, particularly at the dump It kind of shocked me. It seemed like they were just getting by there was no hope in their life. And not even the very thing they believed in, which is Buddhism, even saves them. It actually condemns them because they don't have enough money to give to Buddhism. And I asked Tree of Life if I could use their building. They graciously allowed me to use it and so I've been teaching 6 classes a week. One child at a time, one person at a time. I've seen lots of fruit and their lives being changed by that. After returning from Cambodia it was difficult to reintegrate with American society. It made me look at every day things like a drive through town or a trip to the grocery store in a new light. I realized just how blessed our country is while simultaneously being so unhappy. Suicide is now the leading cause of injury death for Americans and one third of the nation suffers chronically debilitating stress. These stats are confusing because unlike rural Cambodians who have survived genocide and struggle to find enough to eat our biggest problem is managing our excess. Our culture tells us that status and material possessions will give us the fulfillment we seek But in the end, no amount of gourmet coffee, electronics, cars designer handbags or social status is going to make you happy. Whether you are a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist or an Atheist it is kindness and love that ultimately uplifts the humans spirit. I think a lot of Americans go to the third world thinking what can I bring to them What I really learned through shooting this film and interviewing is that, no, what can they give me? I can give them resources I can go and encourage them, but they have the context. Because here, a lot of the times we haven't struggled. You know, maybe you have student loan debt. Maybe you have mortgage debt that's overbearing. But, they don't have food half the time. We saw kids that were 10 years old that were just feet shorter than kids here in America. Because all they have is rice soup to eat. Even the people in America who suffer, and there are those who suffer, they're not suffering the same way. Even though they don't have food They have Jesus Christ. Jesus blesses through the Holy Spirit. Gives them a new life from God. You know, change their lives. It's not easy for them to live on the earth, right? But when they believe in God, they have so much joy. So I don't know what God has for the future. I think tomorrow I could be working in Walmart as a greeter. And I could not complain because what he's allowed me to see and what he's allowed me to touch and the lives he's allowed me to be a part of here. Well how could I trade that for a retirement? And I'm glad that people in America work and have retirements and they have cars and things like that. Because that's God's plan for their life perhaps. But for me, he planned it differently for my life. Every single American has the ability to save somebody's life or transform somebody's life. There's an old saying "in the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may just be the world" This model that so many American believers have bought into of chasing the American dream, that is a false and cheap counterfeit. But I encourage people to step out because you don't want to get to the end of your life, be on your death bed and look back on your life and have any regrets. Wished that you had taken more chances, you know? That you could have had a life that really was a life of faith and love but you were too conservative and too careful and you missed out on an opportunity don't let that happen. Having money, a good job or owning high quality products is not a bad thing. The world needs success and wealth to grow industry. Charities wouldn't even exist without support. What it comes to is our perspective. We, as human beings, need to understand that eventually the things we buy will turn to dust, but your actions towards others will live on causing ripples around the world. Those chains that the world or that sin has put on them, and God frees them, they live in that freedom. In America, the kids, maybe they forget. It's been given to them so much and we make it so easy for them. They don't know. Here, when you give them real freedom, it so contrasts to the chains that when they experience freedom they want to live in it, and not only live in it as you've seen. They want to tell all their friends about it. So what is the secret to reshaping a broken society? What can succeed where the United Nations and other world powers have failed even after spending 10's of billions of dollars in foreign aid? It comes back to love and kindness, shifting focus away from governments and toward raising up leaders to unify a fractured society working from the bottom-up, helping one person at a time. What we want to do and it's going to take a generation, I think, to shift this mentality but what we're trying to help do is have Cambodians see Cambodians helping each other. We didn't expect this year we'd have 16 kids in college. I will say we did not expect that would occur. That we'd put 16 boys and girls in college. But you give them education, you make them lawyers, you make them teachers. Then you have you're first non-corrupt judge. What a thing to do to a country. What a way to change a country. We go to college and through that Water of Life can give us education as well. So by having education we you know, we can make the society become better. We're not just alone, together we can change it. And God is on our side. And through God we can do all things. I do remember that Mother Theresa wrote in her book, someone said said to her "all you do is just a drop in the ocean so why do it?" She said "if I don't do it that drop will never exist". So yes there are organizations that do this way better than I do it, that do this way better than all of us do it. But we are just one more drop, but that drop exists. And it's here. I believe that God is going to keep working I believe this country, they're open. Whatever country is open. But I'm here, the people that are in Mongolia, the people that are in Africa, I believe that God wants to work in all these places. But I'm here, and I want to be that drop of water here. And I want to do that here. Ok here we are with Gus, and we're having a little dilemma because Gus will not eat something that he does not what it is. -If I can't identify it and if they can't even tell me what it is. Lucky, what is this? You don't know? -This one? No. I don't know.. like, uh, bread with a.. with a.. That's meat? -Yes, kind of meat. Kind of meat? It's kind of meat. -Sorta like kinda I'm sorry that's not.. I'm gonna have to skip on that one. How many steps did it take to get up here. -Um, we have two ways, one way that we just did it is 420 steps. The other way is like 318 steps, around that. Why'd we go the long way? -Because we want to show that we the man I keep thinking I'm the oldest person in Cambodia. I'm probably not. I met a 92 year old man today. -Ok so I'm not. He probably looked better, though. That's all I'm gonna say. He probably looked a heck of a lot better. But that's ok. And a one and a two and hit it. You guys figure out which picture you want to be in. They're all over you. It's the cutest thing, Gus. This is so awesome. We love you kids. I know you don't understand our language but we love you so much. You kids are awesome.