Trip to Cambodia

[22]

Hi y’all! I made this thread because some people on LG were asking me about my recent trip to Cambodia, and I figured why not make a thread in case more people would like to know

I went with a team from my local church. Our church sends people all over the globe every year, mostly during the summer. We have relationships in Cambodia, Thailand, Nigeria, Kenya, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Middle East. I’ve been blessed enough to go to Kenya twice and Mexico 8 or 9 times, however Cambodia was so different for me, it was a totally new experience!

Whenever we go anywhere our primary goal is to serve the communities we are visiting. We want to help them in pretty much whichever way they need help. In Cambodia we do a lot of English teaching classes. This is because if people know English there, they have much better job opportunities available to them. Cambodia is making strides as nation to improve their socioeconomic status, but the country is still recovering from the genocide that took place there in the late 1970s. Nearly 2 million people were killed. All lawyers, teachers, doctors, engineers and anyone educated were the primary targets. For more information on this tragedy read here: http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/history/cambodian-history/khmer-rouge-history/

Because of that horrible event there are lots of areas where the country needs help.

Our team (10 people) partnered with a local church there called New Life Fellowship. I believe they’ve been around in Cambodia for about 25 years. They have churches throughout the country and offer free English classes, school scholarships, help children at risk for human trafficking, medical services, leadership training, job skills, etc. You name a way to serve the community and they do it lol. It was really awesome to see people with such a heart to want to help one another no matter the sacrifice. There were Americans, Cambodians, Australians, and Canadians all working together.

We spent our first week in Phnom Penh doing English classes at the church, visiting the school (K-11, they’re working on getting a 12th grade) they run, and visiting Kandal Province to do children’s ministry, which is about an hour’s drive away from the city. All of the people we met were extremely nice and welcoming! I felt like I knew them even though I don’t speak the language. People greet you with the biggest smiles and Cambodian culture is big on being humble and honoring, so pretty much everyone has a good attitude. The food was really good if you like Asian food (obviously lol). I enjoy it so I didn’t have a problem. Cambodia is right between Thailand and Vietnam so they have great food from there too. I didn’t eat anything too strange, but I did try fried crickets. They tasted like French fries but it still creeped me out that there were insect legs in my mouth lol. Also, I may or may not have accidentally eaten dog I’m not 100% sure, but I was eating pad thai and I ate a piece of meat that didn’t taste like anything I’ve had before. VERY musty haha. I didn’t want to spit it out and be rude, so I chewed and swallowed. I washed it down with some spicy curry to mask the flavor lol.

After we left Phnom Penh we went to Khrang Tnong for a few days. We stayed at a church out there since it is pretty far from the city. Cambodia is usually very hot and humid, but when we went it was the rainy season (late June). It was mostly in the high 70s and low 80s with high humidity. It was definitely different than Cali, but not unbearable. In Khrang Thnong we did a youth night for teens and young adults where we played games, danced, and had a Bible teaching. It was a ton of fun! These people dance like no other! I was sweating so much lol. We taught them the cha cha slide, and they taught us one of there popular dances. I forget the name of it though. It was pretty simple. I was glad for that because I was born with 2 left feet. We also did some house visits in the village. Basically we went to people’s homes who wanted us to stop by, and we’d ask them if they needed prayer for anything. It was heart breaking to hear some of their issues. One grandmother had two daughters who both had young children. Both of her daughter’s husbands abandoned them and so she helps raise the kids while he daughters work in the factories. Lots of people had health problems too. It was fun praying with them and everyone was really grateful

Then we went to Kampong Cham to do a youth camp. With the money we raised for the trip we were able to pay for three churches to send kids the camp! Kids came from Poipet (about 6 hours away), Srey Snom, and Kampong Cham. We played games with them, taught Bible lessons, did skits, and sang worship songs. We even got to take them a big pool and go swimming and walk around the shopping area in the town. It was a lot of fun getting to know them and hearing their life stories.

On the second night of this camp is when something happened that I’ll never forget and what makes this trip very special to me. I’ve been a Christian my whole life so I’ve seen a lot of things. I’m talking about spiritual things: people getting healed miraculously, people being oppressed by demonic spirits, people being extremely happy about being touched by God, etc. But nothing on this scale before. Now I know on LG that not everyone is a Christian, and believe me I’m not really trying to evangelize anyone here either. I know some may take what I am about to type with a huge grain of salt or discount it completely, and that’s fine. Everyone is an adult and can make decisions for themselves. But for those who have experienced what I’m about to share or can relate, I would feel really bad if I left it out because this is a really important part of the journey for me.

It was about 7:30pm and we all were dead tired from a full day of ministry. The pastor’s wife approached our team and asked us if the pastor had spoken with us. We said that he hadn’t and she explained that we were about to have some time for deep prayer and asking the Holy Spirit to come and minister to people. She warned us that things can get pretty crazy and she didn’t want us to be unprepared. So I grabbed the team and we prayed before it began. We sang a few worship songs and the pastor started giving a message in Khmer. No one was translating so I didn’t know what he was saying. People on my team were going around and praying people as this was going on. I figured, whoops, let me do the same thing! Lol. So I prayed for a few people and then went to the back of the room. I could feel in my spirit that God wanted me to pray for Him to send more of His Spirit down. I felt like people were hungry spiritually and wanted to be fed. He gave me the example of Jesus multiplying the 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish to feed the five thousand. So I stretched out my hands and started praying. The pastor’s son, who is about 6 years old, and I had bonded and he saw me doing this and came over and did the same thing I was doing. I’m a grown man, but that was one of the cutest things ever. I opened my eyes and I could see lots of people laying down on the ground slain in the Spirit. That was cool to see but I had seen that before. So I decided I was going to check on of the guys on our team to see if he was freaking out or not since it was his first trip and he’s a pretty new Christian. As I’m walking over to check on him I hear this teenage boy screaming! I turn around and 4 people are carrying him to the back of the room and lay him down on the ground. They are trying to hold on to him to stop his arms and legs from flailing. Then it clicked in my head, “Here we go. This kid has a demonic presence that is manifesting right now.”

Oddly enough I wasn’t afraid. I knew that God was with me and I wasn’t praying for him under my own authority. He was yelling and swinging around violently. I grabbed his hand and I thought my reaction would be to try to hold him down and command the demonic spirit to come out. But instead I felt God saying just pray for peace for him. So I did. I held his hand gently and kind of stroked it as I prayed for him to have peace. There were about 4 others helping to hold him and pray. He calmed down after about 5 minutes. In the mean time a few more people started manifesting, and this kid calmed down another kid was going nuts a few feet away! He couldn’t have been more than about 12 and only weighed about 70 lbs, but he was a HANDFUL to keep down. We were all praying for him too. I was probably praying with him for about 10 minutes before there was a teenage girl who was wilder than all the boys started to lose it. I could see she was a struggle to keep down and there were only 4 people with her so I went over to her to help pray.

This girl was probably like 17 or so, and I am about 6 feet 210lbs and a pretty built guy. It took all of my strength to help hold her feet down. Especially because the last thing we wanted to do was physically hurt any of the people who were manifesting. This girl was trying to bite people, slap them, punch, kick, scratch, you name it. I was thinking to myself, man some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes would really come in handy right about now lol. I also remember thinking to myself this girl is gonna be trouble when I saw her earlier in the day. Why? Because she was wearing a CLIPPERS sweatshirt! That’s always a bad sign fellas lol. We prayed and prayed for her so long and we couldn’t get the demonic spirit out. They tried to get her to call on Jesus’ name and she couldn’t. Finally after 3 hours of prayer and her struggling trying to bite and hit people, she screamed out his name! She just needed to let go of the demonic spirit herself. I was so happy and relieved for her. And I was dead tired lol. I remember crying tears of joy because of the freedom so many people now had!! It was an awesome thing to witness!

The next morning lots of the kids stood up and told their testimonies of what they liked most from the camp. One of my teammates was asking me if the kids who were manifesting remembered anything from what happened. I told her I didn’t know. And then the girl who took 3 hours of prayer got up to share. She apologized to everyone she had hit and tried to hurt. She said that she knew what was going on but was helpless to stop it. She said she was trying to say the name of Jesus but it felt like the spirit was lodged in her throat and she couldn’t get it out until she finally did. She also said that she knew people that she hurt were probably in pain, but that she feels worse because she was really sore. It was really funny and everyone laughed. I thought to myself that’s true because she basically fought for her life for 3 hours straight lol. I was so happy for her and glad to see her and the others back in their right minds acting normal again. And a great thing is, after she got healed she was now WEARING LAKER PURPLE BABY! I did not miss that detail

After that day we had two days of touristy stuff in Siem Reap. We went shopping, got fish massages, visited Angkor Wat and the floating village, fed some crocodiles, and almost got attacked by monkeys lol. We also had a 17 hour layover in Shanghai on the return flight so we did a city tour there. Man that sucker is big!

All in all it was a really fun trip, and it was really awesome to see God move in a way I had never seen before. I was extremely tired when I got home, and I’ve been on a crazy 12 hour shift on call schedule at work these past 2 weeks. That’s why I haven’t been on LG as much. But things are calming down and so I should resume my regular activity here by next weeks. If you’ve gotten this far into this thread I hope you’ve enjoyed it I’d love to answer any questions you might have or I’d love to read if you’ve had similar experiences before. Have a good one y’all!

I can’t wait for the next trip!

[jonnybravo]

Good man 22!

[22]

Thanks JB! You already know you're one of my favorite posters my man

[999]

good stuff 22

i always wanted to go to SE asia

[MojoRisin]

good read dude.

I am glad you had a memorable experience in your travels.
_________________
LA Sports Fans Forum

[22]

thanks fellas!

999 which country over there would you like to visit the most?

[dvdrdiscs]

22,

What was your opinion of PP? I went there a few years ago and thought it was really dirty, even by SE Asia standards. I loved Siem Reap though and would entertain the thought of going to SR again one day, but never PP.



For anyone planning on going to Siem Reap, I greatly encourage you to do the ATV tour at sunset. Riding the rice fields on an ATV with the sun setting in the distance is amazing. Definitely an experience that will be hard to duplicate and top in one's lifetime.

[22]

[999]

[Vancouver Fan]

[22]