Dirt road on the way to our first clinic

I've been back from Cambodia for about ten days now, and have done a lot of reflecting since then about everything that happened. Now that I'm back, I want to tell you all about what happened there! I hardly know where to begin...

Our team met at the airport in Atlanta on January 23rd for the first time, and we all hit it off right away. Our team had seven members, all Christians- Our leader, Dr. Joy, a family doctor and medical director at Baptist Mid-Missions, an internal medicine physician named Dr. Chad (who was my roommate the whole trip), a third year internal medicine resident physician named Dr. Phuong, an emergency room nurse practitioner named Sarah, a nurse named Sue (who was also the sister of the missionary doctor in Cambodia we worked with), a Canadian nurse named Cheryl, and myself. It was so neat to see our group of people from different locations and walks of life to all work together and develop friendships. All of the doctors wanted to be called just by their first name, so while I have a great deal of respect for their education and knowledge, I will from here on out drop the title "Dr." and simply refer to my teammates in the same way I did while there.

The team (back to front, left to right): Myself, Chad, Sarah, Mary, Phuong, Joy, Cheryl, and Sue

We flew for about twenty one hours between two different flights, and the next day landed in Phnom Penh. At the airport, we met up with Dr. Mary Broeckert, a missionary medical doctor living in Cambodia with her husband Hubert, who pastors a church in Koh Kong and teaches English as outreach. I will write more about them later. Cambodia is thirteen hours ahead of the U.S central time zone where I live, and it is summer there currently. Getting on a plane when it's winter and 20 degrees Fahrenheit and getting off a plane when it's summer and 90 degrees Fahrenheit was quite the experience, to say the least, and this warm-blooded Minnesotan's sweat glands immediately kicked into overdrive.

Phnom Penh is Cambodia's capital with a population of about two million. As we drove around, I was amazed at what I saw. The contrast between the wealthy and  everyone else was unlike anything I've seen in the U.S. You might drive past a Porsche dealership, and on the same street would be someone selling whole chickens out of their home. Someone might be driving an old motorcycle right next to someone driving a brand new Lexus, complete with "Lexus" written on the side in gold chrome (Hubert informed us that Lexus is a status symbol there, and the wealthy might pay three times the amount they cost here in the U.S. to get one imported). 

People were everywhere, and traffic was insane. Traffic rules were either very loosely followed or nonexistent. You don't necessarily stop at a stop sign. If you want to change lanes, you just honk and do it. If traffic ahead was stopped, you might try wedging yourself in between vehicles in order to pass, or just pass on the sidewalk. When approaching an intersection, you just honk and wedge your way to wherever you wanted to go; if this was on the other side of the road, you might just cut across traffic. You don't honk when you're warning someone about a potential accident or when you're angry like people do here in the U.S., you honk when you're passing someone, pulling out into an intersection, you honk when... ok, you can honk whenever you do anything. Ok- not really, but you honk whenever you want to let others know that you're there and are about to do something.

Vehicles of every type crammed onto the road. Motorcycles were everywhere, and it wasn't uncommon to not only see maybe a twelve year old kid driving one, but also for his three younger siblings to be riding behind him. It was insane, and I loved every minute of it.   

We spent the night in a cozy hotel there, and the next morning attended a church, lead by an American couple living there.  

The view from our hotel

The church in Phnom Penh inside the missionary's home

The church service was all in Khmer (pronounced "Khmai"), the language there. Most of the Khmer I met (Khmer is also the term to describe a Cambodian, or something Cambodian) didn't know English, but some of the young adults I met did know some. The pastor preached in Khmer, and at the end briefly told us in English what he spoke on. The pastor said usually they have about ten people attend. After the service, I met several young believers who were living in Phnom Penh studying in college. I heard their testimonies about coming to Christ, and I asked them if they had any family who were believers in Christ, to which they replied that they did not. 

Cambodia is similar to many other places in the world in that it is collectivistic, meaning great emphasis is placed on group cohesion, honoring one's family, and respecting tradition. This is contrasted with the American culture, which is individualistic and places great emphasis on the individual (the "my rights," "have it your way" mentality). This combined with the fact that Cambodia is overwhelmingly Buddhist makes it difficult for someone to come to Christ, because  they have to decide they're going to follow Christ no matter how this impacts their relationship with their family. I got the impression while there that it can take quite a while for a Khmer to accept Christ, especially considering many have never heard of Jesus before or what He did for them. 

The next day we left Phnom Penh for Koh Kong, a city of about 20,000 people near the Southwestern Cambodian border where the Broeckerts live and minister. We traveled by bus, and when we were about four hours in and two hours away from our destination, our bus broke down.

We all got off, sat in the ditch in the shade, and hung out. I wanted to go explore, but I was told not to, as allegedly Cambodia has one of the largest number of landmines buried, second only to Afghanistan, I believe. These mines today are a residual testament to Cambodia's grim past, which I will elaborate on later. In time many mines have been detonated by animals and by humans, both intentionally and unintentionally. In spite of this, however, a shocking number remain, still awaiting an unsuspecting visitor after all these years. I like my lower extremities the way they are, so an entire book and a few hours of waiting later, we were again on the way to our destination, riding a bus which picked us up. There was a TV on the bus, and needless to say, I have my Cambodian music video fix for a while...

We spent that night in a nice hotel in Koh Kong right across from the Broeckert's house. The next day, we would begin preparing for our clinics, which I will write about in my next blog. 

The view from our hotel

As I laid down that night, little did I realize I had just begun a journey which would be one of the most impacting things I've experienced in my life.