Day One - The Lord's Gym

My first day back to The Lord's Gym was everything I could hope for. I stood in the door way and Sum Kan, the head coach, said, "Clay, I missed you!" He was not expecting me. A firm embrace later, and I picked up where I left off a year and a half ago.

The Lord's Gym (owned by Agape International Missions) is a Muy Thai kickboxing gym, free to anyone who wants to train there, and is located in the epicenter of child sex trafficking, just outside Phnom Penh. Young tough men and boys who are looking for purpose in their lives and honor come to train here. These are the same out of work young men who are enticed into becoming traffickers.

The coaches, Sum Kan and Sopaek, are Christian men who love and mentor their fighters. The fighters find a special community within this gym. Recently, one of their fights received a vicious knee blow to the head and needed emergency medical treatment. I was told that most gyms would have nothing else to do with such a fighter. Not The Lord's Gym. The gym paid all his medical bills and someone was with him at the hospital 24/7 until he was released. He is still a part of the gym. He was there today watching and helping the very young fighters.

I lead the morning strength and conditioning workout, 9 to 11 am. On my first day I had eight fighters, ranging from 12 to 20 years-old. We did three circuits of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). They loved it.








The afternoon workout session is the most well attended session. We had about 20 fighters packed into the gym that becomes a kinetic frenzy of legs and fists. Muy Thai kickboxing is a brutal sport where the combatant uses his feet, hands, elbows and knees to beat his opponent. The only protection the boys in this gym have are their gloves. No head gear, mouthpiece, or other pads of any kind.

Finally, when the session is over, we sit in a circle on the ground and I lead them in a short devotional. Today I spoke about the parable about the man who sold everything to purchase a field that had a great treasure in it - Matthew 13:44. We had a great discussion about it.

Changing the culture of human trafficking is about making relationships and changing hearts.

- Clay Cranford

The Brick Factories

Monday, February 29, 2016

The Brick Factories

On Monday, our team went to the first of four brick factories that we will visit throughout the week. We handed out 25 pounds of rice to each family, a supply that should last them about a week. We also performed a short skit presenting the Gospel. We followed the skit with a dramatic reading of John 3:16 (Thanks Linda Treydte!)

I have never seen such extreme poverty. The laborers and their families work and live at the brick factories. They earn meager wages, barely enough to survive. In effect, these workers are indentured servants. One AIM staffer told me that the owners of brick factories treat their workers and families like cattle. Given the living quarters I saw today, I believe it. In fact, most horse stalls in the US would make more suitable living quarters than the “homes” at the brick factory. I was told that we visited one of the nicer places. The owner of this factory is willing to allow AIM and Rahab’s House to visit and deliver rice. He has allowed them to install a well so that they have clean water. (Prior to the well, the people just made use of water in ditches, etc.) The church hopes that they can soon install latrines at the brick factory. Without latrines, you can imagine what it is like during the rainy season, when it floods.

The brick factory outreaches factor prominently into AIM’s strategy, as I see it. The children of these families are extremely vulnerable to exploitation because of their family’s desperate economic situation. By alleviating some of the economic distress, the hope is that they can prevent brick factory children from being sold by their families.

Each day, the Disciples at Rahab’s House travel to brick factories and bring the children to the church for Kid’s Club. They receive a snack and take part in a VBS-like experience. This creates a safe place for this children to go and allows AIM to have relationships with these families. If a child suddenly disappears, AIM will learn about it and can take appropriate action.

Some of the children from the brick factory even attend school at Rahab’s House.

The most effective way to combat child sex trafficking is not by rescuing girls once sold, but by preventing them from ever being sold into sex trafficking in the first place. And the brick factory outreaches are one important way to accomplish this goal.

I must say, I am so impressed with this strategy. I can easily envision how it is possible to end the horrors of child sex trafficking in the community of Svay Pak through the church’s acts of compassion, Kid's Club, educational opportunities, and the spread of the Gospel. It is an honor to be part of the team from NewSong Church that is playing a small, but monumentally significant role in bringing about this transformation.

 

The Killing Fields

Sunday February 28, 2016

We had some free time Sunday afternoon, so we decided to visit the Killing Fields in the outskirts of Phnom Penh.  There is a memorial there to honor the people Pol Pot’s regime exterminated in the late 1970s. It was an extremely difficult experience. The evil and brutality represented by the killing fields are unimaginable. I wouldn’t say that I had a good time, but I’m glad I visited the memorial, because it reminds me why we are in Cambodia. At the risk of oversimplification, I think it is safe to say that the sex trafficking that plagues Cambodia is a by-product of the devastation left by the Khmer Rouge.

My visit to the Killing Fields reminds me of several things:

First, ideas have consequences and bad idea have bad consequences. Evil happens when bad ideas take root in a society and no one is willing or able to resist or counter those ideas.

Second, we can stand up against injustices, but at the end of the day, the most effective way to overcome injustice is to supplant the worldview that tolerates evil with one that promotes justice for all people. Good Vs. evil is ultimately a battle of ideas and worldviews.

How do these points relate to the purpose of our trip? All the good work people do to end sex trafficking will ultimately come to naught, if it is done independent of the Christian worldview and apart from the Gospel. A worldview that regards human life as illusory and the platform where karmic debt is paid leads to a society in which people are complacent about human suffering. A person’s lot in life is deserved, dictated by the sins of a past life. Combine that with a culture that can have a low regard for women and throw in a little corruption for good measure and there you have it. Victims can be rescued, but systemic sex trafficking will persist as long as the worldview of the culture remains intact. On the other hand, the Christian worldview regards human beings as made in God’s image, possessing inherent worth and dignity and immeasurable value. When the Christian worldview takes hold and its full implications are realized, human abuses become unthinkable. And the only way to establish the Christian worldview is through the spread of the Gospel. The Gospel not only transforms lives, it can transform a culture.

This is why I am so excited by AIM’s approach. The center piece of their strategy is the Gospel. It motivates their actions. It gives hope to the victims of sex trafficking. But more importantly, it becomes the means of replacing a toxic worldview with one that provides the framework for true justice.

The work we have ahead of this week is focused on the spread of the Gospel in Svay Pak. We will spend time investing in the lives of the Disciples—young men and women who live and train at Rahab’s House to become future leaders in the church in Cambodia. The impact that they will have on the next generation is exciting to ponder. We will pass out rice and share the Gospel with families living at four brick factories. The hope is that the children in these communities who are the most vulnerable to the threat of sex slavery because of desperate economic circumstances won’t become victimized. We will invest in the lives of young men at the Lord’s Gym. Apart from the Gospel—and without the opportunities created by the Lord’s Gym—many of these young men would most likely become traffickers. Finally, we will teach children from the brick factories and the surrounding community about the Christian faith in the safe setting of Kid’s Club. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in Cambodia.

As Paul wrote to the church at Rome (Romans 1:16), “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”

The Gospel also has the power to transform Cambodia.

Sunday Worship Service in Svay Pak

Our first Sunday in Cambodia started beautifully at Rahab's House Church in Svay Pak, Cambodia. The head pastor, Chan Tha, gave a powerful sermon on what is the mission of every Christian.

At the end of the sermon, he invited us up onto the stage and had us introduce ourselves. Fuz Rana talked briefly on why members of NewSong church came to Cambodia, and talked briefly about the image of Jesus in all of us.

See part of the video here: http://youtu.be/lwrvGc2eQVQ

- Clay Cranford

Rahab’s House

Sunday February 28, 2016

As Suzie mentioned, we got up early this morning to head out to church in Svay Pak at Rahab’s House. It was a beautiful service. The highlights for me were 1) taking communion in Khmer—it reminds me that the Gospel is for everyone, every tongue, tribe, and nation; and 2) singing the Doxology in Khmer.

When I attend church in other countries with people from a different culture, who speak in a different language, I am never more convinced of the truth of Christianity. Language and cultural barriers do not hinder the love and respect brothers and sisters in Christ share. They do not hinder a real sense of community that we share with other believers. Nor do they mask the shared experience of Christ’s grace and mercy we all need and receive through the Gospel.

Today’s church experience reminds me of a very interesting argument for God’s existence (popularized most recently by philosopher Richard Swinburne) called the Argument from Religious Experience. (George, this is for you.)

The argument goes like this:

·      A substantial number of ordinary Christians report common spiritual experiences throughout the last two thousand years, regardless of their culture.

·      These spiritual experiences have a profound effect on people’s lives. They generally become better people, more loving and sacrificial.

·      These experiences seem very real to the people involved.

·      There are no good reasons to think that all or most of these experiences are delusional.

·      It is rational to believe that some people really have experienced God.

I experienced God in Svay Pak today.