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 PrintableVersion Killing fields, living fieldsAn unfinished portrait of the Cambodian churchCambodia updatesKILLING FIELDS, LIVING FIELDS Don Cormack has been involved with the Cambodian church over several decades and this new edition of his book brings the unfolding story of God’s work in Cambodia right up to date. He tells the history of the evangelical church in Cambodia from the time missionaries first took the gospel there in the 1920s, through the country’s subsequent wars and regime changes, culminating in the notorious Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. They slaughtered and starved two million of their fellow Cambodians, including most of the fledgling church. The country which emerges from the killing fields is traumatised and morally spent, but the gospel miraculously survives. The first Christians are poor rice farmers and Cormack brings them and their country alive with real warmth. He describes the spread of the gospel through their lives of crop and gospel-sowing, patient waiting, reaping and failure. He shows the church flourishing — just as the Khmer Rouge killing begins — and he shows weakness too, as many fall away under immense suffering and persecution. This is a first-century church in our own time and, along the way, we meet many wonderful brothers and sisters whose faith is a challenge and encouragement to our own. Yet, as their lights go out and all seems lost, we see more: their and our God’s extraordinary hand at work, in hidden and unexpected ways. In the squalor of refugee camps on the Thai border, several thousand Cambodians become Christians as the faithful remnant bears witness. In the present, the church is growing and one of the Khmer Rouge leaders, Comrade Duch, is on trial for his war crimes — but as a man who has apparently found his Saviour’s forgiveness. This book is a tremendously worthwhile voyage of discovery. It is emotional, even traumatic, yet inspiring and surprising, as one sees both human suffering and capacity for evil alongside tremendous courage, faithfulness and hope. It will make you think. And it is a timely reminder that the version of world events we first hear — the one reported in the media — is often not the full story. What God is doing, in growing his kingdom, is much more hidden and yet all the more glorious. Leonie Mason, © Evangelicals Now - May 2010 |
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