Our Adventures team stands on the rooftop balcony of Agape International overlooking the town of Svay Pak. As I look to my right, I experience a poignant vision of a tower where only a few short years ago, hundreds of women would have been swarming in helpless desperation and forced to surrender themselves to support their families. On average this brothel housed more than 300 women on any given night making it the largest in Svay Pak— a town known for having the highest concentration of sex trafficking in Cambodia prior to Agape international helping stabilize the region.
While we still see the pain and suffering in the eyes of many young children and abused women as we walk around the river fronts and heavy trafficking areas of Phnom Penh, today things are different in Svay Pak… we see:
- construction workers hard at work building a Christian school which will house 1300 students
- bright eyed children filled w/ love who are eager to play and connect w/ us
- young leaders with the skillsets and passion to help the next generation thrive
- stable communities, churches and families living in the presence of the lord, with purpose and excitement for their future
As a westerner living in a comfortable, self-absorbed society, it can be easy to detach from our dependence on God, from what He is capable of accomplishing through us, and why he put us on this earth. Let this remind us not to limit the power of God, to remember the great light that He can bring into the darkest of places, and to seek opportunities to serve those who are most in need.
As we visit and work with NGOs and partner organizations throughout Cambodia, I am continually struck by the realization that this can only be possible through Christ. Let us never forget that.
