It begins with a girl: Day 2

Fruits in reds and pinks and greens are piled high in baskets in the roadside stands.
“That crosswalk looked like a game of blogger.” Laughter filled the van at the comment,but we could expect nothing less from Brandon Simonds, a video game developer.

James and Athena Pond met our team at the Phnom Penh airport and got us settled in at the hotel. Lunch in an aircon room at a nearby restaurant gave us a chance to refresh and hear the Ponds story one more time.

What inspires a couple who helps at-risk teens in the States to pick up and move their family across the world to work on restoring the lives of young survivors of human trafficking? And how does one go about bringing hope to girls whose lives are shattered? Especially in a country whose memorable history is fraught with brokeness?

Today we toured the Killing Fields and the S-21 prison. The genocide of millions of Cambodians in a three year time span has resulted in a Post Traumatic Stress society. A nation of distrust. A nation of traumatized survivors raising the next generation.

But that is the old Cambodia. The ones who remember the Khmer Rouge.

There is also a new Cambodia. The ones born after 1980. The young people are the bright spot in the troubled history of this country. They believe there is hope for their country, and they want to do the work to make it a better place.

Ezekiel 37:

The Valley of the Bones
¹ The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. ³ He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”

⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath^[a]enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”

What about your own life? How has God restored life to you in fearful times?