BY BETTINA KRAUSE

AMBODIA'S RECENT history reads like a litany of the twentieth century's worst horrors: genocide, war, famine, poverty. For many people the name "Cambodia" is inevitably linked with the brutal four-year regime of Communist dictator Pol Pot. Starting 1975, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge army murdered almost one third of Cambodia's population: men, women, and children. Many were executed for trifling "crimes against the state," such as owning a pair of reading glasses or speaking French. Others died in Pol Pot's "agrarian revolution"-a program that forced millions out of the cities to provide slave labor in the country's rice fields.

The handful of Adventist believers in Cambodia scattered during those years of terror and the subsequent famine and political unrest. Pastor Garth Anthony, president of the church's Cambodia Attached District, says that the modern Adventist Church in Cambodia dates only from around 1991. Over the past decade a Global Mission initiative has seen a community of just over 3,000 church members established in congregations around the country.

Since resuming operations in Cambodia, the Adventist Church has struggled to make an impact-especially in large urban areas such as the capital, Phnom Penh. In this city of more than 2 million people, just 200 believers have been meeting each Sabbath, mostly in small home groups led by Global Mission pioneers and other lay Bible workers.

Evangelism Breakthrough
Adventist outreach in Cambodia is not easy. In recent memory there hadn't been a public evangelistic series held in the country, and there were many reasons such an effort shouldn't be successful. In this predominantly Buddhist country interest in Christianity is not high at the best of times, and attracting and keeping an audience is difficult. And even if drawing a crowd is successful, the lack of a shared Judeo-Christian heritage can make explaining the gospel as difficult as trying to teach a foreign language.

But for 11 days this past January between 1,700 and 2,000 people attended each evening of the first major Adventist public evangelistic program held in Cambodia-an event that could prove to be a turning point for the church in this country.

Pastors Jan Paulsen, president of the world church, and Michael Ryan, director of Global Mission, were the main speakers for the meetings. Over the two Sabbaths of the series more than 800 people were baptized, increasing the size of the church in Cambodia by one third. By the final weekend, an additional 250 people said they wanted to prepare for baptism.

Among the hundreds of new believers is Kharm Learn, the first member of Cambodia's Krung hill tribe to join the Adventist Church. The hill tribes, who make up an ethnic minority found mainly in Cambodia's northern provinces, practice animism (spirit worship). When asked why he decided to be baptized, Learn smiles broadly. "When I started to believe in Jesus I started to have a feeling of joy inside me," he says through a translator. "I didn't have that joy before, but Jesus changed my heart." Learn says he now plans to go back to his family and friends to share his faith.

Twenty-one-year-old Meas Marady says she will never forget her baptismal day: "I am so happy to be baptized and to accept Jesus as my Savior and Redeemer." Abandoned by her parents as a small child and raised by her staunchly Buddhist grandmother, Marady now works as a youth volunteer at the Cambodian mission office.

In a country where Christianity is seen as an alien religion, making a decision to be baptized has not been easy for these new believers. "I know the struggles that many of them have gone through," says Anthony. "I know the opposition that some of them have faced." He tells of one young girl whose parents beat her every time she comes to church. "We just don't get this sort of opposition in the West," he says. "Ridicule, perhaps, but not this kind of physical abuse. It's marvelous to see people making a stand for Jesus Christ in spite of this."

Paulsen called the event a "wonderful celebration of faith." "I felt myself uplifted by the enthusiasm, the fire, of those being baptized; their obvious desire to join this family of believers," he says. "I am very, very pleased to have been a part of this."

A Different Approach
Paulsen and Ryan joined a team of local church leaders, lay organizations, and lay volunteers who had worked together closely for months of planning and preparation. Another partner was Adventist-Laymen's Services and Industries, based in the United States, which provided ongoing support for the project.

Ryan was the speaker for the first nine evenings of the series and one of the main organizers of the event. He says a number of factors motivated him to move outside his usual administrative role and become involved in frontline evangelism. "My involvement with evangelism, like any other pastor's, has its foundation in a desire to see Christ's name go all around the world," he says. He was also prompted by a call from the church's Council on Evangelism and Witness for more General Conference employees to run evangelistic series in the lead-up to 2004, which has been named the "Year of World Evangelism."

Ryan chose Cambodia because it is in the heart of the 10/40 window, an imaginary rectangle on the world map taking in much of Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa, where Christians make up just 1 percent of the population. It is in this region, says Ryan, where church growth is slow and where there are still vast unentered areas, that we must catch a "vision for mission."

Both Paulsen and Ryan emphasize, however, that the dramatic church growth seen during the 11-day series was not a result of the event itself, the speakers, or their presentations. The most important work, they say, was done before the chairs were put out and the sound system set up; and it was these months of preparation done primarily by laypeople that made all the difference in Cambodia.

Lay Power
Thirty Adventist pioneers, all Cambodian nationals, worked in Phnom Penh during the six months leading up to January's evangelistic series. Equipped only with bicycles, some Bible lesson studies, and a sense of purpose, these pioneers faced a daunting task. Some went from door to door making contacts; others started English classes; some pioneers called together the children in their neighborhood for after-school activities; still others made contact with old friends and started regular social meetings that developed into worship groups.

Anthony says he is amazed at the number of people these pioneers were able to interest in studying the Bible. Considering the challenges they faced, "I didn't expect them to find so many people," he says. "But once they had been trained and once they got going, they went out with vigor and willingness."

Paulsen calls the work of the lay pioneers "crucial" to the success of the evangelistic meetings. "Having these church planters meet with people in small groups, giving them the attention they need over a sustained period of time-this is how you teach, this is how you train, this is how you help people to understand the Bible, to absorb and digest this new knowledge they are receiving, and to help them build a sustained relationship with Jesus Christ."

These lay workers plan to stay on at least six months more, helping to establish people in their newfound faith, and to provide leadership for the new congregations.

In the weeks before the series started, some 70 extra lay Bible workers traveled to Phnom Penh, many from distant provinces, to help out with the effort. All the volunteers are full-time workers, supported and trained by the church's Office of Global Mission or lay ministries such as Gospel Outreach and SALT (Share a Little Truth). They receive just a small stipend to help support themselves and their families.

Pastor Paulsen spent time with these volunteers on the last Friday of the series. "Amid the indescribable suffering of recent Cambodian history, and current hardships, you stand out as beacons of hope," he told the group of church planters. "You tell of the One who offers the people of this country a future. You have done this faithfully, and I honor you for it."

Beacons of Hope
Hope is a scarce commodity for many Cambodians. Although the country is inching toward political and economic optimism, poverty is still a reality for most people-the average family is lucky to earn about US$250 per year.

But Cambodia's problems run deeper than just material hardship. Youk Chang, curator of Cambodia's genocide memorial project, believes the sense of hopelessness felt by many Cambodians stems from psychological scars from the past. "People don't trust each other, people just live day by day," he said in a recent television interview. "That's the reason why progress of this country is very slow."

There are good reasons for Cambodians to distrust, to abandon hope, and to expect the worst. You cannot move around the modern city of Phnom Penh or talk to its people without coming up against shadows of Pol Pot's regime of terror and its aftermath.

In a city suburb, among apartments and small shops, is Toul Sleng, a high school complex that was converted by the Khmer Rouge into a center for torture and execution. It is now a museum, kept virtually as it was in 1979 when Vietnamese troops entered Phnom Penh. Here classrooms were divided into 2.6' x 6.6' holding cells, or fitted out as torture rooms. Thousands of Cambodians and a handful of foreigners passed through this inner city complex, their deaths documented by the meticulous photographic records kept by their Khmer Rouge guards.

Nine miles of dirt road away from the edge of Phnom Penh is Choeung Ek, just one of the Khmer Rouge's notorious killing fields, where thousands of people were murdered and buried in mass graves. Eight thousand human skulls are on display in a grim memorial tower of glass and stone, blunt reminders of the men, women, and children who died here. When bullets were in short supply, soldiers improvised; one sturdy tree, now signposted for tourists, became a killing post, used for beating babies to death before throwing them into the pits.

The scope of the killing is difficult to absorb. Adventist pastor Lim Pheng says his family was considered "lucky" because out of a family of 12, only three were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Lim was 12 years old in 1975, when the Communists took over, and he and his family were forced into the country to work for the government in the rice fields. He describes the period of Pol Pot's regime as a time of darkness and horror. Lim's father, a Paris-educated intellectual, had originally supported a change of government, writing academic articles in support of a society based on socialist principles of equality. But Lim's father soon fell out with the violent Khmer Rouge leadership, and the family moved to a rural village in the north. Lim believes his family was marked as subversive because his father kept a French dictionary, which the family would read together. Lim's father also owned a chair, which further marked him as different from the rural villagers among whom they lived.

Lim was 14 when his father was killed by the Khmer Rouge. Later his older sister and brother were also executed. During this time Lim was detained overnight by Khmer Rouge soldiers. He recalls a night of horror. Held immobile in foot irons, Lim listened throughout the night to the screams of those being tortured in nearby cells.

When the Vietnamese invaded in 1979, ending Pol Pot's grip on power, it became slightly easier for Cambodians to move around the country. Lim and his remaining family managed to slip across the Thai border to the relative safety of a United Nations refugee camp.

It was in the border camp that Lim first heard about Christianity and began meeting with an Adventist group. Later Lim and his family were among the few who were able to enter the United States as refugees, moving to Takoma Park, Maryland, where Lim attended Columbia Union College. He graduated in 1991 with a theology degree and with a strong desire to go back to Cambodia, despite the hard conditions, and bring news of God's love and forgiveness to his own people. He returned in 1992 as a volunteer and was employed by the General Conference two years later as a full-time church worker.

Christianity and Buddhism
As one of the few national Cambodian pastors, Lim has played a key part in the church's resurgence in Cambodia. He believes one of the biggest challenges Adventists face is simply generating interest in Christianity. While many Cambodians are not devout in their practice of Buddhism, says Lim, most feel that Buddhism is adequate and is simply "a part of being Cambodian."

But a number of Christian themes do resonate. One, according to Lim, is the concept of forgiveness. He explains that the Buddhist worldview is predicated on cause and effect: good acts lead to good results, but bad acts will lead inevitably to bad results. Lim says that the idea of divine forgiveness-a force that breaks through this cycle of karma-can have a profound impact on people who have lived their lives in fear. "It gives a sense of hope that the wrongs we've committed in the past can be wiped clean," he says.

Scott Griswold, director of the Thailand-based Global Mission Buddhist study center, agrees that there are many reasons the Adventist Church is not growing rapidly in the Buddhist countries of Asia: "The real challenge is that [the people] don't have any of the background that's familiar-like a Muslim or Jew." Griswold explains that even something as basic as the idea that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world can be confusing. "The assumption for a Buddhist is that such a horrible death must have been deserved, the result of past sins."

These difficulties make the recent baptisms in Cambodia that much more exciting for those who have seen slow progress in Buddhist countries over the years. Griswold says, "It's thrilling, in a city where we have worked so hard for a long time, with only a little fruit, to see the gospel moving so powerfully, to see it really taking off."

Despite the challenges, leaders are optimistic about the future of the church in Cambodia. The fledgling church operates a school in Phnom Penh with some 270 students that is consistently named among the top three schools in the country. It occupies rented buildings that just aren't large enough, according to principal Sharon Rogers. She often has to turn children away. "It's always painful," she says. "I always ask myself, 'What could this child grow up to be?'"

Each evening the school's 30 boarding students push aside the desks and sleep on classroom floors. A new dormitory is under construction not far from the current rented facilities. The project is funded mainly by donations from Adventist-Laymen's Services and Industries and the Collegedale Adventist Church in Tennessee.

A Growing Family
While in Phnom Penh, Paulsen visited some of the small congregations that have sprung up around the city. He welcomed new church members into the worldwide family of believers, and emphasized that they should never feel alone or abandoned. "To be a Seventh-day Adventist believer means that you are very clear in your own mind who you are: that you belong to the family of God's children, destined for the kingdom," he said.

Paulsen also spent time with Global Mission pioneer Ua Touch, who runs a community center in Phnom Penh. The small complex, open to all local residents, is made up of a worship room, activity rooms, and lodgings for rent. One area houses two sewing machines, which women in the neighborhood can use to bolster their earnings.

As more and more people regularly spend time at the center, Ua Touch has prayed for the means to expand onto nearby land and construct a larger multiuse building. Four American businessmen, in Cambodia to attend the evangelistic series, made a commitment to give $20,000 to this project, a commitment Paulsen said would be matched by the General Conference, giving Ua Touch enough money to move forward.

Looking Ahead
For now, the church in Cambodia is still celebrating the addition of 800 new members and is working to ensure that these newly baptized believers will be nurtured in their faith, have places to meet, and leaders to guide them. It will not be an easy task, says Anthony. "This follow-up is going to take a lot of doing," he says. "It's going to stretch our personnel to the limit; it's going to stretch every resource we have. And not only do we have to train the new members; we have to put them to work in order to keep this forward movement going."

Paulsen also sees lay evangelism-the commitment of every church member to personal outreach-as the way forward in Cambodia. "My hope for this very young church," he said on the final day of the evangelistic series, "is that it will continue with the work that has culminated here over these two weekends. They have seen that it can be done-it's possible-and that the Spirit is with us. I hope that this momentum can sustain itself, and that those who have so recently joined the church will engage themselves, without delay, in mission."

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Bettina Krause is assistant to the General Conference president for global initiatives.