Russian Market (Phsar Toul Tom Poung) - go shopping in Phnom Penh - Trav...

"It's a Death Garden, Grandma!"

"Look, Grandma, it's a death garden!" Grandson Gabe beamed and pressed his face to the car window as we passed the cemetery.

I couldn't help but chuckle. Where did he come up with these things?

On further thought, it occurred to me that it made perfect sense to call the flower-strewn cemetery a death garden. After all, it housed dead bodies and lots of flowers!

Gabe's name for the cemetery popped in my mind the other day while taking my quiet time walk. At the opening of the field, I typically pass a giant tree trunk with branches yawning to the ground. I've never noticed what type of tree it is. I'm too busy thinking about how it reminds me of storybook pictures I've seen of Gethsemane (Luke 22:39f)). I can almost visualize Jesus kneeling by the tree as its leaves arch over him. It dawned on me that Gethsemane was Jesus' death garden.

During that prayer time as He fell on His face and agonized before the Father, sweat becoming like drops of blood, knowing what sacrifice was to come, He said, "Not my will, but Thine be done." He died to His will to accomplish the Father's will.

And when He did, out of death, came life. The sweet aroma of redemption for all who would believe and receive what He accomplished through His literal death, burial, and resurrection.

Forgiveness of sin. A relationship with the Father. Eternal life!

Sweet. Fragrant. Colorful. Alive!

But the death comes daily. I must take up my cross and follow Jesus each new day. In the words of the late Billy Graham, "I put to death my own plans and desires, and then turn my life over to Him and do His will every day" (billygraham.org).

In doing so, I bring glory to God and experience His profound peace and joy.

In the midst of death springs life!

Reflections from Cambodia: Spirit House

I peer out my bedroom window at the neighborhood. A golden spirit house sits in front of a cement wall. At breakfast I ask my missionary kids what these structures are all about.

Apparently, a Buddhist places this small house outside where a deceased male ancestor can reside. The family leaves the ancestor food and drink so that the spirit of the ancestor will not harm them and will watch over the house.

Between bites of breakfast, I wonder out loud: "Well, don't they see that the food has not been eaten?"

"Yes," my kids reply, "but the Buddhist claims the dead ancestor has eaten the 'spirit' of the food, extracting all flavor. So who would want to eat it?"

Onthe inside of a typical Cambodian home, another spirit house, this time wooden, is built into a wall bookcase. According to Buddhism, this tiny structure houses the spirit of the dead female ancestor who protects the occupants while inside their home. The family gives her food, too, so that no jealousy or anger crops up between the deceased male and female ancestors.

My daughter uses the space to store kids' books, and during Christmas, the manger scene, as you can see in this picture. I have to smile. What more fitting and striking contrast to Buddhist belief and superstition! Only the power of Jesus expressed through the Holy Spirit living within a believer can dispel fear and provide peace and protection (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

The Cambodians employ one other spirit house, this one for a deceased child, five years old and under. The "house" is actually a small fruit-filled basket sometimes tied to a tree or post. The spirit of the deceased child watches over the living children of the home and plays with them.

Business owners also place spirit houses in their establishments. Later that day, we walk into a guesthouse lobby where we stay while touring the coastal town of Kampot. And sure enough, a spirit house rests against the stair railing.

In addition to spirit houses, Cambodians wear spirit strings for added protection. From birth, kids wear white strings on their wrists. If a child falls down, his mother will cry out to the spirit not to abandon her child, then she will retie the string so that the spirit will stay.

Adults wear red spirit strings. Police officers and soldiers wear strings around their bodies to ward off danger.

My heart is moved as I consider how deeply entrenched the Cambodians are in fear and superstition. How I pray they will see Jesus, believe in His death, burial, and resurrection on their behalf, and receive Him as Savior and Lord. Then they will become temples of the Holy Spirit. He will live inside of them! No longer will they be caught up in satan's deception and need to rely on the false protection of man-made spirit houses.

It All Started with a Sneeze!

It all started with a sneeze. A young woman sat across from me in the optometrist office sneezing the cutest sneeze I'd ever heard in my 62 years of life. And I told her so.

She laughed, so I sensed an openness from her to converse on. I shared about the multitude of sneezes that took place on the planes getting in and out of Cambodia.

Turned out she hailed from Laos. When she was six years old, someone sponsored her family to relocate to the US where her Buddhist mother placed her and her brother in a Christian school. From there, she and her sibling attended a church where she learned about and accepted Jesus as her Savior. To date, her mom is still Buddhist.

Nah (the young woman's name) is raising her six-year-old son to follow Jesus.

What a God-touch on a chilly Saturday morning, a bump up against heaven. Camaraderie with a fellow believer and a huge encouragement that God can pluck anyone, anywhere and bring them to Himself.

Even if He has to take them all the way across the ocean to America. Even if He has to use a Buddhist mom who simply wants a quality education for her children.

I often think of our kids who've left America to serve the Lord around the world, but sometimes God brings the world to our doorstep.

A recent article I read indicated that God may do this because America is still the best place in the world to hear the gospel.

May we Americans who claim the name of Christ be faithful to share Him with those He brings our way! Even if the conversation begins with something as simple as a sneeze!

Reflections from Cambodia: A Grandchild's Gift

Cambodia holds many treasures but none more endearing than a grandchild's gift.

Family gathered in the living room on Christmas Eve, the youngest of my Cambodian treasures hands me a simple white sheet of paper folded in half--her Christmas gift to me. Beaming, she says, "Open it, Grandma!"

When I do, my eyes fill with tears as I read her carefully penciled words:

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame, and I love that old cross, where the dearest and best, for a world of lost sinners was slain, so I'll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it some day for a crown. I love you, Grandma Eileen!  Hannah  

I look up into her eager face, her little body pressed to my side. "You remembered," I say, choking back more tears, giving her a hug. Separated from me for a year and a half, yet she still remembers me teaching her that old hymn. My favorite ever since childhood.

For a time, only Hannah and I exist in this room with tile floors and walls, fan whirring in the background. In the midst of adventure in a foreign land, my granddaughter peels away all the sights, sounds, and smells and reminds me of what my heart treasures most: The old rugged cross.

I hug her again and thank her for giving me the best gift her heart could think of. I'd gifted the song to Hannah a few years earlier, and now she gifts it back to me. A mutual love and connection to the old rugged cross that extends beyond mere family ties.

Sometimes It's Just a Christmas Sign

Sometimes it's just a Christmas sign on a winter Monday morn that launches an avalanche of tears. On the way to the washer, I passed the red sign poking out of a random bag nestled among the everyday household clutter in the utility room. My daughter passed along the decoration, one that annually graced her fireplace mantel but would no longer be needed. She was in transition to the mission field along with her family.

Later that morning, my grief nudged me to her empty house. As I pulled up, the rich male voices on my car CD player sang out "Amazing Grace," a family favorite. How often my young grandson had suggested we sing that old hymn during our music times together.

I wept and prayed for my daughter and family engaged in intensive language study. Our time apart had been the longest in close to 12 years.

And it hurt.

Deeply.

Yet, it occurred to me that in every pain is a touch of heaven calling me Home.

Grief compels me to focus on my real Home and the reason I'm not there yet.

I have a story to tell. And so does my family.

A story of Jesus' love and forgiveness.
A story of reconciliation with the Father.

" . . . that we may know Thee, the one true God," Jesus says in John 17:3.

This is eternal life.

For this reason I sacrifice physical closeness with my children/grandchildren so that they can let the nations know . . .

John 17:3: "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (NASB).

For this I live, and sometimes it takes a Christmas sign poking out of a box to remind me of my God-given purpose on a winter day.

Reflections from Cambodia: Wings of the Dawn

James Lin, Free Images

"If I rise on the wings of the dawn," writes the psalmist in Psalm 139:9-10, "if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast" (NIV).

On December 22, 2017, my husband Chuck and I took the wings of the dawn via Delta flight 26 to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Our mission: Encourage the missionaries serving in that part of the world.

But as often happens, they were as much an encouragement to us as we were to them. Maybe more so.

The upcoming reflections I share in the aftermath of our month-long trip come straight from my journal kept during that time. However, to help you experience Cambodia more fully, after this post, I will write in present tense as though I am writing the event at the moment it occurred.

A personal pursuit for me was God's challenge to embrace His adventure in whatever form that took and to look for His beauty at every turn. Our first flight made this easy. Upon lifting the window shade, I was greeted by a gorgeous sunset. Shades of orange against a grey-blue sky streaked with darker grey blue hovered over a billowy sea of clouds. Abba's gift. His greeting on the morning, and His encouragement to me that He would indeed be with me. He would guide us and hold us fast, even when the flights got difficult, unexpected layovers occurred, and we moved into a vast sea of foreign faces that emitted languages at first scary, then intriguing, then enchanting, then crazily comical.

God was there, guiding all the way to Atlanta, to Seoul, and finally to Phnom Penh (36 hours later), connecting us to individuals to whom we could share His story . . .

Like the Philippino lady stuck in the Seoul airport with us on Christmas Eve. What a joy to tell her about the real meaning of Christmas: Jesus!

Like the French Canadian student who asked why our kids would want to live in a strange part of the world. What an opportunity to tell her they go because they love Jesus and want others to know Him, too.

Like the Korean clerk who pulled Chuck over to be part of a TV commercial for a newly designed robot arm that dispensed coffee. Chuck ended his testimonial for the hazelnut latte with a gospel witness as the clerk smiled broadly and bowed his head multiple times. Who knows if he understood, but the Word was given, nonetheless.

God's encouragement and beauty abounded, not merely in what we witnessed around us, but through His Holy Spirit working through us. This would become even more apparent as we stepped into Cambodia.