China and Cambodia stories

The following stories are found in the book, Wind in the Pines, by Curt Iles.
Visit www.creekbank.net to learn more.


A Wade in the River

These next two stories are compiled from recent trips I made to Asia. In 2002 I visited Vietnam and Cambodia. Then last year I went to China. To see another part of the world so different from ours has been both an eye-opening and life-changing experience.

One of the Southeast Asian guidebooks related, “That Asia means people - everywhere you go there are vast crowds of people.” It is as if a huge river of people flows everywhere - especially in the large cities such as Saigon, Hong Kong, and Phnom Penh. But this river of souls is also swift and deep in the rural areas.

These stories are about what I saw and experienced during my “wade in the river.”



Suzie Q

Somewhere in China October 2003

I’ll never see her again on this earth - however I’m certain we will meet in Heaven. I also believe that I’ll recognize her when we meet again. I’ll know her because of her unforgettable eyes.
We only met her twice and I never even got her name. We really didn’t get to visit because she knew no English and I don’t speak Chinese. In addition, our meeting was brief because she was in great danger due to the bags she brought to our four man team.

Our only instructions were that she would meet us at the local train station that next morning at 7:45. Because we didn’t know her, she would have to find us. There was no way we would ever find her in this river of Chinese faces passing by us. We knew we shouldn’t be too difficult to find: four tall and pale Americans with backpacks stand out pretty good in China.

The morning of our meeting was October 1, which is the national holiday for China. For the entire week all businesses and offices close down. Because of this, October 1 is the biggest travel day of the year. The train station was unbelievably crowded. We stood outside in a sea of people - all trying to get through the two doors into the staging area.

We kept looking around. Over and over we would see a young Chinese woman laden with bags and whisper, “Do you think that’s her?”

… Finally we saw her coming - her nervousness was a dead giveaway. Following behind her were two porters each shouldering a long bamboo pole with bags on each end. Approaching us, her eyes darted back and forth nervously. This might seem like a game to the four Americans, but to her this meeting was deadly serious. She handed our leader Randy a cell phone programmed for our emergency use. Then she handed him train tickets for our five-hour ride south. Finally, she pointed to the bags and then directed us toward the crowded station entrance.

But before leaving, she looked deeply into our eyes. Her earlier look of nervousness was replaced by eyes showing grim determination and commitment. Those eyes seemed to say, “OK, I’ve done my part. It’s time for you to do yours. It’s worth the risk I’m taking to tell others about the difference Jesus Christ has made in my life.”

The bags she had brought contained Ziploc bags with DVD’s of The Jesus Film, plus other tapes and tracts. What made it so special was that the film had been recorded in the heart language of her people. This minority tribe spoke a different dialect from the main Chinese language groups. For the first time they would see and hear the story of Jesus and it would be in their native tongue.

In the coming days as our team hid these packets in woodpiles, under rocks, in the corn and cane fields, and every other place imaginable, I thought often of this brave girl with the bright eyes. She had put herself in great danger to deliver these packages to us.

If we Americans were caught with these materials, we would be unceremoniously escorted out of the country. If this young Chinese woman was caught, the repercussions would be serious - ranging from jail to persecution and difficulties of all types for her, as well as her family.

As Randy, Thad, Ed, and I walked the countryside in the coming days, we talked about this woman. Our brief encounter had left a lasting impression on us. We finally gave her a name, “Suzie Q.” From then on that was how we referred to her.

We walked the fields and roads of rural China hiding our precious packets. Our goal was this: We want them found, but hopefully not before we clear out. When we had distributed all of the packets over a period of three days, we once again were instructed by phone to meet Suzie Q, this time at a bus station in a large city.

As our taxi pulled us up to the bus station, there stood Suzie Q beside four more bags containing the gospel. We couldn’t help but notice several policemen standing nearby on the sidewalk. The sight of four American strangers picking up four heavy bags after stepping from a taxi had to arouse their curiosity, but no one questioned us. In fact, later one of the friendly policeman inside the terminal directed us to the correct line for our bus.

This time we were going north to another minority people group. These new packets were in a different dialect from our earlier stash. Following us, Suzie walked us into the terminal and ensured we were all right before turning to leave. We never saw her again.

On our way back home we stopped in Hong Kong and met with our contact for this project. We were all curious to find out more about Suzie Q. We were informed that she is a twenty year old Christian. Her livelihood is selling hair combs on the streets of her city. She is very brave and has a deep commitment to follow Jesus, no matter what the cost. She is always ready to perform any service to further the cause of Christ.


Yes, I probably won’t see Suzie Q until eternity. When we meet again, she’ll find out my name and I’ll finally know hers…until then, she’ll be “Suzie Q,” that brave young Christian with the bright unforgettable eyes…




(The funds for producing the Jesus Film in this language were supplied by the Lottie Moon Mission Offering, a yearly mission’s collection among Southern Baptist churches. To learn more about sharing the gospel in China, and how you can be involved, visit http://www.imb.org/.
I highly recommend the ministry of Extreme Missionary Adventures and its leader, Randy Pierce. Their website is http://www.xmaonline.com/. )




Can You Hear Me Now?


A man I encountered in a rural area of Cambodia may have been the defining image of this interesting part of Asia.

I saw him coming before he saw me. He was a rather large man for the Khmer race. What really caught my eye was his attire. All he was wearing was a loose short skirt called a sarong. He was barefooted and bare-chested. Just walking along. I thought to myself, “It’s as if we’re back in the 19th century here.” I quickly wondered if he’d ever seen a television, felt the coolness of air conditioning, or knew how electricity worked.

He did have one modern thing with him. He was smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke up into the air as he walked along.

He was still a ways from me when I heard a strange noise. It was at the same time familiar as well as unfamiliar. The Cambodian man stopped and reached into his skirt. I quickly saw what it was as he placed it to his ear. He’d just got a call on his cell phone.
He stood there smoking, smiling, and talking as I stared in amazement.

Here was “Mr. 19th century” doing something I can’t even do in my hometown- talking on a cell phone! In Dry Creek, Louisiana you’re lucky to get two bars showing on your phone. I always tell guests at our camp that they’ve arrived in the cell phone dead zone. Others call our community the “Bermuda Triangle” of cell phones.

I’ve told many people of seeing campers at Dry Creek walking the grounds holding their cell phone high in the air, vainly trying to get reception. Once I even saw a man placing his cell phone against our flagpole hoping he’d found a makeshift antenna to connect him to the outside world. (I shouldn’t make too much fun because later I went and tried it myself just to see if it made a difference. I can attest it did not.)

Yet here I am 12,000 miles from home. In the middle of a country, Cambodia, where thirty years of civil war and unrest have left a terrible mark and here is a guy using a cell phone. His traditional dress and his embrace of modern technology is an apt description of Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia. A land where the past, present, and future seem to collide together.
Most of all, in Cambodia I saw the open doors of sharing the gospel. The country is a land of young people. Most of the leaders and professionals age fifty and above were killed by the communist Khmer Rouge or escaped the country. There is a great void of leadership and openness to new ideas. Many of the younger generation are disillusioned with the old ways and the traditional Buddhist religion. They are searching and whether they know it or not, the good news of Jesus Christ is what their heart is yearning for.

This is a nation seeking its future and identity. The harvest is ripening. It is worth whatever it takes to be a part of sharing Jesus.

Then I’m reminded of a young American couple I met in Cambodia. They are probably in their late twenties. Both had great careers back in the states. He was a pilot for Delta Airlines. She flew planes for the Air Force.

Their future looked bright and limitless.

Their journey to Cambodia started when they came there to adopt a child. Due to widespread disease and violence, there are many many orphans. They did something that so many westerners do when they visit this unusual country - they fell in love with its people. They later returned to adopt another child.

Then they left their secure careers and came to Cambodia. The day I met them, this ex-Delta pilot was helping dig a water well at a village school. He looked happy - just serving the Lord and being part of the harvest.

Over and over I saw examples of talented young people who’d left behind what we call success to serve where the work is hard and the problems are numerous. Working next to them were retired couples who’d refused to buy in to the great American dream of retiring to a condo in South Florida. Instead here they were, signed up for a three year term of serving God half a world away from their children and grandchildren.

I was once again reminded of why missionaries have always been my heroes. Ordinary men and women, with normal problems and faults, who are used by God in an extraordinary way. They’ve decided to seek the best, while forsaking earthly rewards, while laying up treasures in heaven. It’s just a matter of doing whatever it takes to make a difference.

Jim Elliott served as a missionary in Ecuador during the 1950’s. His heart was to minister to the unreached Indians of a jungle tribe. After making contact with this tribe and seeming to be making progress, he and his fellow workers were killed by the very people they came to help.
Before his death, Elliott made a statement that continues to touch lives today:
“No man is a fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”

The Cambodian encounter with the cell phone reminds me that technology is a way to reach these seemingly “unreachable” areas. While many types of electronic items have been misused, the spread of the gospel through the Internet, DVD’s, satellite phones, and computers has been useful in reaching the entire world.

In Acts 1:8, Jesus told His followers, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Going to the “ends of the earth” means getting the gospel out to places that are difficult to reach. Doing whatever it takes, and taking full advantage of every area of modern technology should be part of our strategy to reaching the world.

The following two stories come from my March 2005 trip to tsunami-ravaged Indonesia. It was a life-changing trips for our entire team.

Both of these stories are in the book by Curt Iles, Hearts across the Water.


The Silent City

Our medical team, working in Sumatra for two weeks, made daily visits to at least two clinics. These were displaced centers for those who had survived the tsunami and were just trying to survive before deciding to rebuild.

Our team leaders who had been in the country for years would tell us before we left for that day's clinic, "Today you'll be up on the mountainside in an older village." Or, "This one is the farthest out. You'll see monkeys in the trees there."
But as they talked of our upcoming visit to Lampuuk they said, "It's the one where there aren't any children. It is the silent city."

As we arrived at most clinic locations we were met by a huge rush of children. They had figured out we would have crayons, coloring books, candy, and even toys from America. We quickly learned not to hand any of this out until we were ready to leave. Even then it was a chore to hold them back. Mothers would be in our face gesturing and speaking fast in Achenese saying that their children had gotten left out on the candy allotment.

But no laughing children or arguing mothers greeted us in Lampuuk. There was an eerie silence there that said more than any words could have ever spoken. The children were gone. Most of the sad-faced men present there had lost everything, including their precious families.
Out of a thriving village of 10,000, only 600 people survived the tsunami. Saddest of all, only six children survived. This included the two children of the Simeulue lady who ran through the streets trying to warn others. When no one would listen, she loaded her children in a car and rushed them to safety ahead of the first wave.

Our clinic at Lampuuk left a deep impression on all of our team. We became silent ourselves and talked in lowered voices as if in a cemetery. Looking around at the hundreds of white foundation slabs in every direction, we knew we were in the presence of a great flood of death had occurred.
I remembered the words of an old country preacher at our cemetery in Dry Creek: "We've come today to the city of the dead. This is as far as we can go before we lower this body into the ground." Looking around at the white grave markers and tombstones it did resemble a city.

A city of the dead.
A silent city.
That is exactly how Lampuuk looked and felt.
A silent city.
Once alive, but now empty.


Later the following weekend our team had Sunday off, so we each had time to do what we pleased. For some reason I wanted to return to Lampuuk. I felt this strange need to be at this village once more. The motorcycle taxi driver looked strangely at me as I requested a ride to Lampuuk.

There are few people living there now. That sunny day there were only a handful of men.
Most are gone, lost. I'm sure others have left never to return… too many bitter memories.
I spent the afternoon walking the empty streets and along the beach. I stopped where a golf course had been on the outskirts of town. I remembered one of the aid workers who lost a friend playing golf on that fateful morning. I couldn't help but wonder how it would feel to be standing here, golf club in hand, seeing the great wave approaching.

I found a shady spot under one of the few surviving trees and spent the afternoon just sketching, painting, and thinking. I painted a simple watercolor picture of what I felt like Lampuuk would look in the future:
With houses,
and gardens,
and bright colors again.

And best of all with children running and playing and laughing. The painting was not
really great but it came from my heart. In pencil I wrote on it:
To the village of Lampuuk. May the ocean once again be your friend.
May your streets be filled again with laughing children.

Before leaving Lampuuk I took it to a group of young men sitting on the porch of a makeshift store. They shared a bottle of water with me and I shared my painting with them as we attempted to visit. They knew no English and my phrasebook was inadequate for what I wanted to say. In fact, any language was inadequate for what I wished to say to them. I had no words anyway.

So I just left them the picture. They passed it around with many comments and gestures. One of them tacked it up on the wall of the little store. My own gesturing and pointing probably couldn't convey my prayers and good wishes for them.
But I'm sure someone came along later and explained the English writing. I hope they understand it and the heart it came from.
I hope it is still tacked up somewhere years later when the streets of the silent city of Lampuuk
are once again filled with the sounds of laughing children.




Henry


I met Henry among the ruins of Lampuuk on our first visit there. It had been over eleven weeks since the tsunami. Henry lived in a tent not far from the only remaining building in Lampuuk: the local Mosque. A handsome twenty-year-old with an infectious smile and wonderful personality, Henry quickly became the favorite among all of our medical team. He had excellent command of English as well as the widely spoken Basra Indonesian and the rarer Achenese dialect.

As we began to set up our medical clinic at Lampuuk, Henry came out of his tent to greet us. He seemed to be the official goodwill ambassador of the village. Henry had a cheerful, contagious smile that said, “I’ve been through a lot but I’m still standing. He also possessed a great pride that led him to question every American visitor with the same inquiry:

"Hey, have you ever met a president of your United States of America?"

Most of our replies were an honest, "No."

Our new Indonesian friend would then break out into a wide grin and proudly say,
"Well, I've shook hands with two of your presidents right here where we are standing. I visited with your presidents Bush senior and Clinton three weeks ago. We talked for over thirty minutes.” I could easily envision Henry schmoozing with our two leaders as they visited the Banda Aceh area earlier in February. I have no doubt he held his own in conversation with both of them.

Our team had earlier been told to meet Henry by a Los Angeles medical team that had befriended him and actually stayed overnight at his tent as guests.

As we visited, I asked Henry to show me where his house had been. We walked through the rubble and debris of what had once been a thriving village. He pointed to a nearby road and warned me not to cross past it. "That is rebel-controlled territory and the government cannot assure your safety past there." He shrugged as if it was no big deal. I was once again reminded that we were not only in a disaster zone, but a war zone where the Free Aceh movement had battled with governmental troops for over a decade. Due to this ongoing revolution, martial law was in force.

In every direction the only reminders of human habitation were the cement foundation slabs swept clean by the waves. We finally came to the slab that had been Henry's home. Then he began his story.

"On the morning of the earthquake everyone ran outside to look around. My dad and younger brother were with me. The shaking continued and was accompanied by a great deal of shouting and running around. When the message was passed around about the receding ocean and fish, many folks ran toward the ocean. For some reason, my father, brother, and I did not run. We simply stood there wondering what was next.

It was probably 10-15 minutes after the quake when we first heard it. You could hear the roar of the wave before you could see it. When we saw it coming everyone ran. My father and brother were behind me as we fled for our lives toward higher ground."

As Henry spoke, he pointed off to a grove of tall coconut trees about one-half mile away. "That is where I was headed. The wave, it was actually three waves traveling together, was moving about 30 kilometers per hour- slow enough to outrun for a short distance. Looking back I saw my father and brother trailing farther behind me. When the wave washed over the Mosque it was about to there on its side." Henry pointed to a spot about thirty feet high on the Mosque wall. Although it had stood, the entire Mosque was gutted and the stairwells had been torn away.

Henry continued as he pointed back toward the grove of trees, "The last I saw of my father and brother was when they were overtaken by the water. Eventually the water reached me and I frantically tried to run in it, and then swim. The debris being pushed along hindered free movement. I passed out and later awoke on higher ground near the trees. I have no idea how I escaped."

Henry's story and the way he so dispassionately told it touched me. It was as if he was describing a normal event or the happenings on another planet. I wondered how many times he had related his tale. Just because he told it without much emotion did not mean it was not burned deep into his soul. Here was a young man, the age of my sons, who had lost everything.
In the coming days we spent a great deal of time with Henry as he traveled with us to many of the clinics. He was great help with the older patients who spoke mainly Achenese. He would "interpret for the interpreters" as he translated the patient's Achenese symptoms to the interpreter who translated it into English for our doctors.

I think back to the difficulty of starting the renovation of an area so utterly devastated. Then I think of Henry. He had an optimism that the storm had not washed away. A deep inner resolve that was evident and indicative of the Achenese people we met and grew to love.

The task of rebuilding northern Sumatra, just like our task now in New Orleans and throughout our part of Louisiana, is completely overwhelming. In Lampuuk that day very little rebuilding had been done, even after three months. I thought to myself, "How would you even know where to start?"

Then I think about the young people I met there- Henry and his wonderful smile and "can do" personality. I see the faces of Raihail and her student nurses. I think of Saeed our driver each day.

And Dedek, a young Indonesian who worked with us. Then there is Jenni, a vibrant young Indonesian from another part of the country, casting her lot with these Achenese to rebuild their lives and cities. Plus there will be countless others who will be called upon to rebuild their cities.
The new Lampuuk will be different. Just as the new New Orleans will be also different. And as always, it will be young minds, and young hearts, and innovative minds that lead the way.