On my birthday, almost a couple months ago, I was given a book - Killing Fields, Living Fields by Don Cormack. I've been meaning to read this book since becoming a Christian and hearing about it, but have never gotten around to getting a copy. So, with this gift, I was encouraged to learn more about 2 parts of me - Christ and Cambodia.I have just finished Chapter 7, the last chapter of Part I which looks at the history of the Cambodian church between 1923-1975. Which means that I'm up to the years of the Khmer Rouge; in fact the next chapter is entitled 'The 17th April, 1975'; the day that the Khmer Rouge defeated the Cambodian government forces and entered the capital city of Phnom Penh. The new government renamed the country the Democratic Kampuchea, and Pol Pot became its premier. It was also the day that the Khmer Rouge soldiers ordered everybody to leave Phnom Penh and to take nothing with them as they would be returning very soon. But as the days passed, the two million uprooted inhabitants of the capital realized that they wouldn't be returning and for four years, Phnom Penh became a desolate city except for torture centres like S-21 and the few Khmer Rouge elite that lived there.
That's the historical information that I have grown up hearing about. My mother remembers the day that they were asked to leave Phnom Penh, under false promises of an almost immediate return. She was almost 9 years old. When I received the book I was a bit.. scared I guess, about what I might read about. Already there have been tears but also real encouragements and challenges from the character of the people that have been written about. I was going to write about the whole of Part I in this post but I think that I will try and write reflections on each chapter. So I will post this for now and hopefully this will be followed with more posts on the book.
