On Friday night, Leanne and I had the opportunity to volunteer with the MST Project (Men and the Sex Trade). The project's goals are to collect information and data on western men who are soliciting prostitutes, and engage in a dialogue with them on their perception of prostitution in Phnom Penh, and why it is that western men enter into such relationships. The program ultimately wants to educate men on the realities of the sex trade in Cambodia, the high HIV rates as well as to explain to them that the girls in Phnom Penh are forced into prostitution regardless of their situation.
The whole evening was challenging for me to say the least. I was uncomfortable approaching men who may or may have not been in the area to purchase prostitutes. I was uncomfortable with seeing in real-time, some of the social ills that I have only read about. Prostitution, beggars asking for money and food and teenage boys stumbling through the streets with glue in bags that they were using to achieve a cheap high. It was eye-opening, heart-breaking and fascinating at the same time. I learned a lot through simple observation as well as incredible conversations with two men.
Throughout the week, I have been reading one chapter by A.W. Tozer repeatedly. It discusses the idea of rest and meekness. He explains that "A meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion... but he has stopped being fooled about himself.... In himself, a meek man is nothing, in God everything." Tozer then explains that "Jesus says,'Come unto me, and I will give you rest.' The rest that he offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend."
As I debriefed the experience on Friday with Leanne, I could not help but think about the need for people to become completely meek. Not an afflicted human mouse who is constantly walked over by society, like Tozer explains. But rather an individual who does not see their value in the need for drugs, liquor, a woman or man's company or any number of temporary pleasures. The Lord offers rest in meekness, knowing that apart from him, we are rarely fulfilled.
A little heavy but these are the experiences we hoped to have in Cambodia and an indication of what we are learning out here besides just the culture and the city.
We spent the rest of the weekend in bed, as Leanne has some sort of rash, either heat rash or some other reaction. We ran a 5K race on Saturday morning and both felt about as terrible as possible following the run. We think it is just dehydration and heat rash and are hoping it is not a sign of a different illness.
Lastly, I woke up this morning to see that CU had given up 35 points in the 4th quarter of their game against Kansas to lose 52-45. I think I felt worse about that than I did after running a 5k on three hours of sleep. We hope your weekend was great!
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