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| A painting, by a survivor, Vann Nath, on how Cambodians were killed at the pit. |
In her book The God Who Hung on the Cross,
journalist Ellen Vaughn retells a gripping story of how the Gospel came
to a small village in Cambodia. In September 1999 Pastor Tuy Seng (not
his real name) traveled to Kampong Thom Province in northern Cambodia.
Throughout that isolated area, most villagers had cast their lot with
Buddhism or spiritism. Christianity was virtually unheard of.
But much to Seng's surprise, when he arrived in one
small, rural village the people warmly embraced him and his message
about Jesus. When he asked the villagers about their openness to the
gospel, an old woman shuffled forward, bowed, and grasped Seng's hands
as she said, "We have been waiting for you for twenty years." And then
she told him the story of the mysterious God who had hung on the cross.
In the 1970s the Khmer Rouge, the brutal, Communist-led
regime, took over Cambodia, destroying everything in its path. When the
soldiers finally descended on this rural, northern village in 1979, they
immediately rounded up the villagers and forced them to start digging
their own graves. After the villagers had finished digging, they
prepared themselves to die. Some screamed to Buddha, others screamed to demon spirits or to their ancestors.
One of the women started to cry for help based on a
childhood memory—a story her mother told her about a God who had hung on
a cross. The woman prayed to that unknown God on a cross. Surely, if
this God had known suffering, he would have compassion on their plight.
Suddenly, her solitary cry became one great wail as the
entire village started praying to the God who had suffered and hung on a
cross. As they continued facing their own graves, the wailing slowly
turned to a quiet crying. There was an eerie silence in the muggy jungle
air. Slowly, as they dared to turn around and face their captors, they
discovered that the soldiers were gone.
As the old woman finished telling this story, she told
Pastor Seng that ever since that humid day from 20 years ago the
villagers had been waiting, waiting for someone to come and share the
rest of the story about the God who had hung on a cross.
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