Monk-ing Around with the Monks

Cambodia is bonkers, yet surely the coolest place I’ve been. Being only 2 weeks in, I have more experience than I ever thought was possible. While Cambodia is crazy, I’ll catch you up on how I got here. To get to Siem Reap, Cambodia: I flew to Phoenix, then had a 12 hour layover in San Francisco, a short couple hours in Thailand, switched flights to get to Cambodia early, and arrived in Phnom Penh on October 17th. After some street evangelism and tourism in Phnom Penh, my squad and I took a five hour bus ride north to Siem Reap, where my home is until the new year. This brings us all the way to Monday October 24th. Once we arrived, my team was challenged with tourist evangelism for the week.

Cambodia is home to tons of monks, some great food, some questionable food, smelly water, crazy kids, and a ton of kind people. While I’ll touch on all these other topics at some point, I wanted to give you a glimpse into my first week of ministry. A week with the Monks.

MEET THE MONKS

This week I met many monks. They varied some, I met young monks and old monks, short monks and shorter monks. They are fairly similar though, all bald, no eyebrows, wearing orange robes, and speaking Khmer (the language in Cambodia). Not to mention they are all living at the Pagoda, Buddhist, and practicing peace. As a bonus, many were also very well spoken in English, which was very convenient for us. As added details the day / week we were at these temples was the holiday Diwali. This is a Hindu holiday, most notably celebrated in India. While Hinduism is the second largest religion in Cambodia, Buddhism is still the main one. This is because of a switch from Hinduism to Buddhism in the 1300’s. This leads to the Buddhist temples here celebrating an interesting combination holiday known as Buddha day. This provides a super interesting dynamic as some of the monks still hold some Hinduism values. This holiday provided an insane stage for us to meet these monks. I’ll now introduce the monks that we were able to meet this week.

Chum Kim Leng (Head Monk)

Chum Kim Leng was the first monk that we met. When walking around (on Buddha day) we stumbled into an office to find an older monk with a feast in front of him. He invited us to sit, called for a translator, and we began asking questions, just trying to find out more about Buddhism. In doing so we found out a couple of wild facts. First and foremost, that Chum Kim Leng was the head monk in all of Siem Reap. On top of this it was Buddha day, which was being celebrated all throughout the temple. These two facts paired together began to make us pretty stoked. For it being our first day of evangelism, and for these circumstances was pretty wild. Anyways, Chum Kim Leng turned out to be a super chill monk. When we asked why he was head monk he just told us it was because he was the oldest. He seemed to be very calm and not arrogant about his position. He was also very eager to tell us about his culture. He even invited us to share his feast with us. He unfortunately had to leave us on the first day to take his holiday nap. We were able to find him 2 more times and asked him many questions about Buddhism, ate lunch with him, prayed over our meals, and were able to share the joy of the Lord with him. Chum Kim Leng was difficult to reach as far as sharing the gospel, but the lord is clearly working in his temples, and I pray that he sees that.

Chum Kim Porn 

Chum Kim Porn (pronounced Paul) was our translator on the first couple of days. He is technically not a monk, yet has official duties at the temple, as he was there every time we went. He also happens to be the head monks nephew. He was the person we learned the least about. As a translator, he didn’t tell us much about his story. Therefore, the first couple days with the head monk were not super beneficial in our conversation with him, due to our interest in the head monk. Towards the end of the week however, we were able to speak with him one on one. I was able to share the gospel with him, and plant some seeds of God’s love in his life. Upon doing this he indicated that he wanted a bible for himself, so we are going to go back and bring one to him. I’m stoked to continue meeting with him, and excited for the Lord’s power in that relationship.

Vys Ni

Vys Ni is by far my favorite relationship that we were able to grow. We didn’t meet him until later in the week as he was our second translator. He was taken out of class in order to come in and translate for us with the head monk. As he was well known in the pagoda for being extraordinarily well spoken in English. He was super excited to be talking to us and Chum Kim Leng. So much so that he tried to sneakily take videos of the conversation. Once he was done being a translator for us, we were able to ask him more about his life. As a monk who is actively studying Buddhism it was very interesting to hear his story. He had to go get his eyes checked, so he had to leave us still with questions. We came back the next day looking for him, and looking to learn more. Upon doing this we were able to sit in on one of his classes, get a tour of the entire pagoda, and share the gospel with him on the steps of the original temple. In addition, we took him to lunch the next day, brought him a bible, and highlighted some verses for him in both English and Khmer. In return he gave us some Buddhist information and resources. We were able to pray with him, and saw the conversation coming to a close. Just when we thought we had done all that we could do, the lord provided. Our tuk-tuk driver from earlier in the week, who we took to church, came in and recognized us. He was so excited to see us and immediately began sharing the gospel with Vis Nye in Khmer and they began going back and forth for about 45 minutes. While I could not understand any of it, it was absolutely incredible to see the gospel being shared in Khmer. Vis Nye isn’t a believer yet but is very interested in what God has to offer, and I’m confident the Lord will continue to work in his life.

Monk from the village

The last Monk I’ll mention is one we didn’t even meet. In fact, we didn’t  even go to the pagoda that he lives at. Instead we heard about him from his siblings in a village an hour and a half outside of Siem Reap. His siblings shared that people with the same ministry that we’re working with gave his mom a radio with the bible on it. She became a believer and listened to the radio night and day. When she passed away he had to go become a monk, as it is tradition that the boy goes to become a monk. He them took the radio to the pagodas and is studying Buddhism and studying Christianity in secret. This blind faith was so cool to hear about.

In conclusion

The monks were super cool to meet, and the stories I have from just the start of this adventure are incredible. However, the Lords provision is by far the most notable part of the week. We continued to go to the Pagoda without a plan, just trusting that the Lord would provide and he did time and time again. I’m learning to trust the Lord and his will, even when I think my will would align with his. The Lord is so powerful that he’s working even in the temples of those that oppose him. If that’s not so dope I don’t know what is. I’m so thankful for the Lord being able to work though me in these monks and I’m so stoked for the next 7 months.

Follow up

As my last blog said, please switch over to my missional life platform and follow me there, as this will be the last blog posted on this platform. You can find it at missional.life/derek-eckhart. Thank you for your patience as this whole thing changes. Also, the more people who read my blog the better so please show other people who might be interested. Thank you all so much for your continued support.