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A Story of Rebirth

by Tim and Wendy Maddocks

 
A Story of Rebirth

(Editorial note - see the comment in the editorial of this issue)

" I was born a pickup in a Toyota factory in the USA, sometime before 1996. Shortly after my initiation to US roads I found myself steaming toward Cambodia. On my arrival I quickly discovered that life on Cambodian roads is torturous on one's body parts. I began my life as an all purpose vehicle for the Cambodia SDA Mission, with the special task of helping Gary Rogers and his building team build churches all over Cambodia. In 1997 I found myself stranded in no man's land on the border of Cambodia and Thailand just a short distance from fighting resulting from the coup. It was then that I had the privilege of transporting the children from the ICC Samrong orphanage through Thailand back into Cambodia and down to Phnom Penh. Life became tougher. One day I found myself with a dented nose after I was driven into a bridge railing. Another day my rear was very hot after being welded back together and always the pack horse work of carrying cement, stone and sand. I grew fatigued. My life was waning. People laughed at me because I looked such a wreck, even my eyes drooped. I was at the Phnom Penh School site, now only able to watch the building progress. Months passed, it seemed I was doomed to be scrap metal. Then one day my hood was lifted and they jump-started me and drove me to the SDA Mission.

Then someone new got in and drove me. They gave me a new battery but what came next I did not like. They drove me more than 300 km to Siem Reap. On arrival in Siem Reap people laughed at me. I was driven around on rough roads again. Every time some part of me fell off, they would just stop and pick the piece up and throw it on my back. Another year passed and I was progressively looking and feeling worse until December 2006, 10 years after my arrival to Cambodia.

I found myself in a rebirth process. People were caring for me, changing my broken parts, putting grease where it had not been in a long time. Then I got new panels, a new hood, new lights and a new front windshield - my old one had been cracked for so long. Then a miracle happened, my drab dark grey colour was transformed to shining white, but still my rear end remained the same. More time passed, the tail gate fell off my rear end and its sides flapped in the wind. Then one day they took a torch to my rear end cutting it free and leaving me naked, days passed and I got a new look, paint was applied. Instead of people laughing at me they began looking at me and commenting how good I looked. A new life has begun; I have been born again. My home in Siem Reap is Wat Preah Yesu, and today I carry orphans and do other fun things like carrying computers from Phnom Penh to the Cambodia Adventist School - Kantrok, also located at Wat Preah Yesu. I thank the Cambodia Adventist Mission for donating me to SALT Ministries."

The story of the pickup reminds me of what God wants to do with the people wrecks that we so often write off as unredeemable. The shining white pickup above symbolises the transformation that can happen in a person's life when Jesus comes into their heart, the old scars of sin and abuse are healed and life becomes a joy..

Last Monday I had the privilege of presenting a sermonette at a house dedication. This offered me time to reflect on what I have written above. The house owners first became known to us in 1996. They lived in the village next to ours, they were desperately poor, owning a few rice fields and living separate from the main village in a small 2 x 3 m thatched dwelling which had a bamboo floor with slats so far apart you had to take care not to fall through. Larm, the mother of the house had beri-beri and could not walk. We ministered to the health needs and spiritual needs of the family. Later Nau and Larm joined our first lay training program - Nau unschooled and illiterate, and Larm with a second grade education and only barely literate. At the end of the 4 month training course they volunteered to go as church planters. The family moved to a village 40 km away, a remote poverty stricken village, just recently free from the harassment of the Khmer Rouge. They were not able to give academic Bible studies but they had been taught to take the Gospel to the people and to pray for healing miracles and cast out evil spirits. The latter two did not require knowledge but rather faith, and that they had. Soon God's hand was at work through them and miracles were happening and God's love was being experienced through Nau and Larm's Ministry. Ten years have passed since we first met Nau and Larm, God has used them and more than 100 people in 2 congregations have been baptised and remain active as a result of their family ministry. God has also blessed them with skills in financial management. During their time as church planters on a stipend of US$60 per month, their few fields in their home village valued significantly. They sold them and reinvested in the much cheaper land where they were church planting. After six years as church planters they ceased to receive their stipend. They bought a dump truck and a rice thresher with proceeds from the old land. God continued to bless and the land they had bought in the new location valued significantly. They sold some and re-invested elsewhere as well as investing in building a new home and buying a second hand Pajero 4wd. Today they continue to visit congregations and encourage them with their testimony of how God rewarded their faithfulness. They testify that if they had not followed God and his principles of stewardship they would be poor like the other people in their old village as they would have squandered their money on alcohol and gambling.

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