Cambodian Call
Charis Crowley Writes a Journalist Who Thinks Missionaries Should Leave
Dear Sir: It was with great interest that I read your account of your three memorable visits to Ratanakiri province in Cambodia.
Ratanakiri is my home. My family has lived there for nine years now, and I lived there for six. I am currently attending college here in the States while my parents and siblings remain in Cambodia. I enjoyed hearing you describe places so familiar and loved. Ratanakiri truly is a wonderful province with much potential, and my heart will always be there.
It was with great disappointment and agitation, however, that I read in your account of your second trip:
The Cambodian government speaks often about this new Rule of Law thing that will make Cambodia a functioning, efficient, modern, law-abiding land (or something like that). Do you think they could start with the eviction of all the missionaries who come to places like Ratanakiri to play head games on people who for centuries have been served quite well by their own beliefs? Beliefs which may be Buddhism, animism, ancestor worship, or some combination thereof. Just a thought.
I feel reluctant to continue this for fear you will brush off this letter as another run-of-the-mill defense of those “missionaries who come . . . to play head games.” Please take this seriously as a very heart-felt explanation of a situation that you may not have totally sensed.
Life in Fear
I love Ratanakiri. I love the people. I love the culture, the food, the customs—for the most part. You mentioned seeing several weddings during your trip. I love weddings—all the festivities and dressing up and taking pictures of the bride with the long face. I love watching birthing ceremonies—watching them tie a string to the baby’s heel and celebrating a new life born into the world.
There is the opposite, though, which I don’t recall you mention experiencing. Have you ever attended a tribal funeral? It is not an easily forgotten experience. The sick child becomes worse, and the family sacrifices, from their pitiful funds, first a chicken, then a pig. The child worsens, and the family sacrifices a water buffalo to those benevolent spirits that fill their lives with fear. And then the child dies—often from a very treatable condition that could have been prevented with proper help.
And the funeral begins. The wailings and sobs of utter despair will never cease to haunt me. I have sat through too many tribal funerals to be able to forget the anguish and hopelessness of the families involved. But why bother them? They are happy as they are. They live an ideal life, free from restraints, easy, carefree.
An outsider may see their lives as such. But in reality, they live in fear: fear of starvation, fear of sickness and death, fear of the spirits who rule their lives and soak up their small supplies of rice and animals for ritual and futile sacrifices. Would you deny them change if they desire it? Put yourself in their place: near-starvation year after year. Malaria, cholera, whooping cough, measles. Fear of angering the spirits or an ancestor who has gone on before. Daily toil from dawn to dusk to grow enough rice to carry your family through for another year.
Charis Crowley is the daughter of Baptist missionaries and is currently a nursing student at a Christian university in the Southeast.
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