13/02/2026
The Lens of the Local, April 2006
My Unexpected Journey Through the Heart and Heat of Cambodia
The wall between us crumbled with a laugh before a single formal introduction was made. I had just met my contact at the Cambodia Bible Institute, Pastor Seng Bun—a Cambodian-American who had traveled from Modesto, California, to his homeland. He looked at me, a playful glint in his eye, and said, “I thought you were handsome?””No,” I shot back without missing a beat, “I’m just tall, dark, and… never mind.”We roared with laughter, a spontaneous bridge of friendship forming where a barrier of strangeness might have stood. He was joined by Pastor Mike Atinsky—a former Jewish rabbi who had found Christ—along with Mike’s elder and Pastor Seng’s nieces, Beth and Rany. Our destination was Kampong Thom, a central province some 160 kilometers from the capital. As we jostled in the back of Pastor Seng’s pickup truck, the two Americans began discussing their immunizations. Turning to me, they asked, “How many shots did you get?””Twenty-four,” I replied gravely. Their eyes widened. “How could that be?””I got twenty-four shots in my camera,” I joked. Another round of laughter filled the dusty air. By the time we arrived, the tropical sun had dipped below the horizon. We were greeted with a humble, soul-warming dinner: steamed rice, spicy freshwater fish soup, and fresh shrimp. While the Americans stayed at a local hotel, I was welcomed into a private room, the first of many moments where I felt less like a visitor and more like a brother.The following morning brought a surprise for which I had unknowingly been preparing my entire life. Pastor Seng had organized a conference, and I was to be the keynote speaker. I spoke to the local pastors for the entire day, aided by two Cambodian interpreters. In a moment of modern comedy, one interpreter abruptly stopped mid-sentence; his cellphone was ringing, and the call simply couldn’t wait. As night fell, so did my connection to the world. My Nokia 3310 lost its signal at 6:00 p.m. sharp. In an era before Facebook, I was truly “offline.” I could receive messages from the Philippines, but I couldn’t send a single word back. Homesickness settled in like the evening mist. I found myself frequently opening my wallet to look at the photos of my wife, Nancy, and my son, Adriel—my silent anchors in a distant land.Our culinary adventures were equally spirited. One evening, Pastor Seng took us to a dimly lit restaurant and ordered stir-fried squid. I reached for what I thought were tender tentacles, only to realize I had bitten into a whole stem of fresh black pepper. The heat was instantaneous and blinding, but I kept my composure, nodding as if the fire in my mouth was exactly what I had expected.The journey to Siem Reap came as another surprise. I had just washed my clothes in Balang Leuk when the call to move arrived. With no time to dry them, I sat in the back of the pickup holding my wet garments up like flags in the rushing wind. By the time we reached the gates of the ancient city, the 140-kilometer drive had done the work of a dryer. At Angkor Wat, a different kind of “incognito” mission began. To avoid the entrance fees required of foreigners, Pastor Seng gave me a simple instruction: “Don’t speak. You look Cambodian.”I followed his advice to the letter. I bought a cob of boiled corn and kept my mouth busy eating, blending into the crowd of locals. While the guards patrolled for unpaid tourists, I moved through the back entrance as a silent “son of Khmer.” We eventually checked into a guesthouse that doubled as a crocodile farm; in the quiet of the morning, I watched them gather eggs—a stark reminder of the raw, beautiful, and sometimes dangerous life that pulses through Cambodia.Looking back on those dusty roads and the quiet nights in Kampong Thom, I realize that my journey was more than a mission trip; it was a lesson in the shorthand of the Spirit.We often think that ministry requires perfect translation, yet my friendship with Pastor Seng began not with a sermon, but with a joke. It reminded me that joy is a universal bridge. Before we ever discussed theology, we laughed. In the Kingdom of God, a shared smile can break down walls that years of formal dialogue might never touch.The silence of my Nokia 3310 was, at the time, a source of stress. Yet, in that “digital desert,” I was forced to lean into the presence of the Provider. Without the ability to reach back to the Philippines, I had to reach upward. It taught me that homesickness is simply a physical manifestation of our soul’s longing for its true home, and in that longing, God meets us with the comfort of a local meal and the hospitality of strangers.Walking through Angkor Wat, pretending to be a local with a cob of corn in my hand, was a moment of humor, but it carried a hidden profoundness. For a few hours, I wasn’t an “outsider” or a “foreigner.” I was simply a brother among brothers. It served as a living metaphor for our identity in Christ: In His Kingdom, there are no foreigners. We are all “locals” in the family of God, held together not by passports or entrance fees, but by a shared inheritance.I went to Cambodia to be a teacher, but I left as a student. I learned that whether we are drying clothes in the wind of a moving truck or dodging the heat of fresh peppercorns, we are held by a divine hand of God that knows no borders.
