| DIFFICULT
PLACES
By early evening, in a vacant lot in Usulatan, El Salvador,
Pablo and his film team were finishing the final preparations
for the showing of JESUS that night. Several hundred people
had already gathered and others were coming down the dusty
roads alone or in small groups. They stood or sat together
in nervous clusters, involved in a hushed chatter but not
relaxing.
And then they heard it: the sound of an approaching plane.
A common enough occurrence, but to these people there was
a difference. They had learned to listen for and identify
the sounds of an impending attack. It was part of the skill
needed to stay alive in El Salvador now.
The aircraft strained as it climbed into the sky above them.
It was the first of the signs--and all they needed to hear.
Everyone ran from the vacant lot to find cover. Overhead the
plane seemed to stall, then suddenly it dropped toward the
earth, broadcasting a chilling scream as it fell toward its
target.
Within seconds no one on the ground was in sight. Everyone
was hidden, trembling, waiting inside the surrounding adobe
huts, which provided little more than the feeling of protection.
The plane roared low, flying a line just across the street
from the lot where the movie screen still stood. The pilot
strafed a row of red tile roofs with machine gun fire and
a swarm of frightened young men with M-16s slung over their
shoulders bolted from the doors and windows to take cover
in the denseness of the surrounding trees.
No one moved for several minutes; they were waiting to see
if the plane would make another attack on the village. Pablo
lay in his shelter, telling God of the disappointment he felt
that no one would come to the showing of the film tonight.
They would have to wrap up the equipment and try again the
next night.
When it seemed safe enough to come out, he stood to his feet--and
was surprised to see what was happening. Several of the villagers
were already making their way back into the lot and settling
down, waiting for the picture. Pablo couldn't help grinning.
There was a showing that night with over five hundred brave
souls coming back into the open to watch.
El Salvadorans are responding to the film in surprisingly
large numbers. During one week of some of the fiercest fighting,
the film was shown in Santa Telca, a city of fifty-two thousand.
Some twenty-three thousand people came and more than fifty-six
hundred made decisions to receive Christ. (pp. 131-132)
BREAKING ALL THE BARRIERS
For nearly four years Vek Huong Taing, Campus Crusade's leader
in Phnom Penh, had been missing without a trace. Then he was
discovered in the Taphraya refugee camp in Thailand, just
north of Aranyaprathet and one mile from the Cambodian border.
He and 140,000 other forgotten people were jammed into makeshift
bamboo huts, grateful for a cup of rice twice a day and a
tin of sardines once a week.
Living conditions were unbelievable. People were reduced to
the level of animals, made to work at hard labor, deprived
of the smallest pleasures, such as clean water and a chance
to bathe. Sickness flourished, spirits weakened, feeling people
became numb to the pain they could not escape.
Through a series of diplomatic miracles, Taing was allowed
to come to the United States with his wife and son. But behind
him, in the squalor and stench of that fearful place of pity,
he left thirty relatives, three of them tiny, newborn babies.
A few months later Bill Bright and I returned to the camp
carrying a few cloth diapers and a copy of the JESUS
film dubbed into Cambodian by Taing and other refugees in
America.
By the time Bill and I arrived there was a large bamboo church
in Khaoidong. It had been started a few months before by the
first Christian refugees relocated here. Now they numbered
eight thousand, and met in hundreds of home churches throughout
the camp.
They were open about their meetings and met with permission,
but it remained dangerous to name the name of Christ. Persecution
was common and cruel. Severe beatings were widespread, and
one believer had been thrown in boiling water, almost costing
his life.
In cooperation with Food-for-the-Hungry, Campus Center refugee
coordinator, Paul Utley, secured permission for the JESUS
film to be shown by the pastor of the bamboo hut church. Working
around the early evening curfew and other intrinsic problems,
the believers began showing the film every day after we left.
One year later I returned to the camp and could not believe
what I saw. The face of the grounds was not the same. Eighty
thousand refugees had been relocated, and those who remained
had begun to take hopeful pride in themselves and their meager
surroundings. Gardens had been planted, and a return of caring
for the welfare of others flourished as well.
The Cambodian pastor beamed. "It is because of the film,"
he said. "We showed it every day until our six-month permit
ran out, but by then we did not mind. Everyone in camp saw
the film; many saw it over and over. Thousands came to Christ
through JESUS and lives changed. You can see it all
around you." Tears filled his coal-black eyes. "Thank you
for the film. It gave us back the source of life."
* * *
A
few months ago I was in Washington, D.C., on business, and
I got to talking to the Cambodian maid who cleaned my hotel
room. Before long I discovered she was a Christian too. "How
long have you been a Christian?" I asked. She smiled broadly
and in her broken English said, "More than one year." "Where
did you hear about Jesus?" "In a refugee camp in Thailand,"
she said. "I saw a film called JESUS." (PP. 142-144)
|
