A Cambodian who refused to die

The halls of this place were once bustling with enthusiastic adolescents who were eager to learn and excited about making a difference in their world. This high school became a main setting for detention, interrogation, torture, and killing after being overtaken by order of Pol Pot in April 1975. Over the span of four years, more than ten thousand innocent people came through the doors of this concrete hell. Only seven people walked away from the torture chambers that should have been an inevitable death.

Chum Mey is one of those people.

As we were walking up to Building C of the prison campus today, we noticed an elderly Cambodian man. We asked him why he was there, and he told us that he is one of only three survivors who are still alive. He visits the prison periodically to tell his story in hopes that people will never forget about the Cambodian genocide. As we continued talking to Mr. Mey, he recounted his story to us and was gracious enough to answer all of our questions.

He and his wife were taken captive in 1978 by the Khmer Rouge regime. He was split up from his wife and put into the torture chamber we stood in today. He was held captive there for four months before being rescued by the Vietnamese army. During his time in the torture chamber, he was confined to a small brick cell with nothing but a small box to go to the bathroom in. He was given only two small handfuls of rice porridge each day. His hands and feet were shackled while he was beaten. If he made a sound, they would beat him more. He told us of a time when his back was so swollen from the beatings that he couldn’t bear to have it touch anything. He tried to sleep sitting up, but the guards made him lay on his back, forcing him to endure the excruciating pain. All he could do was cry silently. Screwdrivers were lodged into his toe in an effort to pull it off. He was given electric shocks twice every day and as a result, is blind and deaf on his right side.

I have never before heard firsthand of such brutality and malice.

As I stood listening to Mr. Mey’s testimony, I was overwhelmed with compassion and love for him. We told him that we are Christians and that we wanted to share the love of Christ with him. We offered to pray for him and he obliged. And before I knew it, there we were—fourteen Jesus-loving Westerners praying over one Cambodian-Buddhist.

We prayed over him in the same cell he was once tortured in. If that’s not redemption, I don’t really know what is.

When we had finished, we shook hands and began saying our goodbyes. Fire didn’t fall from heaven, and no one busted out of the prison cell this time around. But the air felt thinner to me. The Spirit of God was resting in a place where maybe it never has before. Mr. Mey had an encounter with the one true God today, whether he knows it or not. My prayer is that the Lord would continue to encounter him and speak to him and save his soul. That Jesus would capture his heart and anoint him to bring the good news, to heal the brokenhearted, and from one to another, truly set the captives free. [Is. 61]