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 3. T h a i l a n d :"KILLING FIELDS" CAMP REMEMBERS AND CARES FOR "WOUNDED"VETERANS OF THE "Killing Fields" refugee crisis reunited to remember their years caring for those who fled the violence of the Khmer Rouge - and to face their own "wounds".
Volunteers who served with Youth With A Mission in the camps that housed thousands of Cambodians who fled over the border traveled from around the world for a week-long reunion, last month.
More than 600 people from 30 countries served with YWAM in the camps between 1979 and 1995, when the last one closed. At the height of the refugee crisis - provoked by the hard-line Communists' 1974 overthrow of the Cambodian government - around 500,000 filled the Thai camps.
Doctors, nurses and others with YWAM helped run health and education programs, vocational training projects, clothing distribution and social services. In addition, they played a part in starting churches in each of the camps, where membership topped 35,000.
According to YWAM's international director of Mercy Ministries- Steve Goode, who oversaw the 16-year program and helped host the reunion - around 100 churches existing in Cambodia today can be traced back to the United Nations-run camps.
"Only heaven will know how many refugees became Christians through YWAM's work, but it will not be a small number. Nor is there any way of knowing just how many lives were saved through what our staff did," he added.
In addition to hearing updates and swapping stories of their time in the camps, the 25 "Camp Borderline" participants talked and prayed about their own struggles coming to terms with some of the things they saw and experienced.
"Each segment of our lives needs to have closure, and for some who worked in situations like the camp there simply wasn't an opportunity for that chapter in their lives to have 'finished' written on it," said Peter Jordan, director of YWAM Associates International, the alumni movement which organized the event.
"Many who worked in the camps were affected in one way or another. They were in constant danger from shelling. In a way, they were like returning soldiers, having faced battle."
One of the participants - who came from 14 countries, including England, the US, Holland and Australia - said at the end of the week: "Being together helped us to make sense of what happened in us and through us, during our time in the camps."
YWAM workers in the camps also supervised 4,000 refugee staff from Vietnam and Laos, as well as Cambodia. Refugees who became Christians while in the camps went on to start ethnic churches in many of the countries by which they were accepted - including New Zealand, Canada, France and Sweden.
The reunion was held at a hotel in Pattaya, a coastal resort an hour from the nearest former camp. Some participants visited the old sites, where rice fields and grazing water buffalo have replaced the temporary homes. "The only thing left is the memory of what happened there," said Goode.
"It was a very special reunion," he added. "None of us thought it would take 16 years to complete the work. It was encouraging to see how many refugees were we able to assist, and to give honor and thanks to those who served."
Established in 1990, YWAM Associates International publishes In Touch, a special newsletter currently read by around 25,000 former staff and volunteers with the mission.
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