A Cambodian Christian's Buddhist funeral

The last time I saw Pu ("Uncle") Deum...

there was a joyful reunion. We both surprised each other: I had told him that our mutual friends the Arters would be visiting with their team from Phnom Penh in late January, but I wasn't sure which day we could visit his village, nearly half an hour from Preah Vihear town. Once they arrived and made a plan, I tried to call but couldn't reach him, so we just drove out to look for him, hoping he wasn't away on his farm. We were all delighted when Pu and two of his daughters were home with time to eat lunch and hang out. Sometimes, Cambodians' flexible approach to time is awfully convenient!

Pu with the older Arter boy during the 2020 homestay

It was the Arters' first visit since spending two weeks with Pu's family to learn Khmer, and Pu had never met their second son. He enjoyed reminiscing with them about their older son, who joined our final English class at Pu's house with Pu's grandsons and some neighbor kids. We gathered to pray with Pu for his wife, who had gone to Phnom Penh the previous morning to resume chemo treatments after surgery to remove a tumor last year.

The reunion, January 24, 2023

Lunch included my interns, the Arters' teammates, and Pu's grandsons

The first time I saw Pu Deum...

was in 2018, when a very drunk, friendly man kept interrupting the Sunday School class at Pu's house. Why don't the hosts ask him to leave? I wondered. Then I found out that this man WAS the host. 

Pu Deum's daughter Sinat, one of our high school students at the Plas Prai dorm in 2018, gave me permission to share her family's story in this post. She was accepted to the dorm partly because her father's alcoholism had crippled his ability to work and exacerbated the family's poverty. Pu's life was never easy, between growing up in the 1970s during a genocide, dodging nearby guerilla warfare for twenty years, losing an eye in an accident involving machinery, and subsistence rice farming. At least one of his siblings and several neighbors likewise turned to alcohol for solace, finding it a cruel mistress. 

While at Plas Prai, Sinat trusted in Christ and told her parents about him. Pu remembered seeing the Jesus film as a teenager and sensing that it answered his big questions about life, but not yet knowing any local Christians with whom to discuss its significance. Now, his daughter's words resonated deeply, and he and his wife Ming ("Aunt") Nia decided to follow Sinat and become Christians. They began studying the Bible weekly with my teammates Jim and Carolyn. 

Pu and Ming's baptism in March 2021, with their son and 2 of our dorm partners

Pu's alcoholism still distressed his family, who encouraged him to go stay with a pastor in another province who helps people detox. Pu was afraid, and twice he ran away after agreeing to go. Then he had a dream about Jesus. "Jesus is real," he often told people after that. "The moment I saw him, all my fear was gone." He lived with the pastor for several months and was mostly sober after that,  except for a relapse during Ming's surgery last year. In debt and without health insurance, Pu found the extra medical expenses very stressful. With his wife five hours away, Pu succumbed to temptation, but stopped again after another brief stay at the pastor's house.

Ming and Pu studying the Bible in May 2022

Pu helping the World Team interns recruit English students, November 2022

Pu, Ming, Jim, Carolyn, and Sunday School volunteers meeting at Pu's home in January 2023

The day after I last saw Pu Deum...

Pu started drinking again. He'd voted last year against his wife getting the recommended chemo after surgery, feeling it was too expensive and unnecessary. But his daughter Sinat realized the chemo's importance and had recently promised to share the cost... a cost which still paralyzed Pu with anxiety. For ten days, Pu was so drunk that when Ming came home, she couldn't even tell him the tragic news that her cancer was back and had spread. Jim and Carolyn went to visit them and found Pu with a mostly-empty bottle of strong palm liquor, 25 cents a liter. Jim had to pull him out of the busy road in front of the house because Pu was too drunk to notice the oncoming vehicles. The evening of February 3, he was killed instantly in a hit-and-run.

All my teammates and the Plas Prai staff piled in the car that night to see his family. Pu's body lay draped in a sheet upstairs while half his village milled around, including his still-intoxicated buddies. Overcome with grief and shock, Ming initially said she wanted a Christian funeral for her husband, but his mom and siblings quickly took over. There would be a Buddhist/animist funeral the next day, hours after Pu's two middle children returned on the night bus from Phnom Penh. (Some of the rites I'll describe here are Buddhist; some are animist or a mix; there's a lot of variation in Cambodian practices.) 

I doubt the relatives intended any malice. Since Pu's family are the first Christians in their village, nobody there had any idea about Christian funerals. And given his sudden, violent death and Cambodians' fear of confused, agitated ghosts, I'm sure his relatives were extra concerned that his body be swiftly and properly laid to rest in a familiar way. My teammates said it might be wiser to yield. They remember someone dying years ago who was the sole Christian in his family and village, and his Christian friends' stubbornness about having a Christian funeral added to the family's grief and left a bad impression on the community. We believe Pu's funeral type has no impact on his destiny, so we could afford to be gracious. The Christians planned a small gathering to follow the Buddhist rites.

This funeral felt more intense than others I've attended. Usually, I've just been invited to the meal at a tent outside the family's home, after the rites. In the background I can hear monks chanting instead of pop songs, and the color scheme is different, and there's no dancing, but otherwise it's a lot like attending a wedding. People sit around eating and making small talk. 

But here, the grief was raw. Funerals are usually 3, 7, and/or 100 days after a death - not within a day. And obviously, Pu's death was unexpected. Ming couldn't participate in the rites happening in their front yard; she could barely stand up from weeping. Her children wept, too, on display for hours in traditional white clothes. Her son, a recent dorm graduate, felt uneasy as a Christian participating in the Buddhist ceremonies. We encouraged him with what he already knew: he had no say in the matter and was just being a dutiful child. "I have to stand there while the monks chant," he told us, "but in my heart I'm praying to Jesus." 

I missed the morning ceremony, known as howoo praleung, or "calling the soul," something I've only ever read about. Procedures and purposes vary. In this case, the achar (Buddhist master of ceremonies) tied a red string to a stick and took it to the spot down the road where Pu's body was found. He set out food for Pu's spirit and gradually pulled the red string farther and farther back toward Pu's house to bring him home. 

We arrived just in time for a procession by the achar and Pu's children with Pu's casket, from the sleeping area upstairs in Pu's home, down the stairs, out to the front yard, three times around the funeral pyre's middle level, and up to the top. The journey up the tall tower symbolizes their wish for Pu to reach heaven. This is a more expensive means of cremation; it's normally done at the pagoda's permanent facilities. Was the money recently borrowed for Ming's chemo all burning up in Pu's cremation? I later found out that it was, but the family was anticipating an eventual funeral payment of the same sum since Pu was an army veteran. It makes me sad that many Cambodians believe their loved ones' security in the afterlife depends on how much they can afford for the funeral.

The Christians and the dorm students prayed with Ming and the children and then mingled with the other guests during hours of monks chanting and funeral music amplified by massive speakers. At Buddhist events here, the crowd is not expected to pay attention - what counts is just showing up. I met some parents of our students from English and Sunday School. Many neighbors had seen the four foreign World Teamers at Pu's house over the years. Several neighbors told me, "Pu was a good man. Even if he sometimes drank too much, he never hit anybody." Pu and Ming had always said the same thing. 

The monks lowered Pu's casket so cremation could begin at 7 PM, the hour of Pu's death the night before. It started off with a literal bang as the achar and his helpers lit fireworks for several minutes that made the audience shriek, just meters away. All the local guests stood attentive during the fireworks, their hands clasped in a gesture of prayer. I'm not sure what's causing the loud moans in the video... the fireworks?... but they were seriously creepy. Combined with my fatigue, the bright flashing lights, the traditional music blasting from a smartphone's YouTube playlist, and the chanting, my American self experienced major sensory overload. 

I felt for Pu's children, who had to sit rigidly facing the pyre for hours, keeping vigil at the cremation. Normally in this part, the neighbors, friends, and relatives also stay on site until the cremation is finished; they keep busy by eating, drinking, and gambling.  Every now and then, the cremation was paused while bone fragments were removed for other ceremonies - some of Pu's bones ended up in a local river, and others in a spirit house in his yard. The Christian/dorm student contingent did some clean-up from dinner and headed home soon after the cremation started, so I can't verify people's behavior later on, but they were still orderly when I left at 8:30. 

Several dorm students asked me how Christian funerals differ. "Burial is more traditional," I told them, "but cremation is okay too. Either way, our bodies can be raised again. We sing and read Bible verses about our hope of being resurrected with Christ, but we don't have a lot of set rituals because we believe Christians are already safe with God." 

Was I actually fine with with this funeral, though? From calling the soul to chanting to carrying the casket up the tower, I wasn't sure what was happening in the supernatural realm. In trying to appease Pu's spirit and protect his surviving family, I believe the achar and monks could well have invited demons into the home. Could Ming resist them while mourning her husband, battling cancer, and losing her husband's income? (Since her cancer, Ming has been too weak to farm; she mostly does housework and watches her grandsons.) 

A soft-spoken woman with minimal formal education, Ming has never been much of an independent thinker. When Carolyn asked her, "Where is Pu?" she pointed to the spirit house. Carolyn reminded her, "No, that's just his bones. Pu is in heaven with Jesus." "Yes," Ming replied, "because he was a good person and never hit anyone." "No," Carolyn gently corrected her, "like all of us, he had sins he couldn't escape on his own. But he trusted Jesus to save him through Jesus' death on the cross." "Oh yes, that's right," Ming assented. Ming struggles to retain new concepts and stories, and given the trauma of recent events, it's not surprising that she'd revert to an old idea.

Now that the only other believer in town is her youngest daughter, age 14, I'm not sure how well Ming will withstand her village's criticism and peer pressure. We're praying for her miraculous healing, and dreading how the village might blame the family's conversion to Christianity for the suffering they've experienced. But thankfully she has some support. Last week, she and Carolyn visited her aunt's church. Her two middle children, now being discipled at our colleagues' university dorm in Phnom Penh, have a strong faith they can articulate clearly. We promised her this month that her youngest can live at Plas Prai next year when she starts high school. Under threat of being disowned, Ming allowed Pu's relatives to install the spirit house, which Christians wouldn't normally have. But while Buddhist relatives leave offerings there, she and her Christian children choose not to participate. 

We returned two days later for a small Christian gathering. One happy surprise was discovering that Ming has a Christian aunt in a nearby village. After several songs, we took turns reading Bible verses and encouraging Pu's wife and kids. Finally, Carolyn reminded us of Pu's testimony. "He sought the truth from a young age," she told us, "and he knew when he'd found it."

"The next time we see Pu Deum..." 

she reminded us, "he will have the same giant smile that appeared every time he told his testimony. Pu is healed, happy, and smiling. We don't need to fear his ghost!"

The next week, when we went out to teach Sunday School, we were sad to find no village kids waiting for us. "They're all scared of Pu's ghost," Ming confided, pointing to the golden spirit house. We set out on foot to invite them back and reassure them that Pu couldn't hurt them. I was so thankful for our lesson that day - Jesus' ascension to heaven, where he's preparing a place for us. 

Right near the spirit house, we played Resurrection Tag, where Satan tags people and they have to sit down, symbolizing death. But when Jesus tags them, they come back to life. If Satan tags Jesus, he has to sit down for 3 seconds, symbolizing three days, but then he comes back to life and can keep resurrecting other players. "Pu is resurrected too," we told the kids. "We don't have to fear his ghost because he's safe with Jesus, just like we will be if we trust in Christ." By the end of the lesson, nearly twenty kids had joined in, and in the following weeks they came unprompted. 

My teammates and I certainly wouldn't have chosen to conclude Pu's life on earth in this way. We grieve the fragility of life here. If Cambodia were more like the US, with AA, Medicaid, closer hospitals, and guard rails around limited-access highways, Pu would almost certainly be alive today. We have concerns and questions about the future. Will Ming join her aunt and worship with a nearby congregation? Will her cancer be healed in this lifetime? Will the citizens of Bakam village end up more open or closed to Christ than before? Will some of these kids and their families one day worship God with Ming and her children? Will the Bible study fizzle out and come to nothing? 

We have no control over these questions. But we want to be obedient, and we want to pray in faith that God loves Bakam village more than we could. May the Bakam community see Christ's faithful love and power as we keep walking with this family. And may we hold on to our confidence of a joyful reunion with Pu Deum, where we'll compete with him for the biggest smile.