Can physical healing lead to genuine faith in Christ?

There is a danger and a responsibility in being the "resident expert" on a place. For many in the US, I am the only person they will ever meet who has lived in Cambodia. In a one-minute, five-minute, or even hour-long conversation, how will I speak about Cambodia? How will I convey the highs and lows of my experiences, the ways I perceived the Cambodian people, the trends I see in their culture? It's tempting to vent about my frustrations and tell the stories that make me look good. I want to heed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's warning and avoid presenting a "single story." Cambodians are diverse; their culture is nuanced; my own cultural lens remains thick and clouded.

On Sunday, I spoke to a church's missions team. They asked me how I see Cambodians embracing Christianity. I discussed a problem I see: Cambodians professing Christ after experiencing healing from sickness, but never gaining a thorough understanding of the Gospel that compels them to continue walking with the Lord long-term. In the moment, thinking on the fly and trying to be succinct, I didn't mention the cultural context demanding a different approach than I'm used to. I presented an unfair "single story" that is actually more nuanced. I wrote back to them today to share some additional factors:

1. Jesus initially demonstrated His power and sovereignty through signs and wonders such as healing illnesses and casting out demons. I believe what I've heard from some missiologists, that it's common for signs and wonders to occur in groups that are encountering Christ for the first time. They can't see the testimony of people they trust whose lives have been transformed by Christ. In that initial introduction, God often reveals Himself through things they can see. By contrast, mature believers or communities of faith might experience occasional supernatural events, but they don't need to rely on seeing supernatural evidence like this because there is a local testimony of God's faithful presence. In our province, 20 years ago there were about a dozen believers and no churches. In a society that requires conformity and says, "To be Cambodian is to be Buddhist," people need a concrete reason to buck the norm. Signs and wonders help give them the courage to consider an alien worldview.
2. Many Cambodians see the concrete and spiritual realms as intertwined. Cambodians typically don't have health insurance or savings. They are physically vulnerable in ways that we Americans typically are not. And they have very little knowledge of health and medicine. Americans can idolize money and medical care, with a false dichotomy between the material realm and the spiritual realm (ex. if I recover from this illness, it's because of these drugs or doctors I paid for, not because of God's blessing). By contrast, many Cambodians will seek spiritual solutions to daily problems like health, weather for farming, or employment. Seeing that God answers their prayers in concrete ways is an essential component of many Cambodian Christian testimonies. As a Westerner who tends to separate the physical and spiritual realms, I can be condescending toward people who see spiritual causes to much of life, when I am prone to make the opposite error, seeking earthly solutions instead of trusting God to intervene. I have a lot to learn from Cambodian believers whose poverty has taught them to seek God first and finances second. Jesus warns us often about the danger of riches!
3. Coming from a fear-power worldview, Cambodians need to see that Jesus has greater power over their daily lives than other spirits. For example, a house church started about 5 years ago when a woman was close to death and the witch doctor told her she needed to remove a demon-possessed pillar from her house in order to recover. Christians prayed for her, she recovered with the pillar still intact, and her family became confident that Jesus is Lord over all and worthy of their worship. Likewise, I know a guy who wanted to profess faith so he could marry a Christian girl - not the best motivation. But he became convinced that Christianity was true when he cut off all his amulets (meant to appease certain spirits) and the spirits didn't attack him. Because he stayed healthy and safe after committing to Christ, being baptized, and stopping all his animistic practices, he started to believe that Jesus really was sovereign over the spirits he'd always feared and served. If people just hear about Jesus saving their souls, they can combine animism with Christianity like they used to with Buddhism: Christianity covers them after death, but animism is still how they operate day to day. They need to know that Jesus is enough for them in both life and death.
4. Many Cambodians have come to Christ through a Christian hospital in Phnom Penh, where they receive quality care with compassion and dignity, in stark contrast to their treatment elsewhere. They also hear the Gospel there. To go, they have to be referred by a church or missions agency that has an existing relationship with them. So they are experiencing God's love for them through Christ-followers who pray for them to God, the ultimate Healer, and tell them about Jesus being the reason for this kind treatment. And when they return home, someone local can follow up and help them keep growing. Obviously, not all patients who profess faith stick it out, but a number of new believers and church plants nationwide have resulted from this hospital and its referring partners. I have no issue with people coming to faith through physical healing, as long as they grow toward trusting Christ no matter the circumstances. They shouldn't expect constant physical healing and zero suffering because of their walk with the Lord... that's the prosperity gospel, which unsurprisingly has made inroads into Cambodia.
5. Trauma has stunted many people's brains. Trauma comes not only from the genocide in the 1970s, but from the Vietnamese occupation through 1991, domestic abuse, substance abuse, physical risks around machines and extreme weather, tropical diseases, and other common ways poor Cambodians have suffered. It is much more difficult for them to learn new things, especially combined with low rates of formal education and schools that don't teach critical thinking. Families pass down Buddhist and animist practices without explaining any philosophical foundation. Their thinking is very grounded in concrete, day-to-day issues like farming and raising children. Even remembering a simple story about Jesus a week after hearing it is difficult for many village people. Our Cambodian partners with YWAM mostly have a high school education and way more Bible knowledge than many villagers are able to process. They tend to take a simpler approach and emphasize a few basic truths: "Jesus loves you. He cares about your daily problems and struggles. He wants to answer your prayers and take care of you forever. He can take away your sin. You don't have to be afraid anymore."
6. There are no easy answers about the best approach for this population. World Team has trained the YWAMers, house church leaders, and new believers in a more thorough 15-minute "Creation to Christ" story and drawing, which some villagers are able to grasp and retell, while others struggle even with repeated exposure. My teammates have worked hard for 20ish years to simplify Biblical truths more and more and express them in ways that resonate with our partners, house church leaders, and the general population. Our "School of Applied Ministry" for house church leaders takes people through the whole Bible but is designed so that even illiterate people can complete it. The goal is that house church leaders can pass on some of these key teachings, such as a "Walk through the Bible"-type overview of key themes, to local church members regardless of their exposure to formal education. I had a big learning curve in PV province realizing the limits of people's academic abilities and trying to engage them or evaluate their spiritual condition. (In the capital, Phnom Penh, I worked with students and teachers who had a much higher education level. And even in PV, I focused more on the high school students and recent grads, who were much easier to teach.) Maybe some villagers who say they're Christian have a sweet, simple, childlike faith. Maybe others don't yet understand enough to receive salvation and they need to be taught in a better way that helps them grow toward thorough comprehension. The situation requires a lot of prayer and effort in reliance on the Spirit.
7. Cambodia has challenged my paradigms about effective evangelism and discipleship. While as a Westerner, I tend to value head knowledge, I can see the beauty of someone living out the little bit that they know... choosing to trust God in their daily lives even if they can't give a lecture on why God is trustworthy. I still want to see evangelism in Cambodia improve, but I'm realizing the limits of my default methods and assumptions. That's one way I see the benefits of Cambodians and foreigners working side by side, to challenge each other's thinking and spur each other on toward more fully and appropriately conveying Christ to unreached communities.

You can watch the testimony of one young woman I know well, my former intern Sovan Bun, whose heart was first softened toward Christ when her mom was gravely ill. Ten years later, this young woman has a vibrant faith and is making disciples.

English translation:

God told us that those who believe in Him need to obey their parents.

The reason I believe in Jesus is because one time my mom was really sick. I felt helpless about the situation, but I remembered hearing that when we need something, we should pray and ask God. He is able to answer our prayers and supply our needs. When I realized that, I started praying for my mom because she was so sick. She couldn’t walk and she was really thin and she couldn’t do anything anymore. But I prayed for her and I took her to the hospital and she started to believe in Jesus and get better. That’s when I saw God’s miracles and saw that He’s trustworthy. But later, I got discouraged and lonely again. I started praying for God to restore and save me. I knew that Jesus had died on the cross to save me, but I forgot about it and it seemed like no big deal. But one time God reminded me that Jesus’ death for me makes all the difference in the world. I was struck by the enormity of God’s love for me. After that, I went to study at YWAM’s Discipleship Training School. I got discouraged again but I saw God was with me and lifting me up again. Through DTS, God showed me my heart for kids and allowed me to serve them. Ever since then, I’ve really loved kids and wanted to tell them that Jesus loves them, and that Jesus created them and everything they see every day.

For those of you who have lived and served cross-culturally, or even in Cambodia specifically, what did I leave out? What else would you hold up for consideration? How do you fight against the monolithic "single story" when describing your adopted homeland to outsiders?

A memorable visitor

A week ago tonight, I met a Christian family who live near the Plas Prai dorm and attended our New Year’s party. The oldest child, a teenage boy, moved and talked very slowly. The mom told me that Pharat (her son) had become like this since studying too hard. He sat and watched the events as dorm students came up and chatted with him one by one. I wasn’t sure of his intellectual ability during my brief chat with him, but he seemed peaceful and happy to be there.

On Thursday, during a Sunday School meeting with the younger female leaders, they told me Pharat had been visiting daily. They felt a bit uncomfortable around him but invited him in because they felt bad for him. At the dorm, he'd finally found a place where he felt welcome and happy. They had heard from some of some of the dorm alumni that before graduating high school a year ago, he had been a good student, without his current issues. They said that on Wednesday, three of the girls were each bothered by an evil spirit, and they wondered if it was because of him.

Shortly after those comments, Pharat walked in the front gate and sat down next to me in our open-air meeting. “I want you to have this,” he told one girl, putting his krama (cotton scarf) around her neck. She put it on, smiling but taken aback.

He helped read aloud our Bible lesson, in his usual slow pace, with his hands hovering stiffly in the air.  As we discussed John the Baptist, he told us he’d been baptized.

“By whom?” the girls asked. “Was it Pastor Sok?” (his family’s pastor)

“I don’t remember,” he replied. He was quiet in most of the Bible discussion but asked, “Do you all love me? If you love me, I’ll keep coming often.”

“We love you,” we all assured him. I was impressed by the girls’ maturity. I wouldn’t have sensed their discomfort if they hadn’t told me. They really seemed focused on being there for him.

When the meeting ended around noon, we told him it was time for lunch. He asked, “Can I come back at 1?”

“No, we’re going to a sports tournament. We’ll be back by 4.”

I drove home, puzzled by him. Was it appropriate for us to let him on campus so often? Could we send him to a Christian hospital to help figure out whether his problems were physical, mental, spiritual, or some combination? Honestly, we have our hands full trying to serve the students and some of their families who have accepted Christ. He's outside our scope of ministry, and I might have told him just to come to our Saturday night community outreach. But the girls wanted to serve him, and I was moved by their generosity with their time.

By four, I had a message on my phone from another dorm leader. Pharat had been seen passing Plas Prai around one, and his shoes and bike were discovered on a nearby bridge. It’s not a tall bridge, and teens have previously jumped off it to go swimming in the river, which is probably why an eyewitness of him jumping didn’t think much of it. After a search lasting several days, his body was found this morning (Sunday), an apparent suicide. We must have been some of the last people to see him alive. I'm so glad we gave him what we could.

The leaders told me that they first met him because he was depressed and his pastor asked them to go pray for him. The pastor also told me that he believes Pharat was possessed by an evil spirit, like his mom before him. When she first met the pastor, she was looking for deliverance. After she believed in Jesus three years ago, the spirit left her alone and she was healed from a condition similar to his.

I joined his funeral service tonight with many local believers. Though everyone at Plas Prai had just met him, he and his family were heavy on the hearts of many students as well as leaders. The speakers, including this pastor, did a great job communicating the new life that believers have in Christ and the comforting hope of reunion with our loved ones who have believed. We ended by circling around the family and praying for their protection from evil spirits. Normally Cambodian Buddhists picture their deceased loved ones as upset ghosts who need offerings of food, drinks, incense, etc. to be placated and avoid attacking the surviving relatives. Christians often face strong pressure to give these offerings and are blamed for all kinds of family problems if they don’t.

Please pray for comfort for his parents and three younger siblings, as well as other relatives living in their home. His dad is not yet a Christian. Please especially pray that no evil spirits will impersonate Pharat and frighten or harm the family. May they know our God’s power to protect Pharat and them.

His mom gave me a three-minute hug at the end and asked me, “Why didn’t I ever hug my son like this? It was hard for me to show him love.” She struck me as a warm and open woman, but it’s normal here for families to feel awkward about showing affection. I don’t know how much of this hesitation is inherent to Khmer culture and how much is the effects of generational trauma. I believe Christ is changing her, but three years is brief, and who knows what happened in their family in the last four or five tumultuous decades. Evil spirits are a common experience here. Healthcare is hit-or-miss and mental healthcare almost nonexistent. I am convinced she fought hard for her kid, and whatever attacked him, she just didn't have the resources to protect him. 

Probably in my first year here, my friend Suzanne commented to me something like, “To gain the trust of a Cambodian is to hear the story of unimaginable heartache.” At the time, her words didn't resonate. But while I know happy, healthy Cambodians, it seems to me that everyone has extreme pain in their recent family history. Pharat’s story was sandwiched around two other difficult local stories this week. They just keep coming at a dizzying rate.