"Giving life and hope to dying Cambodians"
By Deleta Dickson

(Editors note: Recently Deleta Dickson was a part of a University of the Nations team of 13 working in Battambang, the second largest city in Cambodia, which is five hours north-west of Phnom Penh. She considers herself "the most unlikely person to be used in missions." Yet her children, Marcus, 11, and Kaylena, 16, have fallen in love with Cambodia and say they want to be in missions for the rest of their lives. Deleta's parents also have come to Cambodia to serve – their first ever missions trip together.)

"Why are these rooms so dark? What's that awful smell? Why doesn’t this dehydrated man have an IV? Why are patients cooking their own food? And where are all the nurses and doctors?"

The shock of my first visit to the hospital in Battambang, Cambodia, flooded my mind with questions. What was I, a single mom from Bend, Oregon, doing in such a foreign and unseemly place? Only months earlier I'd been a successful sales executive and was buying my second home. I’d had very little discomfort in my life, but it also felt very, very empty. I found myself asking, "God, am I doing what I was created for?"

My pastor recommended Youth With A Mission. Now, after three months in Kona, our Discipleship Training School team had arrived in Battambang, eager to share God's love with broken and hurting people. We'd been told that this was one of the better hospitals in the city, but I didn’t see how that was possible.

This hospital had no electricity, no running water. Patients shared communal bathrooms, if they could walk. I hated it. I would have been happy to forget it existed and crawl back to my "civilized" world.

Since that wasn't an option, our DTS team continued going there. The IT happened. From the doorway, I peeked into a room with five patients. One of them caught my eye. Hesitantly, I walked in and met Lang, the sickest person I'd ever seen.

His bed was filthy, his clothes ragged. He was a skeleton with brown, cracked skin draped over it. His eyes were hollow, sad, empty. He tried to mumble, "Johm Rib Sewa," or "Hello" in Khmer. Through a translator, we talked.

Suddenly, I was filled with an enormous compassion. The smell from his bed turned my stomach, yet I was drawn to him. I reached for his limp hand. It was perhaps the first time he had been physically touched in months. A flicker of surprise crossed his face and he smiled. We were instantly friends. Lang was 31 years old and he, like all the patients I grew to love, was dying of AIDS. His wife was already gone.

Beside him was 27-year-old Wvedo; the others were Heholm, Muiy, and Tahl, but Lang and Wvedo were by far the sickest ones. As I continued to visit these men, the compassion in my heart grew. Listening to their tales about their families, their favorite foods, and all sorts of bodily troubles, created a lasting bond that enabled me to share Jesus with them.

One day, I felt God say, "Give up your free time and go to the hospital. The men in the HIV room are ready to receive Me into their lives." When I walked into their room, warm smiles greeted me.

"Today," I told them through our translator, "I want to tell you a true story about when I'm here." As I spoke about Jesus, they listened carefully.

"I've never heard about this man named Jesus!" Muiy exclaimed. He sat cross-legged with eyes riveted to mine as I told how Jesus had changed my life. Soon, he interrupted again.

"What must I do to know this Jesus?" he asked. One by one, the others also asked if I would pray for them “to know Jesus." Wvedo motioned us beside his bedside. "I believe, but I am too sick to talk much…How can I ask Jesus to forgive me?"

We told him he could pray and talk to Jesus in his mind. He smiled faintly, nodding his head. As we led him in a prayer of repentance, a teardrop rolled down his cheek.

Over the coming weeks, I visited these new Christians frequently. I spent time at each bedside, offering sips of water or coconut milk, which they loved.

One day, Wvedo and Lang were especially weak, but to my surprise they were praising God for giving them strength get up and go to the bathroom.

Then the inevitable happened. Within three days of each other, Lang and Wvedo died. They left this life and entered an eternal one where there is no sickness or disease, confident that Jesus was waiting for them with open arms. Though I missed them, my dedication to the others grew. Muiy's hunger for Jesus grew too.

"I’m so thankful that God brought Christians to tell me how to receive forgiveness of my sins,” he told me. "I used to worry about everything, now I have a peace in my heart! Even if Jesus doesn’t heal me, I love Him so much!"

Heholm was also changing. A quiet and reserved man, he anticipated my daily visits. If I missed a day, he questioned others to see if I had come while he was sleeping.

"Who visits you?" the translator asked him one day. "Where is your family?"

When Heholm proudly pointed at me, I realized we were his only visitors. In face, we were the only visitors most patients ever saw.

On "good days" Heholm tried to teach me how to cook outside, laughing at my inability. On bad days, he could barely take sips of water. On Christmas morning, he struggled out of bed to surprise me by coming to church. His hair was neatly combed and he was dressed in his military uniform, which was by no three sizes too big. I wanted to rush up and give him the biggest huge EVER! He tried to hide his smile at my enthusiasm to see him, but I saw it and my heart soared. It was the first and last time he made it to church.

"Heholm is very sick today," Muiy said as I entered their room one day. When I uncovered his head, Heholm struggled to smile. "Please pray for my pain," he whispered. In this poor country, even dying patients don’t receive pain medicine.

As I started to pray, tears filled my eyes and the words choked in my throat. In four months, I'd grown so close to this kind, loving gentleman. I held his hand and prayed silently, "God heal him or take him home to be with you, please!" He died an hour after I left him that night.

Because of AIDS these people are often left to die alone. Many have been abandoned by their families. Women in the hospital are often cared for by children as young as four. And when their mothers die, these precious children are left alone or sent to orphanages around the country.

As I better understood their situation, I poured myself into their care. I often read Bible stories to the patients and the children. If a translator was not available, I sang or quietly prayed for them or rubbed their heads. Some days, I took children out to play games or to buy them cold juice.

As we played, many patients came to watch. The children's laughter made them smile, as if they'd forgotten the sound. As the weeks passed, I met many women and children – all dying of AIDS, and all happy to have company. The called me "Bong Lo" or "Sister Lo," an affectionate term usually reserved for family members.

How that hospital has changed! Once a place of hopelessness and despair; now the light of Jesus shines there. Children who once hid in corners now laugh, play, and sing songs about Jesus.

One day as I left the hospital, the children lined up, as had become our custom. One by one, they ran into my arms and I kissed their cheeks and said, "Goodbye for today. See you tomorrow. I love you!"

"I love you Bong Lo!" they each responded. One boy kept sneaking back in line to get extra hugs. The laughter that came from them now is like a beautiful song, once forgotten, now freely sung.

Through all of this, I've changed too. The hospital that I once wanted to run away from is now my favorite place to be. I am forever changed, ruined for the ordinary by a love and compassion I've never known.



“DTS team plants a new hospital church”


Since my first uncomfortable days here, most everyone in the hospital has come to church. Of those, 100% of them have given their lives to Jesus. Those too sick to come have heard the gospel from their bedside. To my knowledge, not one person has died there in the last five months without first receiving Jesus. Their hunger to know Him is like nothing I've ever seen.

Our team felt God directing us to have Khmer believers plant a new church at the hospital. Through amazing favor with the hospital administrators, we started services on Sunday afternoons. After setting up for the first service, no one was there. I sat down and nervously prayed, "Lord, I KNOW we heard you correctly. You will send those you want to be here."

The young Khmer Christians started singing and, one by one, people started coming. One woman held her IV over her head with one hand, and groped along with the other. I thought, "I've never seen anyone come to church with an IV! I didn’t even go when I had a cold!" Yet she not only came, she stayed for an hour long service.

Our team also started a discipling program to give the new Christians a foundation. We have them Bibles and each week I eagerly awaited their questions. Some spent all day reading their Bibles. What a thrill to see these new believers telling arriving patients the story of "this man named Jesus."




U of N Battambang is a ministry of YWAM International