Alina
Most people discover their world gradually. We learn to talk and interact with the world long before memories consciously form. Who of us can remember the first time they heard their name spoken? Or remembers that first sense of belonging? Or with certainty, knowing that snow was “snow” (for example) and could express their excitement over seeing it? Alina can remember all of these things. She was seven years old when her discovery of the world began.
Alina, Ukrainian by birth, American by adoption, was born deaf as a result of Waardenburgs Syndrome. Orphaned at age three and presumed “mentally retarded,” she was labeled an outcast in Ukrainian culture. Non-verbal, and presumably unable to learn, she was given no hope for a future and left without any way to communicate and experience the world.
My family met Alina in her institutional home in Uzhgorod, Ukraine . . .
The Old Generation
April 17th 1975. It’s been called “the day that Cambodia descended into hell.” It was a day that indisputably changed the course of a nation and the life of anyone who survived.
By spring 1975, Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, had swollen to an estimated population of three million people. Many had fled to the city from their rural homes as brutal Khmer Rouge forces gained control of outlying areas throughout preceding years of civil conflict. The mission of the totalitarian Khmer Rouge was to return the country to “year zero” and on the 17th of April, they took the last remaining part of the country that stood in the way of their goal. It was on this day that Cambodia’s history transgressed from civil war to genocide.
At gunpoint the entire city was emptied . . .
When the River Flows Backward
The Tonle Sap is the world's only river that reverses course naturally twice per year. Driven by spring melt, each May the Mekong River rushes south from Tibet, toward Phnom Penh, with a flow of roughly 500,000 cubic feet per second. Where the mighty Mekong converges with the mild-mannered Tonle Sap, just south of the village of Prek Pnov, the force of the powerful river overtakes the smaller, reversing its direction of flow and flooding everything in its path . . .
Kampot Salt
“You are the salt of the earth.” Matt. 5:13a
A Sisterhood: Cambodia’s Nuns
“Sisterhood is a capacity, not a destiny. It is chosen and exercised by acts of will.”
Going to School in Cambodia
A Day in the Life of Cambodia’s Children