At least two serious attempts have been made to write a book about the FCOP Ministry in Cambodia. The first was in 2008 and for some reason stopped at about 120 pages. The author came to me one day and simply said, “You need to write this book”. Mary Ann Lind is her name and she did a good job of capturing the first three years. I’ve never shared any of this before, except for the end story, and edited it down to the bare essence of about two pages to answer a central question. “Why have you been so successful?” The answer may seriously surprise you.
On that fateful morning of April 12, 1975 when the Khmer Rouge ordered everyone out of Phnom Penh, the faith of a few fervent new Christian converts led by Todd and DeAnn Burke was about to be tested in ways that few twentieth century Christians had to endure. Because they were foreigners, the Burkes were forced to evacuate from Cambodia but not before Burke heard the voice of the Holy Spirit say to him,
“I sent you there not only to raise up a body of believers, but to anoint it and prepare it for its burial—for a time when it would have to go underground. But know this, wherever they are scattered, the fragrance of my Spirit will be upon them. And when you do receive word concerning the church, you will not be hearing of a buried body of believers—but of one that is resurrected and walking in the midst of impossible conditions.” (Anointed for Burial, p. 250.)
It was indeed prophetic. On that April morning, groups of these Phnom Penh Christians (approximately 400) attempted to stay together to the degree that they could in the midst of the throngs that were slowly making their way out of the city. Among them was a young married couple, Sister So Phal, her husband and child, and extended family. They gradually trudged northward toward Khompong Thom where they soon ran out of food, had no extra clothes, families were separated by age and sex, and were forced to eke out an existence in the rice fields. (read more)
One day Sister So Phal’s husband was killed along with about forty others. Their hands were tied behind their backs, they were forced to kneel beside a trench which they had dug, and were struck a blow in the back of the head with the blunt end of a crude axe. The Khmer Rouge would not deem it worthy to waste bullets on such insignificant people. Survival from one day to the next became the only goal.
Sister So Phal lost fourteen members of her family. She gave up and prayed that God would simply let her die as well. But somehow, from deep in her spirit, she tapped into an inner strength that kept her going. She lived the truth of the Apostle Paul’s statement in the midst of his first century persecution: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain…I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far, but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” Philippians 1:21, 23.
Perhaps they were also sustained by what can only be considered a miracle, a deeper purpose for a later day. Sister So Phal had somehow managed to hide a Bible. This was extremely dangerous since the Khmer Rouge not only treated Christians with particular cruelty, but the mere discovery that one was in possession of a Bible meant immediate death.
One day, possibly looking for a swift death to reunite her with lost loved ones, she was courageously reading the Bible out in the open along the side of a road. Suddenly an entourage of important Khmer Rouge officials came along, including none other than the infamous dictator himself, Pol Pot. Being a highly educated man, when he spotted the woman reading, he suddenly stopped and asked Sister So Phal what it was that she was reading. Whether it was the strength of the Lord or a welcome resignation of certain death that gave her the ability to answer is unknown even to herself. “The Bible,” she responded with a boldness that shocked her at the time. Pol Pot could have had her killed on the spot and had the Bible destroyed. Incredibly, he responded, “That’s good” and walked on!
While that Bible was a source of sustenance to the believers, they also realized that their lives were imperiled now that the KR knew that it was in their possession. Sister So Phal wrapped the Bible in scraps of plastic and buried it by the roadside where it would remain for three years. When at last in 1979, the Cambodian nightmare of genocide was coming to an end and the Khmer Rouge were being routed by the Vietnamese communists, Sister So Phal went to retrieve the precious, buried Bible. She returned to the spot and started to dig. Sure enough, there it was, soiled around the edges, but still readable! It was one of very few Bibles to have survived the Killing Fields.
In the early 1980’s, the small band of Christian survivors did not know where they were to go. With the Khmer Rouge out of power, Cambodians were again on the move; crisscrossing the country in search of loved ones. Dazed, malnourished, sickly, angry, and sad, an entire nation was wounded. Where were people to go? What were they to do?
Eventually, some of the group made their way back to Phnom Penh, a city that was now only a shadow of its former self. Just to survive was still the order of the day. Although the once grand homes of the wealthy now stood empty, the returnees avoided them, instead settling in shacks and hovels. They feared the return of the Khmer Rouge. They believed that if they lived in the homes of the wealthy, they would only be chased out again, possibly killed. There were 130 families in the largest group, only 30 people survived. Of those 30, many emigrated to Canada. Peter, one of group that remained in Cambodia, became the third “National Leader” of the Cambodian Foursquare Church. Of 84 families in Sister So Phal’s group, only she survived.
Not surprisingly, Sister So Phal refused to give way to bitterness but chose to keep going with her ministry of sharing Christ’s love. She planted several home groups all the way from Phnom Penh northward to Steung Treng, a distance of some 250 miles. Some twenty years later, she taught “Sunday School” on Saturdays for more than one hundred of the street children that crowd around her home located near the well-known “Russian Market” in Phnom Penh. Though she attended the Foursquare Church regularly, she never brought her group into the organization since she had raised her own network of support.
In the 1990’s, Sister So Phal and the small group of Christian friends who had survived the Killing Fields began praying that God would send them a Missionary. Someone like Todd Burke who had led them in the mid 1970’s. They needed someone to encourage them and serve as their shepherd. While they themselves were sharing the Gospel and even planting churches, they were overwhelmed in a dearth of hope. They desired some kind of central direction and felt the need for Biblical teaching. Their desperate prayer was about to answered in a way that surprised everyone, especially Ted Olbrich who arrived in October 1998. He and his wife Sou moved to Cambodia with their youngest daughter Hannah having no idea they were the answer to prayer.
The Foursquare Church began to grow. In just one week in late 2001, twenty churches were started. By the end of 2001, the total number of Foursquare churches had grown to about 200! But the confrontational experience of terminating the second “National Leader” in three years and difficult personnel decisions had left both Ted and Peter (the new “National Leader”) emotionally drained. In a rare time out, they and their wives decided to go to the beach at Sihanoukville for some much needed rest and relaxation. For reading material, Ted had brought along a copy of the book, “Anointed for Burial”, by Todd and DeAnne Burke which he had read many years earlier but wanted to re-read. The book recounts the short but effective ministry of an American missionary couple in Cambodia just prior to the takeover of the Khmer Rouge.
Peter and Ted were relaxing on the beach, each buried in his own reading and lost in his own thoughts. Suddenly, Ted’s breath was taken away. Ted read and re-read the last page. Todd Burke was telling about a dream he had as he and his wife evacuated Cambodia in 1975. The book ends with this passage and he offers no further explanation. I quote:
“I dreamed I was searching throughout Cambodia for our beloved (church) family. I went to all the familiar places, but could find no one; I could only hear their voices. Then for some reason I realized I was carrying a huge piece of lumber wherever I went. Suddenly some Khmer Rouge soldiers spotted me. I was running along a railroad track trying to escape. The piece of lumber was slowing me down, but I was afraid to let go of it. As I neared a bridge, I was startled by a tall, glistening angel standing below in a ditch. “Hand it to me,” he said. “I will keep it for you until you can return and build again.” I awoke from the dream with a startle and suddenly sat up in bed. DeAnn woke up too, and I began to share with her what I had dreamed.
“Todd,” she said incredulously, propping herself up on her elbow in bed, “that dream must be confirmation of the Scripture the Lord gave you about going back to Cambodia!”
“It could be,” I responded. “But since I’ve studied that passage more carefully, I realized that after God originally gave the promise to Jacob it was more than twenty years before Jacob actually returned to the land. We’ll just have to put our timetable into God’s hands.”
“Well…” DeAnn said thoughtfully, as we lay down again in the early morning darkness, “…at least the Holy Spirit was not forced to leave. I know He must be working in miraculous ways through the lives of the believers.”
“Yes” I answered. “God assured us from the beginning that this was His work. But I’ll never forget the sight of that angel holding the piece of lumber and saying. ‘I WILL KEEP IT FOR YOU UNTIL YOU CAN RETURN AND BUILD AGAIN’.”
Ted handed the passage to Peter while lying on the beach next to him and asked him to read it. Tears started forming in his eyes as he slowly read through it. Ted asked, “Peter, where was the first church you ever pastored?”
Peter thought for a second and responded, “That wooden building in the ditch along the abandoned railroad tracks that you and Sou rented from me.”
“It looks to me like Sou and I are ‘plan B’. Todd Burke didn’t keep his appointment and the Lord sent us,” Ted said in a low tone. Peter couldn’t talk. He just shook his head in agreement, tears filling his eyes.
As Ted reflected on the events of the past three years, he was both incredulous and deeply grateful. But, he was also more than a little concerned about something that was beginning to weigh heavily upon him. How in the world were they going to take care of all those orphans who now looked to the Olbrichs as “Pa Thom” and “Mak Sou”?
Before her death in about 2012, Sister So Phal gave the buried Bible to Ted.
**For an account of the Burkes’ ministry, see ‘Anointed for Burial’, by Todd and DeAnn Burke. Plainfield, New Jersey: Logos International, 1977.
