Nikki’s Story: Radical Hope

It can feel overwhelming travelling to the other side of the world, to a country and culture so foreign from what you know. They may speak a different language and live so differently from us here in New Zealand, yet we can find this beautiful commonality in our faith and love for the person of Jesus.

There are so many stories from this trip that could be told, but the most impacting for me was hearing the stories of the local A21 Team. How they came to Jesus, how He had called them out and into this line of work, and how their faith underpins everything they do.

I had the privilege of interviewing Arun*. Arun* oversees all the recovery efforts in Cambodia. This includes everything from rescuing survivors to working with law enforcement to ensure traffickers are prosecuted for their crimes. As we walked through the advocacy centre, we began to grasp what this work truly entails. The weight of it was heavy. As I looked around the room, eyes were glazed over as we tried to take in the reality of what we were hearing. They are witnesses to the darkest parts of humanity, yet they carry a type of hope that I thought could only be found in the person of Jesus. That kind of hope, I believed, must have a story behind it.

Later, we heard Arun’s* story. Recruited as a child soldier during the Khmer Rouge war, he found himself one day hiding in a tree, trying to escape soldiers below. For the first time, he decided to pray for his life - to God, to the gods, to whoever would listen. He prayed, “If you could just help me make it through the night.”

Relieved, the next morning he climbed down the tree, took a few steps, and heard a click. He had stepped on a landmine. Again, he prayed. This time, he heard a voice, accompanied by an overwhelming presence he couldn’t explain. It told him to pick up the stick beside him and place it on the landmine. In a moment that felt like everything was over, someone rescued him. He became obsessed with the presence and voice that had spoken and saved him, seeking it out more and more, until it led him to Jesus. He gave his life to God and was forever changed.

We were on our way to meet with a survivor and her family in a village about 45 minutes from where we were staying when one of the A21 team members asked us, “What is the biggest thing that has stood out to you on this trip so far?” My mind raced through everything we had seen and heard, but I kept coming back to one thing that had stayed with me since meeting the team - it was this radical hope.

Something I later learned is that radical hope is one of their key organisational values. That they would be a people who, against all odds, situations, and circumstances, choose to work and live with radical hope - rooted in the hope and salvation we have in Jesus. That the cycle of human trafficking can and will be broken, one life at a time, until slavery is abolished everywhere, for everyone.

Coming back from a trip like that, or even just hearing about it now, you can feel so small in your ability to change or do anything at all. Yet when I asked Arun* what we, and our church family, could do to help further their work on the ground, his first point of call wasn’t money (although that is helpful); it was prayer. Prayer for the survivors, prayer for those still trapped, prayer for the team—for the equipping of the Holy Spirit for what they have been called to do.

Prayer changes things.