Sad, shocked eyes looked at us from the hospital bed. Earlier in the week Sam Ren had driven the “iron buffalo”, a type of village tractor which carries goods and people across the field to tend the chilli plants. The villagers had been planting this field for some years and used the path across the fields regularly. At night they set out to return home on the same route. A sudden horrible explosion and thirteen people were killed violently, victims of an anti tank mine laid during the civil war of more than twenty years ago.
Among the dead were his wife and six-month old baby. The husband and wife who owned the tractor were also dead leaving behind two orphaned children. The village wailed as the remains of the bodies were cremated and Sam Ren struggled in the hospital. His legs are badly injured and a second surgery has to be done. The deeper wound is of course in the heart. As we celebrate these 30 years of JRS, I ask for the strength of wisdom and compassion for JRS and friends to know how to accompany Sam Ren.
We pray to know a little more the heart of God who wants us to be part of a space where reconciliation and healing can happen for him, and for a world polluted with explosive remnants of war. “The road to my heart is wounded”, says Sam Ren (“plow chett at sruol”). Is this an echo of God?
Sr Denise Coghlan
21 November 2010
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Related article: Landmine kills 14 in Cambodia
