About Cambodia

Cambodia is about the size of Oklahoma and is located in South East Asia, between Vietnam and Thailand. The population is currently around 13 million. The predominate ethnic group in Cambodia is the Khmer, who speak the Khmer language. Most of the people live in small rural villages where they support themselves through rice farming, but Cambodia's capital and other major cities are growing. The population has a very large demographic of young people under the age of 25.

Life has been a struggle for most of those living in Cambodia. After finally gaining independence from France in 1953, Cambodia faced a much more brutal enemy. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge army forced everyone, including the sick and elderly, to evacuate the cities. They were marched into the countryside and forced into slave labor in an attempt to form a communist-based agrarian society. The regime executed mass numbers of people, especially targeting the educated, in one of the bloodiest revolutions in history. By the time the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979, more than one million people had been murdered.

Although now at peace under a Constitutional Monarchy established in 1993, Cambodia continues to suffer the effects of war. Land mines are scattered throughout the rural countryside, causing many to be maimed or killed each year. Adult life-expectancy rates are low and infant mortality rates are high due to poor sanitation and a lack of adequate health care. Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

In the midst of this the Gospel of Jesus Christ can come with power, giving hope to those who’ve never heard of God’s saving grace! The horrible things that these people have suffered have caused many of them to begin looking for answers beyond the borders of Animism or Buddhism. It’s now up to us to share the Gospel with them just as it has been shared with us. Cambodia is both receptive and unreached—Two reasons why we should act quickly!