Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and meeting children

Yesterday, we got to go the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum This was a high school which converted to a place of imprisonment, torture, and execution. Going into the rooms in which the tortures occurred really moved each of us. I've read and heard about the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, but to actually see the beds and devices that were used for torture really made it that much more real. The pictures which showed the tortured and executed victims were very graphic. I can't really explain the feelings. Shock, horror, angry, sorrow... There were also thousands of pictures of the people who were imprisoned in that camp. What was really shocking was the number of children's pictures there were. One of them that will be hard to get out of my head was this cute little girl who couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 years old. There were between 17,000 and 20,000 prisoners in this camp and only 12 known survivors. How could something like this happen? A comment that Madam Samuen, pastor's wife of New Life Church, made that really made me sad, was during the time when she was going through this time and felt her life was in danger. She something on the lines of, when we faced things like this we could call on God, who did these people call upon?

Now that I've depressed you, I wanted to bring you brighter news. Sorry, I wasn't trying to make feel bad. Today, we got to meet the children yea!! So we get off the bus and what we though were going to be about 40 but turned out be more like 80 to 100 kids. A bunch of children in the community came out, which was pretty awesome. They were so excited to see us. They put us in front and sang some songs to us. It was pretty moving, I don't think there were many dry eyes among our team and what made it escalate was to see some of the children crying. They seemed to have really missed the past teams that had come through, Noelle and Tammy, our team leaders, some of the members. Then it was off to play games/sports. We played 4 square, great choice Stuart! Super hot, but really good times. We had so much fun and got to make some connections with the children. We are so excited and blessed to be spending the next 4 days with these children. They are so precious and loving. And not to mention generous. One boy brought me this fruit that he had just picked from a tree and they even gave some of us massages, and we didn't even ask them for them. God has already rocked our world on the first day. Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring!!