Come and See

(The original version of this post was written in February 2005 after I returned from my initial trip to Cambodia with Professor Sang Ki (SK) Lee whom I had met in the summer of 2004 when I first taught at Handong).

“Come and see what our God has done, what awesome miracles he does for his people!” (Psalm 66:5) What an invitation! Would you accept it? What if accepting meant traveling more than half-way around the world to a place you had never been before? If it meant going to a third-world country? A country dominated by a communist political party? A country where Buddhism is the officially-sanctioned religion? To a land littered with dry human bones scattered over more than 300 “killing fields” where Pol Pot and his band of Khmer Rouge reigned just a short 30 years ago? Yes? . . . No? . . . Maybe?

But, what if this invitation was issued through one of God’s faithful servants? What if the Lord provided the funds to accept the invitation through a most remarkable set of circumstances in which His hand could not be denied? What if the invitation was actually a challenge to test whether you would, in fact, do what you had been teaching students to do for the past four years? What if, in so doing, you would have to leave a place a comfort, safety and security and take personal risks by going to where others are in deep need in an effort to help address some of those real, concrete needs in ways that embody the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

What if all the necessary paper-work for this journey sailed through both the U.S. government (providing you a renewed passport) and the Cambodian Consulate (granting you a visa) in less than 20 days? What if every barrier that might otherwise impede your way was removed, and you were left with this choice – a choice that would mean risking exposure to diminished personal comfort, safety and security?

Would you go? Would you come and see? You might be anticipating that I am going to say something like, “While I know most of you wouldn’t, I jumped at the chance!” But that was indeed not the case. I doubted whether I should accept the invitation from the very beginning and even after all the roadblocks were cleared from my way, I still hesitated and haltered.

Had you asked me in January of 2003 if I would even be giving the slightest contemplation to serving on a project in East or Southeast Asia, I would have wondered from what planet you had just arrived. The entire continent of Asia was not even on the radar screen -- much less the remote country of Cambodia. But God has his way of “leading his own with his hand upon them.” In the summer of 2003, at an academic conference in Chicago, I presented a paper on the topic “Some Limitations to Faith and Learning Integration.” Immediately after my talk, a professor from Regent University by the name of Mike Schutt presented on a similar subject.

My meeting Prof. Schutt lead to an extended conversation over dinner that evening and later to an invitation from him to present at the Christian Scholars Symposium convened at the national conference of the Christian Legal Society in the fall of 2003. At that conference, my presentation was attended by two professors from Handong International Law School (HILS) in Pohang, Korea. Following the delivery of my paper, Prof. Hee Eun Lee and his colleague, Prof. Kuyper Lee, asked me to consider applying for a summer visiting professorship at their university. The following spring my application was accepted and in the summer of 2004, I taught a course on U.S. Antitrust Law at HILS in Pohang.

While teaching at HILS in the summer of 2004, I stayed in the campus apartment of Professor SK Lee -- one quite remarkable, 70-year-old, devoted follower of Christ. He had been instrumental in not only helping to establish Handong Global University in 1995, but also in founding their International Law School in 2001 when he served as the Law School's first Dean.

One early morning as the two of us walked around the perimeter of HGU’s beautiful campus nestled in the foothills of the mountains above Pohang, Professor SK challenged me with a new opportunity that he was beginning to work on. I must admit, it sounded far-fetched – starting an evangelical Christian university where? – Cambodia? Isn’t that a country still ruled by communists? What’s that I remember from high school about the Khmer Rouge?

Professor SK simply asked me, at that time, to begin praying about coming back and teaching again next summer (July 2005) at HILS and then the following summer (2006) in Cambodia, when he believed the new university would be up and running. How do you respond to a request like that coming from a devoted follower of Christ? How could I say that I wouldn’t at least be willing to pray about it? So I did.

In October of 2004, my wife and I traveled to the national conference of the Christian Legal Society in McLean, Virginia. That year, however, the conference was held in conjunction with the international convocation of an organization called “Advocates International.” Lawyers, judges and law professors, as well as law students, from over 100 countries were in attendance including Prof. S.K. Lee, Prof. Hee Eun Lee and another of their colleagues from HILS in Korea. In characteristic fashion, Prof. SK wasted no time in telling me about a project that was scheduled not for the summer of 2006, but for January 2005 in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Then he said, “Come and see.”

That was the invitation that started my journey to Cambodia. When I returned from that first mission to Cambodia with my Handong University colleagues, many people asked me, “How was your trip?” The only phrase that I found to be a suitable response was: “Beyond phenomenal!” Not only was our team enabled, in three short weeks, to put together an initial proposal for the establishment of a new university (including a master site plan for the campus), we also were able to have several meetings with both provincial and central governmental officials.

Each meeting went better than I had ever expected. We received the approval of the provincial authorities, and to top off the “awesome works” that we saw God performing there, the governor and his wife donated a tract of land measuring one kilometer by two kilometers (over 300 acres) for the site of the new university!

At the conclusion of the international conference that our project group hosted in Siem Reap, Cambodia on 21 January 2005, I was asked to offer some brief remarks. Here is what I said:

"One generation ago this country endured three years, eight months and twenty days. The blood of the millions shed upon the multitude of killing fields of this land now cries out to us for healing. The world will not long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what the victims suffered here. May God grant this country a re-birth of freedom so that what was formally “The Killing Fields” may now become the Healing Fields – of the people, for the people and by the people of Cambodia. May the Spirit of Handong Global University be used by the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ to help this new birth of healing peace come and prosper in and upon this beautiful land."

Now the invitation to teach at Handong has been extended to me once again. In a few short weeks, I'll be departing for Pohang with my wife to follow later this fall. We're responding, by God's grace, to the call . . .

“Come and see what God is doing and will do in Korea!”