Fear for the Ear

Our next shooting location was the refugee camps in the south. YWAM had an extensive, multi-faceted ministry among the Cambodian refugees who had fled the waves of violence that had enveloped their country. There were feeding programs, schools for the children, medical help and vocational skills training. We went to two camps and locations in the towns nearby. While we were in one camp, I feared for my life…or at least my ear. 

These refugees had lost virtually everything as they fled with only what they could carry. Yet there were gangs of Cambodian bandits roaming the border area who would overrun the camps to pillage whatever they could – and they had weapons. While we were at one of the camps, one of the gangs attacked. All of a sudden we heard gunfire as the Thai army tried to hold them off and we were told to stay put in one of the buildings.

While living in Amsterdam, I had gotten an earring. It was a small stud that looked like it could have been a diamond. I kept thinking of the bandits coming in, grabbing the earring and ripping it out of my ear. I had only recently got the piercing so I didn’t want to remove it in case the hole partially closed up. Getting shot or kidnapped could have been a possibility too but the earring thing really captured my imagination. 

On our shoots, I had taken to putting a band-aid over the earring so it wouldn’t be a distraction or offense to our subjects. I tried that so that the bandits wouldn’t see my earring if they got in. My second plan was to try to hide under a bench so they wouldn’t see me at all. My ear is still intact and I am still alive. The bandits were repulsed and we continued our shoot. 

There were a LOT of children in the camps who were extremely friendly. Anything that gave them a diversion from their everyday lives and nightmare-inducing recent past was a welcome distraction. Many had lost their parents. Crowds of them would follow us everywhere we went and despite their circumstances, they loved to smile. 

There was one little girl, about three, whom I thought was so very cute. I don’t know if she was an orphan but I wanted to adopt her anyway. I knew it was impossible but I was smitten. As we were driving away she ran us off, along with a bunch of other kids yelling out two English words over and over in their Cambodian accents – “Okay, bye-bye”. Next stop - Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong is a city in a small area in southeast China called the New Territories that was leased to the British for 99 years. As such, it became a very wealthy colony with extreme contrasts. We shot sparkling high rise buildings and inside The Walled City- a huge, multi-story warren of unregulated building that was like a whole city unto itself. It housed living quarters and small businesses and was rife with drug dealing and prostitution. It was not the safest place to go and if you didn’t have a guide you could very easily get lost. It was made infamous back in the eighties when an English missionary named Jackie Pullinger wrote the book Chasing the Dragon, describing her effort to reach the people in The Walled City. It has since been torn down.

Hong Kong was the headquarters for FEET and we shot footage of yet another one of their teams in locations across the city. One cool place we got to shoot was Aberdeen, an extensive harbor which housed large numbers of the traditional Chinese boats called junks. 

It was good to see my brother, Samuel, who was on staff at the YWAM base. He was also doing some modeling work in town to pay for his staff fees. In that milieu, Samuel also got out and about around town. One night Samuel came with us when we went to a local disco to shoot some footage and that is where I first began to dance.

Off we went to Korea to shoot yet another FEET team. We went to the two largest cities of Seoul and Pusan.  In Seoul, we shot footage of the Olympic grounds being built for the 1988 Games. We also met up with my sister Joy and her husband Rob and shot some Christmas greetings for my parents.

Our final stop was Singapore. Singapore is a city-state that is the world’s fourth leading financial center and its port, one of the five busiest. It has a strong government that keeps things under very tight control. While most Asian cities are rather chaotic, Singapore is the model of cleanliness and order. I was thinking I could have been in Switzerland if it weren’t for the heat.

So after six weeks, we made the long return flight back to Amsterdam to begin putting together video promotionals from the trip. Although I had not done any editing on real productions, I had been allowed to put some of my own stuff together for experience and practice. Now I was allowed to edit for the real productions. This was back in the days of linear editing. I enjoyed the opportunity and it was more great experience.

Despite the cold, I enjoyed the time I got to spend in Amsterdam. My time with Procla-Media was coming to an end and I was going to return to the little ship in Florida. Before I left, I was able to attend the Sinterklaas parade, a Dutch Christmas tradition celebrated on December 5th. New people were also arriving to join Procla-Media, including the Bull family, who would play a significant role in my life a few years later, on the other side of the world.