Happy Easter everybody! What a glad day it is to ponder the great gift of resurrection freely given to all people, and to contemplate the meaning of the atonement wherein all have opportunity to repent and come unto Christ. How fortunate we are!

Cambodia is a land of contrasts, and the following five photos depict some of that contrast during this Easter weekend.

We are beginning to pull out of our dry season with a few heavy rains in the last two weeks. This has brought out more color, as evidenced by this quick photo of a flowering tree common to the mission home neighborhood. It exemplifies the hope that is special to Easter.

Elders Thalman and Snyder standing in the courtyard of the notorious Toul Sleng prison wherein at least 20,000 were tortured and killed during the Khmer Rouge era 1975-79. The unassuming exterior of the old building hides the interior prison cells with traces of blood still on the walls and floors. Although emotionally difficult to view, it gave us peace to know that Christ's resurrection paves the way for the resurrection of the Toul Sleng victims along with all mankind.

One of many unidentified victims in Toul Sleng prison. We have not yet met a single native Cambodian whose life was not altered by those awful events—so many with blank pages in their family histories because their ancestors were killed.

Two trash handlers who do not yet know of the hope of Easter.

The mission’s irrepressible administrative assistant (Tay Phirum) who does know of the hope of Easter.

The Tonlé Sap is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia and is unusual for two reasons: its flow changes direction twice a year, and the portion that forms the lake expands and shrinks dramatically with the seasons. From November to May, Cambodia's dry season, the Tonlé Sap drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. However, when the year's heavy rains begin in June, the Tonlé Sap backs up to form an enormous lake. For most of the year the lake is fairly small, around one meter deep and with an area of 2,700 square km. During the monsoon season, however, the Tonlé Sap river, which connects the lake with the Mekong river, reverses its flow. Water is pushed up from the Mekong into the lake, increasing its area to 16,000 square km and its depth to up to nine meters, flooding nearby fields and forests. The pulsing system with its large floodplain, rich biodiversity, and high annual sediment and nutrient fluxes from Mekong makes the Tonlé Sap one of the most productive inland fisheries in the world, supporting over three million people and providing over 75% of Cambodia's annual inland fish catch and 60% of Cambodians' protein intake. At the end of the rainy season, the flow reverses and the fish are carried downriver. The reversal of the Tonlé Sap river's flow also acts as a safety valve to prevent flooding further downstream. During the dry season the Tonlé Sap Lake provides around 50% of the flow to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. (Special thanks to Wikipedia for language and facts.)