Alli Mellon: Stories of a Fellow Missionary

I remember my first impression of Alli Mellon. It was at the
training camp for my trip to Peru, and at that time, she was in charge of all
Ambassador Trips and leading training camp. We had just finished a training exercise
and we knew we were supposed to be back at the big tent at noon. Us and most of
the other teams didn’t end up getting back to the tent till around 12:15 and
that is a big no no for training camp (mainly because when you are on the
mission field and are told to be back at a certain time and you aren’t, they
will go looking for you because you could have been kidnapped or hurt or
anything). Right when everyone got back under the tent Alli began speaking very
loudly to us (yelling) and explaining in detail how important it was to be on
time and how disappointed she was in us. I have to admit, I was a bit afraid of
her haha! You know that saying about how it takes 10 more encounters with a
person to erase the first impression? Well, that wasn’t the case with Alli
Mellon. Within a few hours I couldn’t get enough of this lady who had such a
huge heart for God and was filled with nothing but love.

This past summer when I arrived at training camp for the
Philippines, I stepped off the bus and she was the first person I saw. I said
hi to her and she looked at me funny and said, “You were here last year weren’t
you? I remember you.” I was quite surprised because I knew that she meets
hundreds, if not thousands of people every year that she has been with AIM. Throughout
the week, even though Alli was no longer fully in charge of Ambassador Trips, I
tried to talk with Alli as much as I could. There was something about her that
sucked me in.

Towards the end of the week I found out that Alli was
leaving AIM to go work with another organization that sends missionaries to
closed countries. I was sad to see her leave but I knew that she was doing God’s
will and made sure to tell her how much she meant to me one night after worship
before she left. Since I have been home she has been sending me updates from
Cambodia every couple of weeks and each one breaks my heart. Here are a few of
the stories she has told and be sure to have some tissues ready because a
couple of these are tear jerkers.

We continue to fight the battle in
Svay Pak. The wildest thing happened last Friday when I was teaching, and it
was a sharp reminder indeed that “we do not wage against flesh and
blood”…I was speaking on spiritual warfare, and teaching the kids that
Satan is bad. You may think that this is too heavy or scary of a
concept to teach to 2-14 year olds, but believe me, these kids see demons
every day. They see them in the faces of the men who rape them, and in the
actions of their parents who get drunk and beat them, and they feel them in the
cloak of fear that envelops their village. They are terribly afraid of ghosts,
and because people are way into ancestoral worship here, they believe that
their dead relatives come back to haunt them…they know there is truly an
enemy, they just haven’t known his name.

To set this up, as I’ve told you
before, the former brothel we teach in is an echo chamber-it is always loud and
echo-y, and we have had to project our voices hard to be heard
against even the smallest noise. If five or six kids are talking, it sounds
like one hundred. For the last month or so, it’s been way better. The kids are
learning! For kids who have never been in formal school, they have
been so quiet and attentive, and it’s been becoming easier and easier to get
their attention and be heard. We developed a system of discipline, which mainly
is writing their names on the white board behind us if they don’t stop talking
and listen. Three strikes, no snack. Four strikes, and they have to leave for
the rest of the day but get to come back and try again the next time. These
kids are very hungry, so after one strike they usually pull it together so they
don’t miss snack!

So I was up in front of all the
children, acting out how Jesus gives us authority to trample on snakes and
scorpions, and to overcome all the power of the evil one. I was teaching them
John 10:10-“The thief comes only in order to steal, kill, and destroy. I
have come that you might have life, and life in all it’s fullness”. I was
excited and full of energy that day, because I believe so much in using the
weapons God has given us! Things were going well, and then it started…it got
louder, and louder, and louder…I found myself shouting just to be heard above
the din. I looked out over the crowd, marker in hand, to see who was talking so
I could write their names on the board…and NO ONE was talking. Every
kid was sitting, looking at me and listening, with his or her lips pressed
together. Only a couple of babies were babbling, no big deal…but there was a roar
in the room, a roar of voices. I am not making this up,
though I know it must sound strange to some of you. I believe that it was the
voices of demons filling that place. I believe that Satan and all his forces
came out in mass to stop us from speaking the TRUTH to these precious ones. The
worst thing that could happen to the demons is Svay Pak is that God’s kids
learn to fight against them!!!

My translator brought up the same
point later, “Alli, I looked out over the room to see who was talking and
to write their names on the board, and no one was
talking”…

I was losing my voice up there, and
it was only God Himself who kept me from just giving up and sitting down.
Somehow, I kept teaching (shouting), and finally got to the part where I taught
the kids how to do what Jesus did and say, “GO!” Despite the
distraction of all those voices, despite how hard the enemy was trying to stop
us, about 65 children stood and at the top of their lungs began shouting,
“GO, in Jesus’ name!”

And I believe the demons went.
What choice did they have against God’s little army?

On Monday, it was Ruthie’s turn to
teach, and she started off doing a recap of what I taught on Friday. You
guessed it-the exact same thing happened again! She started talking about
Satan, and the same strange roar filled the room. Then, fifteen of the kids
jumped up and ran out to see why some baby was crying at the door! She could
hardly even get the words out, but my heart lit up when she asked them,
“What do you do when you are scared? What do you do when you feel fear or
evil?” and a precious ten-year-old jumped up and said, “GO!”
I think Jesus understands that she meant GO in His name:)

In addition to our usual three days
in Svay Pak, this week we also went on Saturday to see some guys from America’s
Power Team. They came to help open the gym in Svay Pak-an outreach to pimps and
drug dealers in the community. They were about 300 lbs of solid muscle, and
caused quite a stir in this crazy little dirt village! Most Cambodian guys
weigh around 120 soaking wet! That day, Raksmey, one of our little girls, had
trouble walking. She had trouble sitting. She had trouble standing. She was
constantly readjusting her clothes, and had obvious problems in the vaginal
area. This is one of the things we have been trained to look for. If a girl
can’t sit properly, then most likely she has just been sold. Raksmey is eleven.

This week, my heart is about to
burst for the kids in Svay Pak. We are getting dangerously close to them; it’s
dangerous, because our hearts get broken every day, the more we learn about
their lives. Today I had tears running down my face at two different
times, just thinking about what it will cost to continue to minister in
Svay Pak. It will cost lots of money-we are up to about $200 per week with the
incease in kids and snacks. We could cut out the food, but the children are so
hungry…I can’t bear to feed them God’s word and ignore their growling
stomachs…we could cut down the amount of time we spend there, but these kids
will only get truly rescued if Christians increase their
time there…It will cost many more tears as we see innocence being lost, as we
see babies being forced to be adults, as we see the plans God has for them
being distorted by evil men…It will cost a lot to see the children set free.

Last week in Svay Pak, I read a
children’s book to the kids called a A Terrible Thing. It was
written for children in America who have gone through trauma and are suffering
the effects of it, trauma such as witnessing a horrible car accident,
seeing violence in their homes, surviving a tornado…It’s all about a raccoon
named Sherman who saw a terrible thing happen, and at first he tries to hide it
and stuff it inside, and then is finally able to get it out through talking to
a counselor and doing Art Therapy.

The kids really listened to the
story, and afterwards we gave them a piece of paper, folded over for privacy,
and told them to draw any terrible thing they had seen. I made a huge cross on
the floor with strips of material, and told the kids that they could take their
terrible thing to Jesus and He would comfort them. I told them that they could
come to each one of us adults, and tell us about the terrible thing, and that
we would pray for them. I wasn’t sure how they would respond-this is the first
time we have offered to pray for them one-on-one in the middle of our Kids’
Club like that. They are not allowed, culturally, to cry or to show emotion.
They are expected to be tough as nails, and the scars on their faces and bodies
prove it. Coming up for prayer in this culture would definitely be considered a
sign of weakness.

But they came, gobs of them! They
came and waited for the chair next to one of us staff was empty, then they
would push and shove to get the seat. These kids had seen terrible things
indeed. Many of them had witnessed the same car accident, when there was a
horrible crash on Highway 5 that runs right past Svay Pak and at least two
people were dead in the road, and they drew pictures of it…some of them drew
pictures of people with their fists coming towards them, pictures of
someone beating them with sticks, pictures of ghosts that they see in
their dreams or in their bedrooms at night…

The one that got to me the most was
Srey Mai’s picture.She drew the tiny wooden shack that lies a few streets over
from Rahab’s House. She drew it perfectly-high up from the ground on stilts,
with it’s only door padlocked tight, with it’s tall, skinny ladder rising from
the ground up to the window that people climb through to get into the
shack…And then she drew a picture of a little girl, of herself, and of a man,
inside the shack. We asked her what this was, and she said, “the
brothel”, with fear on her face…She was starting to tell us more about
it when other kids shoved themselves into our conversation and Srey Mai shut
down. So we just began to pray the protection of Jesus Christ over her small
body, and the peace of His Holy Spirit over her heart…

Other kids drew the shack as well.
It is a place of fear, even for the boys. I am certain that some of them are
taken there as well.

Pray for Alli and the children she ministers to. If you
would like more stories or would like to donate to her, let me know at
[email protected].