Christopher LaPel grew up near the royal palace in Cambodia and wore a small ivory cross as a boy, though his father disapproved. Then the Khmer Rouge came. In 1975 he was driven into the labour camps, working sixteen-hour days in the fields. He lost both parents, a brother, and a sister to execution and starvation. He nearly died himself. When he was too sick to work for three days, soldiers came to execute him, and one of them looked at him and said he really looks sick, and walked away.
He survived into a refugee camp in Thailand, empty and grieving. There a missionary told him that Jesus Christ had died on the cross for his sins. "This is the answer I've been waiting for," LaPel said, and he gave Jesus his life.
The general who said, my sin is so deep LaPel became a pastor and went back to teach his own people. In 1995 a quiet man calling himself Hang Pin came to one of his leadership trainings. He gave his life to Christ, was baptised the next day, and began leading a house church. Only later did the world learn who he really was. Kang Kek Iew, known as Comrade Duch, had run S-21, the prison where around twelve thousand people were tortured and killed. He came to LaPel and said, "My sin is so deep."
Duch surrendered to the authorities and was sentenced to life in prison, where he wore out the Bibles LaPel kept sending him. The man who survived the killing fields carried the grace of Jesus back to one of the men who built them.
No sin is too deep for the blood of Jesus. Not the worst thing done to you. Not the worst thing you have done.
