The Editor,

I am greatly appalled and extremely disgusted with Mr Mike

Evans and his team after having read the article in the Phnom Penh Post of July

14-27, 1995 entitled "Blessed be the Cambodian poor..."

It is

unbelievable that Mike Evans and his team are so unscrupulous that they have got

the courage to produce a misleading video called "MIRACLE: Explosion Cambodia"

containing nothing but lies and exaggerations about what actually happened

during their nearly fatal so-called soul-saving and body-healing miracle mission

in my unfortunate country of Cambodia.

I was in Cambodia during that time

and witnessed with my own eyes a spontaneous angry riot made up of unrelated

individuals who poured out their anger and disappointment in the form of violent

demonstration because they felt tricked and cheated by Mr Evans and his team.

Most of them are poor peasants who sold their few draught animals or borrowed

money from relatives or friends or money lenders at high interest in order to

travel to Phnom Penh to have themselves or their loved ones healed of various

diseases and physical deformity. They lost everything - time, money and

hope.

Many Cambodians are destitute, uneducated, inexperienced with

Western preachers and not assertive enough. They have insufficient medical care

and suffered tremendously for the past two decades. These characteristics and

other circumstances make them strongly vulnerable to a powerful manipulator and

mind programmer such as Mike Evans who promised ludicrously impossible

"miracles".

Mr Mauro can blame the "devil" Khmer Rouge but the fact

remains that what Evans witnessed in Phnom Penh was the desperate response and

anger of the Cambodian people to a liar and opportunist. There are lots of

handicapped people in America and obviously also in Texas. Why does not he save

or heal them first? He doesn't mean to tell me that (his) God loves Cambodians

more than Americans, does he?

The story of two monks wanting to tear

their clothes in public because they felt so sorry about picking the wrong

religion instead of taking Jesus as their personal savior, whether there is any

substance to it or not, is a testimony which does not indicate special miracles

or wonders; it simply implies that Mike and his followers consider Buddhism a

wrong religion and their's the true one. However, I believe I that there have

been some Christians converted into other religions as well. Can I draw a

conclusion then that Christianity is not a true religion?

Evans' mission

to Cambodia is a big blow to the efforts of other Christian denominations to

spread the message of Christ and his love to the world.

Please do not

take advantage of Cambodia and her people any more. Cambodians have endured so

much suffering and do not need such scams.

- Neak Sra Lanh Cheat, Alberta, Canada