Ep. 191: Finding Joy in the Scars

Kourtney Cromwell:
Welcome to the indoubt Podcast where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s Word. For more info on indoubt visit indoubt.ca or indoubt.com.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Hey everyone, this is Kourtney and I’m so happy you’re here. On this week’s episode of indoubt, we’re joined by Brian McConaghy, who’s the founder of Ratanak International. Brian actually spoke at my young adults group not too long ago and with the things that he shared, I knew it would be a valuable conversation to have him on indoubt. In this episode, Brian tells of his journey of smuggling medicine into Cambodia 30 years ago to now where he’s part of Ratanak and has the privilege of taking young men and women out of modern slavery. We do touch on some topics that might not be suitable for younger listeners. There are some harsh realities and some sensitive content in this episode, but there is hope in the conversation, so I hope that you enjoy the episode with Joshua and Brian.

Joshua Scott:
Welcome to indoubt. My name is Joshua. I’m your host today and I’m joined in the studio by Brian McConaghy and it’s just such a great pleasure to have him with us. He’s the founder of Ratanak International, which is something we’re going to hear a lot about and I’m looking forward to having you hear about it because as I heard about it, my heart just broke for what’s going on in this world. But I’ll let Brian do the sharing there. So, Brian, thanks so much for joining us today.

Brian McConaghy:
It’s a pleasure to be here.

Joshua Scott:
So would you tell us just a little bit about yourself, your career, your training, and what it is you do?

Brian McConaghy:
Yeah, I’ve ended up in Christian ministry, but that was never my plan. My original career was as a Weapon Specialist and the RCMP Forensic Science Weapons Specialist. I come by that honestly, I grew up in Belfast, in Northern Ireland as a child through the fighting of the Troubles. And so, I was surrounded by weapons and weapons were of great interest to me. And so, it’s almost like an ethnic genetic thing. If you come from Belfast, there’s got to be something in there. And so, I learned about weapons very early on and that turned into a career in forensic science in the RCMP when we immigrated to Canada, I was 15 when we emigrated. And that was a really ugly world. I mean, it’s a great job, but a really ugly world to live in, in terms of dealing with the autopsies, the crime scenes, the forensic examination of weapons, which was the more fun part, but dealing with the human elements was tragic.
And every day you were getting up and dealing with what humans do to other humans. So, it was quite an eye opener for a young guy in his early 20s to get this job, be posted to Vancouver, which was at that time, the busiest forensic science office of that sort in Canada. And so that was where I started learning how to deal with my faith in that world because I grew up in a Christian family and it was kind of a very domesticated Christianity. And is it mine or is it my parents? That all became very real when you’re by yourself and you’re in Vancouver and it’s Monday morning and you watch the news Sunday night, so you know what autopsies you’re heading into and you’re dealing with all kinds of abuses and you’re standing in rooms with dead people or rooms that are blood splattered and it’s ugly.
What do I do with that in terms of faith? One, how do I view humans in this context? And so, it was a huge learning curve and a very maturing experience for me in terms of my faith, where my faith had to become my own. It was no longer academic. It had to be real.

Joshua Scott:
Yeah. Wow. So, your Christianity, your faith, how did that take when you went into those scenarios and you experienced all of that, how did that shape what you were viewing and then form who you are now with the passion and the drive that you have?

Brian McConaghy:
Well, I think to be pragmatic about it, it was a huge advantage because I had a box to put evil in.

Joshua Scott:
Yeah. Wow.

Brian McConaghy:
Many people I worked with did not have a box to put that evil in. And, it’s a fairly hardened environment. Well, a very hardened environment, so you’re dealing with drug dealers, murderers, whatever, who themselves end up dead, there’s not a whole lot of sympathy. We used to kind of joke about where they rated on the international sympathy index and it was low, but then you get into autopsies and killings of children and infants and pregnant women and it gets much more sensitive. And now people are struggling in a different way in terms of what do we do with this evil to the innocent, to those that are perceived as pure and innocent? And I had a box for that.
I recognized that humans are fallen, and this is the result of our fallenness. And there is a solution in the Lord in terms of sin and forgiveness and the grotesque violence, violent deaths, I was witnessing were a mirror of the violent death that Christ went through for me to preserve me from that same evil. So, there’s a sense in which it all worked. And so, I didn’t find myself anywhere near as upset actually by some horrendous circumstances, particularly with regard to children as some others did who simply didn’t know what to do with that. And I’m kind of going, “Yeah, this is tragic. This is heartbreaking, but I know why this is happening. And I know there’s a solution in the greater scheme of things.”

Joshua Scott:
So you’re the founder of Ratanak International. So, you work with those particularly in Cambodia to empower those who have been exploited. So, what’s the connection to Cambodia? How did this happen?

Brian McConaghy:
There was none originally, I was at the stage where I was really sick of dead people getting up every day on dealing with that. And I just needed to clear my head. And I had been helping out with InterVarsity at UBC leading Bible studies with students, international students who had no understanding of the Judeo-Christian ethic or the culture that are familiar to so many of us. And so, as I was asking them questions and going through Bible studies, I was getting these oddball answers. They just didn’t, they weren’t processing the way I was. And I figured the best way for me to understand their minds and be of assistance to them is to go to Asia and figure out what are they experiencing, what is their background, what is the lens they’re looking at this through?
And so that fitted perfectly with my desire to get away from dead people. I just wanted to go somewhere bright, Vancouver was rainy and dark through the winter. It was depressing with all the work I was doing. I wanted to go somewhere hot, bright and full of life people. Well that’s Asia, so it worked. So, I’m a wimp, so I started with Hong Kong because it’s easy. Everybody speaks English and it was a no brainer. But then the next step I went was into Bangkok and I had no plans for hotels. I wanted to know what it felt like to walk out of an airport and feel terrified because that’s what these students were going through. Right? Kind of a crazy way of doing it. But that’s what I… when you’re in your 20s you do crazy things. And God uses that. It’s wonderful and empowering.
So, I ended up staying in a shanty town in Bangkok and a friend of a friend asked me to bring a care package up to someone who was working with a relief agency up on the Thai Cambodian border. And I went up to, and I ended up in a refugee camp run by the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge were easily the world’s most violent communists and they had run the killing fields. They were radical Maoists and I had never encountered that kind of fear. Growing up in Ireland, I had seen lots of fear and violence, shootings and bombings, et cetera. Nothing prepared me for that kind of environment. The whole scale fear that people were living in a civil war that was post-genocidal.
And so, I realized when I was up on the border that no medicine was allowed into that country. The UN had sealed the borders. It’s a long story of grotesque geopolitics, but these people, after surviving the killing fields and another 13 years of civil war, were completely abandoned by the world. That was the only country in the world at that time that was not allowed a seat in the United Nations.

Joshua Scott:
Wow.

Brian McConaghy:
No medicine was allowed in. No food was allowed in, it was just go ahead and die. It was just completely abandoned by the world and being Irish and being stubborn, that annoyed me incredibly because these were beautiful people. And so, I came back to Canada. I saw a documentary that week, actually, the week I got back about a little girl named Ratanak who died because no medicine was allowed in the country for her and being young and crazy and those of your listeners who are listening, who are young, celebrate that craziness that I think God calls us to. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing.
And so, I listened to this documentary and I was really upset, and it was a guy who was an English guy doing the documentary. I was later to learn his name was John Pilger. I waited til the credits came up at the end and he was blaming the West for this isolation. And I’m very RCMP, I’m very establishment, so I picked up the phone and called directory assistance London. Because he’s English, again, it’s crazy and said, “I want to talk to a J Pilger.” And they said, “Well, how many do you want? What city?” And I said, “Well, London.” I’m winging it. I have no clue. Turns out he’s actually Australian, but I didn’t even clue in.
But God does what he does. So, they said, “Well, okay, there’s lots.” I said, “Okay, give me central London.” I’m completely guessing. And they said, “Well, we’ve got nine.” I said, “Okay, give me the first one. We’re going to go down the list.” And it’s like, this is nuts. The odds are… Anyway, so, they put me through to the first one and the guy picks up the phone at the other end and it’s that familiar voice. I say, “Is this is John Pilger that makes documentaries?” And he said, “Yes.”

Joshua Scott:
No way.

Brian McConaghy:
First call.

Joshua Scott:
Wow.

Brian McConaghy:
It’s crazy. And he listens to me. He was a very important journalist, a very influential journalist. And I basically said, “I disagree.” And I said, “I think you’re an idiot. There’s no way that Canadian government or other Western governments would do this wrong.” And he challenged me. He said, “Have you been in Cambodia?” I said, “No, I’ve been to the border. I haven’t been in Cambodia.” He said, “You get inside that country and you call me back when you’re done and then we’ll have this conversation.” And so, he inspired me to get into the country. It took me months, but I did. And what I discovered was even worse than he had stated. And so I figured at that stage, I am going to smuggle a couple of suitcases of medicine into Cambodia in memory of little Ratanak because with two suitcases of medicine, you can transform a lot of lives if it’s the right meds.
And so that was my plan. God’s plan with absolutely no consultation with me whatsoever, was to give me nine tonnes of medication.

Joshua Scott:
Wow.

Brian McConaghy:
So now I’m sitting in Vancouver as a member of the RCMP with nine tonnes of medication that I’m supposed to smuggle into an enemy state. So, this is not a politically correct move in terms of your career at all. I had never bought a container. I’d never shipped a container. I had certainly never smuggled a container. So, the learning curve is vertical. Like I don’t know what’s going on.

Joshua Scott:
Wow.

Brian McConaghy:
But God’s calling me to do this, and it’s one of those watershed experiences was the… I had a great job, like this was as close to CSI in real life as you’re ever going to get. I had this fantastic job that was on the line because if I did what Jesus wanted me to do in terms of these children and these people in Cambodia, I would very potentially lose my job because I was smuggling to an enemy state. But it was a watershed experience for me in that was I to take the old, this I’d taken to the Canadian government, the commissioner of the RCMP, the queen, where they, to trump my loyalty to Christ and what he was calling me to do and that’s hard to do.
So, I was prepared to walk away from all of that. To make a very, very long story short, I figured out how to buy a container. We figured out how to ship and smuggle and we broke the embargo. We got nine tonnes of medication in. I’m trying to be discreet in the Cambodian government, which is a communist government of the day, that was much more moderate and against the Khmer Rouge that government stuck me on state-run TV in a press conference along with the deputy minister of health celebrating this Westerner that had broken the embargo and saved all these lives.

Joshua Scott:
Wow.

Brian McConaghy:
Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep this low profile.

Joshua Scott:
Great.

Brian McConaghy:
Yeah. This is not a good way to keep a low profile, but that’s where I ended up. And then I came back with a video of that press conference and my friends, family, others at church, they said, “Well you are absolutely nuts. That worked. Here’s some money, go do it again.” And Ratanak International was born. So, I never planned any of this.

Joshua Scott:
Wow. That’s very cool. So, since then, what have you been able to do with Ratanak?

Brian McConaghy:
Oh my goodness. We started off through the Civil War building because all the doctors, nurses, public health workers, everybody had been executed. So, we started building clinics and providing basic medical services, immunization programs, etc., In the middle of the Civil War. After the Civil War ended and the United Nations decided to show up about 15 years late. But they did eventually show up. They brought in massive quantities of international troops and those troops did a good job of rebuilding infrastructure, bridges, communications, etc. The problem was they were undisciplined in their time off and we had a very, very vulnerable, shattered, traumatized society. And these were all international troops with full UN pay and that led to massive sexual abuse.
And I watched UN troops, both French and Thai troops negotiating for a 13-year-old once for $15 I think it was for an hour. And at that time, her entire extended family, if they’d worked really hard, could perhaps generate $2 a day. So massive dollars. And she knew she could feed the extended family. What’s a kid like that going to do? And so, with the UN troops, tragically with the isolation and punishment of Cambodia, they had one gift from the international community and that was no AIDS. When the UN troops came in, the gift of AIDS was given and it became the fastest AIDS epidemic, growing epidemic in Asia.

Joshua Scott:
Wow.

Brian McConaghy:
Absolutely tragic what the UN was involved in there. So, as we were working in that environment, there’s many, many orphans, AIDS orphans started to turn up. So, we started getting involved in orphanages and helping orphanages with the children left behind. When you work with orphanages you hear about abuse. And so, I was hearing all kinds of horrendous stories about the abuse of children. I didn’t want to go there because I’ve got a brain, like who wants to get involved in that one?

Joshua Scott:
Yeah, absolutely.

Brian McConaghy:
So I avoided it. I was content to do my clinics and when you cut the ribbon on a clinic, everybody pats you on the back. It’s easy. Getting involved in child exploitation, that’s a whole different story. I didn’t want to go there. But meanwhile, back in Canada, I’m still in the RCMP. I was assigned to Willy Pickton pig farm case and he was a farmer just outside of Vancouver, a supposed farmer who did pig farming, but he also processed women. And so, he was sexually abusing then murdering and dismembering women and then processing their meat. Again, a horror show. And I’m working in this file and this is my first touch point with the world of prostitution. I didn’t have an understanding of prostitution and I didn’t realize how victimized these young women were. I always thought naively in my little Christian world that these are dirty girls that made stupid decisions and are trying to make a buck.
They aren’t. They are absolutely abused slaves for the most part that have been manipulated, deliberately drug addicted by pimps. They have no chance. They are a category of primarily young woman that broke my heart when I started to encounter those lives through the Pickton file. And so, God softened my heart with regard to that whole issue. And then at the same time as the Pickton file, I was working with Vancouver city police even though I was RCMP, it was a joint task force on Pickton working with them. They came to me and said, “Hey, we’ve got another file, totally different file where a guy’s been abusing Downtown Eastside women. We’ve arrested him, we’ve seized his videos where he gets involved in sexual torture. Can you review the videos because we’ve got little Asian kids and we want to know what country they’re in.”
And I agreed and I had no idea what I was setting myself up for. I had done many, many fairly grotesque homicide cases including Pickton. I thought I’d seen it all. Nothing prepared me for child sex assault videos. Nothing can prepare you for that if you’re normal at all, it is a shattering experience and it was for me. And very quickly it became apparent that these little children in the videos that were seven, eight, nine-year olds were from Cambodia and by that point in time, I had two adopted children of my own that were Cambodian.
So, this was a raw nerve issue. I was completely shattered. They wanted the country, they wanted to know where this had happened. I very quickly realized these are Cambodian kids. Came home, that was a Friday night and I was shattered by this. And my wife had an evening planned, Pampered Chef evening, where a whole bunch of her friends came over and they were all trying to figure out what kitchen stuff they wanted to buy. I was so not in the mood like after you’ve had that kind of a day, sorry, kitchen appliances and the new magic fork, I’m not interested. So, I called a friend, said, “I’ve got to get out of here. I just got to get out of here. Can I come over to your place?” Which we did. And he just put the TV on, and it was NBC Dateline that night.
And the title of the documentary they were doing was children for sale and it was kids in Cambodia being rescued. So, I’m watching this documentary on his couch and as a trained observer and trained forensic scientist, I’m kind of going, okay, there they go into this little rape cubicle and there’s number nine on the door and the little window in the door. And then there’s the couch inside and the bed and the ceiling fan. And then there’s the pictures, I’m kind of going, wait a minute, I’ve seen all these objects five hours ago. And I was looking at the same room on NBC Dateline as I was watching in this child sex assault videos. And so, these secret videos that were so grotesque that very few people were allowed to see. I’m seeing the same evidence being broadcast. And so, I’m on the phone immediately to the lead investigator and saying, “Are you on channel whatever?”
And he said, “No.” I said, “Get it on right now.” And so, we’re both watching and I’m talking into the phone and say, “Look at that door, look at that couch, look at that bedspread, look at that little plastic chair, look at the… You see the chip on the corner of that dresser? I’ve seen this before.” And he’s saying, “What are you saying to me?” And I was saying, “These are the rooms.” I said, “I think these are our kids.” And so, he said, “Do you know anybody with NBC Dateline?” And I happened to know the undercover investigator who was a Christian guy doing undercover with NBC Dateline and really putting their lives at risk doing this. I said, “Yeah, I know him.” He said, “Can you get information?” I said, “Yep.” I had to go up to a trial in Dawson City. So, I flew up to the Yukon, but from the Yukon I called Washington, DC, got ahold of him and said, “Can you give me information on that file?” And within 72 hours I had the GPS locations of the crime scenes and the names of the children.

Joshua Scott:
Wow.

Brian McConaghy:
And I went into Vancouver city police. And there was one senior member there, and again, all they wanted was the country and I just said, “Okay, here’s the country, here’s the GPS locations and here’s the names of the kids.” And he just leaned across the desk and he says, “Brian.” He said, “We just wanted the country.” He said, “You ever believe there’s a God?” And I said, “Well, actually I’m functioning on that premise.” And he had no idea what to do with that answer. But again, another watershed experience for me, I don’t have skills or talents for this. I’m overwhelmed by this. I avoided it for years. But this is not about my skills and talents. This is about Christ skills and talents. He loves these kids. He died for these kids. What am I going to do about it and who am I working for?
Because I’m working for him, he can do anything. Evidently, he can do anything. He got me out of a grotesque video in Vancouver. He got me names and GPS locations in 72 hours.

Joshua Scott:
Wow.

Brian McConaghy:
That’s not good investigation skills. That’s God doing his thing. And so, I learned this is not something to be reluctant when you are overwhelmed, when you don’t have the skills, rely on him and do it anyway and he will show up.

Joshua Scott:
Wow. So, what has been the fruit that you’ve seen from the work that you’ve done in Cambodia? Have you seen some pretty, I can imagine some pretty cool stories of God’s redemptive work?

Brian McConaghy:
Oh yeah. We have seen numerous lives transformed. Most recently we opened a new custom-built center, which was specifically designed by a nine-person team, I think of international engineers, architects, etc., to be a building that’s – no building’s impossible to commit suicide in. But this one’s really difficult to commit suicide in and everything about it is purpose-built to deal with young lives that have been trafficked and their recovery. Our main line of work now is with older girls, the teenagers and up because of the vulnerabilities of Cambodia and Chinese policy, we have a huge human trafficking issue between the two countries.
China, because of One Child Policy and gender preference is currently 35 million females short. That’s the population of Canada. That is a recipe for human trafficking disaster because rich countries like China are buying up every female they can find, trafficking them in for abuse and what they call forced marriage. It’s tragic to even use the word marriage in that sentence. It’s nothing to do with marriage. It’s got everything to do with slavery. And so, we have been privileged because we were working in Cambodia before the embassies arrived before the UN, we have respect and trust from the Cambodian government and they’ve invited us to participate in international negotiations and we’re privileged to do that with them.
And so, we now have China’s first bilateral agreement for the return of undocumented human trafficking victims back to Cambodia. And so, we see hundreds now being returned. And so, we have a centre that is not too, too far from the airport. We whisk them right up from the airport to our centre where we start the reintegration process, the medical assessments, the psychological assessments, trauma therapy, and then their ability to move back into families that don’t understand or are inclined to reject them because they’re unclean now. The girls have lost their virginity, they’re of no value. And so, it’s about working with families to reintroduce them in a healthy way back into society after horrendous trauma. So, this is really… My hero was William Wilberforce, and this is really about modern-day slavery and bringing people back and giving them freedom in a Christian context.
And God is doing tremendous things and we have trust and respect and we partner closely with the Cambodian government and it is an honour to work with them. They don’t easily trust Westerners because of their history, understandably. But slowly but surely, they’ve grown to trust us and I’m privileged to be in that position. And so, we welcome lives back and we rehabilitate those young women that many would say are completely unrecoverable. And we have just opened a program for young men now that are sold onto fishing vessels, etc. for slavery and sexual abuse, and when they’re not wanted anymore on the boats, they’re just thrown overboard, shot or left to drown and they go back to the coast and get four more. They’re worthless. It’s slavery, it’s real-life slavery, and we have the privilege of taking those young lives back when we can get them and introducing them with hope and with dignity to their families again.

Joshua Scott:
Wow. I get the sense in our conversation here that even after 30 years you are still driven and passionate about the work that you do. What keeps that going?

Brian McConaghy:
Yeah, I am. I’m more excited about this than when I started 30 years ago, which may be mental illness, but I don’t think it is. I have the great privilege of seeing some of these lives. I have the great privilege of knowing some of these young women, some of the ones recovered years ago as children shattered, having been sexually abused thousands of times, are now young married women that know the Lord, that have husbands that love them, that have children, even though the gynecologist said they were so badly damaged, they would never have children. Wrong. God does what He does and restores these wonderful lives. And some of those young women I know well enough that they refer to me as dad and there is no higher honour in my life to work for them and be called dad by them.
And so it’s hard not to keep going when you have that kind of interaction with those lives. And you can see where Christ actually transforms. It’s not theory. He transforms, He takes lives that are completely messed up and transforms them. And it’s not about my skills. So often I end up in circumstances that are completely overwhelming. I do not have the skills and anybody listening to this will think, “Oh, I couldn’t do that.” Well, nor can I. I walk into in environments and I’m just kind of going, “Oh God, you better show up because I’ve got nothing to offer this situation. It is frightening to me.” And the voice I have learned to hear behind my head is: “It’s not about you. It’s not about you. This is about Me.” And what I have learned is Christ is never overwhelmed. You never catch Him off guard where He doesn’t have the skills, you can never present Him a moral problem, a social issue, a relational issue, a psychological issue.
You can never present Him a problem where He’s saying, “Oh, I’m sorry that’s over the line, can’t go there. You can’t do it.” He has seen it all. He has died for it all. And no matter what you bring to the table, He’ll say, “Yes, I will redeem that, and I will actually use it.” And so, whatever I bring to the table and all my weakness, I find He uses it. It shocks me but I am enthusiastic to see how He can use even me because I’m not skilled at any of this stuff. I still don’t have the faintest idea what I’m doing half times, but I don’t have to. This is about, am I depending on Him? And so, He keeps me going and He keeps me thrilled to be serving those He loves, those He died for that no matter what has been done to them, He can redeem them even after thousands of sexual assaults.
So there’s hope for the sex assault victim. There’s hope for the person prostituted that he can actually redeem that. There’ll always be scars, but He can redeem to the point where there is even joy in such lives. Therefore, if He can do that for them, He can do that for any one of us, there is a possibility for joy no matter what circumstances we’re in and only He can do that. He’s referred to very clearly as a “man of sorrows” and “acquainted with grief.” He gets it. He is also referred to as the Great Physician. I love those two titles. I am privileged to work for the Great Physician.

Joshua Scott:
Very cool. It’s so encouraging to me to hear that from you and hear about what you’re doing because I get this sense when I hear all this that I think many people do of, where’s God’s justice? This is happening in the world. Where is God? Who is the God of justice, who upholds the oppressed and defends the poor, well, He’s doing it and He’s doing it through you and through things like this. There’s so much there to wrestle with and I think there’s so much there for us to think about practically what do we do in response to these things? But unfortunately, we don’t have time to get to that with this episode. So, we’re going to take another one and we’ll come back and have you join us next week for another conversation about what do we actually do about this? So, thanks so much for joining today.

Brian McConaghy:
A pleasure. Thank you.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Thanks so much for listening today. Having Brian share his story gives me hope for the work that Ratanak is doing. There’s hope for the sex assault victim. There’s hope for the person prostituted, no matter what your situation is, there’s hope. If you would like more information on Ratanak International, you can go to their website, www.ratanak.org.
As Joshua said, we will have another episode coming up next week with Brian McConaghy again. This time they’ll be talking about how we can respond to human trafficking and the steps that we can take to help organizations like Ratanak with the work that they already do. If there’s anything that you’d like to share with us, I’d encourage you to send us a DM on social media or you can email us at info@indoubt.ca. If you’d like to keep up with us for daily content, you can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. Thanks again for joining us for this episode of indoubt.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes and Spotify or visit us online at indoubt.ca or indoubt.com. We’re also on social media, so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.