Britney Zeller
Posted: Monday, August 22, 2011
By HARRY G. PERKINS
Hub Regional Writer
ELWOOD- Nebraska— When Britney Zeller was a student in Elwood, she told her teachers, “I want to be a missionary.”
She fulfilled that dream this summer as a teacher in Cambodia.
Zeller, 22, was one of six people who went to Cambodia through New Mission Systems International, a non-denominational organization that trains and sends people abroad to serve in education and as missionaries.
When the opportunity to apply to be a missionary presented itself, Zeller said, “I felt like God was telling me go.”
Zeller was in Cambodia from early June until late July. She taught English to teenagers and children and learned about Cambodian culture and history. The trip was also part of her curriculum at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
In the 1970s, Cambodia was torn apart by several conflicts, including the Vietnam War and the rise of Khmer Rouge political party. The Khmer Rouge killed millions of its own people in an effort to make Cambodia into an agrarian society. Zeller said the genocide eliminated almost an entire generation of educated citizens such as doctors, teachers and lawyers.
“The Khmer Rouge would put them in the farm fields and work them until they died,” Zeller said.
email to: jessica.kokesh@kearneyhub.com
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