Upon arriving in Takeo, Cambodia, I felt my spirit springing to life in a way I hadn’t felt since Nicaragua.
After a month in the middle of the city in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I feared I was burning out on the World Race, which is something I never anticipated would happen. Everywhere I turned there were numerous options for rich food, loud music, confusing conversations, detailed wardrobes, and souvenirs out the wazoo. Most of my squad loved Thailand, and it certainly was a month of growing in the Lord for me. But to be honest, the whole scene just left me feeling unsettled and anxious most of the time.
Now my team is living down a dirt road amid rice fields; we have no wifi or other real contact with the rest of the world; we have power that may or may not be working for most of the day; the best bathing option is bucket showers; there are chickens and cows and geese running amok all around us; and beautiful children peek out at us from around every corner.
Growing up in small-town, USA, where we had one stop light, more churches than restaurants, and enough southern kindness to charm your socks off, I have a particular warmth for the simpler life after living in the city for the last 6 years. We grew up eating fresh grown vegetables from my Papaw’s garden, playing baseball barefoot in the front yard, and the highlight of the summer was the musical at the town square.
Regardless, coming into the World Race, the prospect of life in the rural third world certainly intimidated me in some ways, small town girl or not. Either way, it probably should not come as a huge surprise that God is totally carving out a piece of my heart for village life and His precious people in corners of the world that are so often overlooked. Those sleepy, quiet little places where the people love to pass the time by sitting in a circle and laughing with one another.
As I have learned, in most areas in life, less is more.
Exercise at home usually involves specific clothes and shoes, driving to the gym and using its extravagant equipment, and calculating calories burned. Here in Cambodia, when I exercise, I jog peacefully down a dirt road surrounded by brilliantly green rice fields and scattered palm trees. Half-dressed or naked children run barefoot through their dirt yards to yell “Hello! What is your name?!” which is usually the only English they know. Their mothers stand back, often with a baby on a hip, and everyone smiles and waves excitedly at the strange white girl running by with no apparent destination.
When I teach English class, which is a large part of our daily ministry here, I sit in the community room in the building we are staying at, which has been built with donated money. Children walk or ride bikes from the surrounding villages, attentive and eager to learn the language that is known to change people’s lives. All we are working with is a few workbooks, a whiteboard, World Racers with a desire to serve, and eager young minds willing to absorb everything we offer. I never knew how blessed I was to speak English, and I admire the young children’s willingness to pay attention and make an effort to impact their own lives.
When we eat chicken here, which is often, there is no mass-produced, hormone-injected, mistreated animal part that has been frozen, packaged, and shipped to a grocer laying on my plate. Rather, I get to participate in the chasing, catching, killing, and plucking of my own meal. Crazy as it may sound, it makes me wonder why in the world we don’t just have our own chickens more often in America…aside from the noise and smell, of course.
(For the record, if you want to really put on a show for some third world village folks, send a spastic, flailing white girl running around the yard after a squawking chicken, then sit her under a tree with her dead chicken and wait to see if she figures out how to pluck it properly.)
Bible study is with mostly new believers that our ministry here has been discipling. We sit around on the floor of a bamboo hut on stilts, or on a bamboo table underneath the house, and literally just tell Bible stories. We sing a simple song or two, and often act a story out and share a testimony. As they often can’t read or write, the adults draw little pictures to remember what the story was about in order to be able to study and remember the Word of God after leaving. We pray over one another and encourage the adults in their new faith.
And when I eliminate some of the loud, noisy, over-thought entertainment that I (and almost all young American’s) are used to, I find some of life’s best experiences unfolding in front of me.
When 6 grown people have no TV, no internet, and no way to go anywhere, the simple pleasures of each other’s company are discovered. My team and I have a new fascination with shadow puppets, and with zipping ourselves up in our sleeping bags and then trying to hop around. The power goes out frequently, which leaves us to sit around and seriously re-define what it means to be doing nothing as we sit in the dark having random conversations.
Rainstorms are not something to be ran from but into, as we all run outside into the pouring rain and spin around, dancing and playing games and laughing with children. A main waterline was cut recently, making people dependent on rain water for now. Every rainstorm is an answered prayer for our ministry contacts, and an opportunity to praise God.
The incredibly sketchy, chocolate-milk colored body of water that children are usually swimming in down the road is obviously to be partaken in on a whim while running. Pushing aside fears of parasites, cow feces, and snakes, the only worthwhile way to approach this is to jump off of the bridge, doing a cannonball into the water and screaming “You only live ONCE!”
I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss some of the comforts and indulgences of home, but I am determined to soak in every second of this incredible experience. Living a year of abandonment is showing me priorities like never before, and I am finding that in a month where I have way less stuff, I have way more incredible experiences.
Take away some of the chaos and you see God so much more in the smiles, the rainstorms, the laughter, the baby animals, the sound of Cambodian believers raising their voices high to God than you ever would have expected.
Please pray for us this month as we continue to disciple new believers, teach English, and help out in other individual tasks, such as cement-laying or childcare.
Anyone willing to accept the challenge to run out in the next good rainstorm you have and dance in the downpour with someone you love? You won’t regret it. I promise.
