As I type this, I am sitting on a deflated air mattress in a tent on a concrete slab. The crickets and frogs are making all kinds of crazy noises beside me.
It has been raining off and on- but mostly on- for the three days we’ve been here. The dirt “roads” are flooded and walking anywhere constitutes wading through swampland and puddles that eat my flip flops. There is no such feeling as “clean”, especially as I flip mud all over my pants or legs as I use some old school Minesweeper techniques to assess by best puddle-avoiding tactics.
However, I am able to bathe, as the ample supply of rain water keeps the buckets full. And for that, I am very thankful.
During the day, the children gather with us under the wooden canopy. We sing, play games, talk, they braid my hair and we laugh. There are children as young as two years old that spend the entire day away from their house, but their parents don’t seem concerned about their absence at all. At night fall, kids scamper to their respective houses.
The children have lice. They have scabs and scars all over their bodies with flies that land on them for far too long. They have snotty noses and a few of them constantly have their fingers in their noses. They are dirty and some of them smell like urine.
But they love well. And they love to be loved in return.
The younger kids spend every moment possible curled up in my lap, singing songs that previous teams have taught them, such as “10,000 Reasons” and “Set a Fire”. Their English might be limited, but they will belt those songs in perfect English. The older kids love to sit and spend time asking me questions about my life or my family in America. They compliment me on how beautiful my hair or skin is.
There are no bathrooms or toilets. They closest thing in proximity that we have is a walled-in squatty potty a few houses away on the corner. We walk there during the day to use it and not-so-secretly do our business beside our residence when nature calls at 3 a.m.
The village is a community. There are stalls that sell homemade hot food. There are corners where a Pepsi bottle full of oil or gasoline is sold. There are cold drinks and ice coffee, where soaps are hanging from the rafters at yet another shop near us. The owners are all family members and use each other to break large bills to make change for a customer, and sometimes they just borrow from each other.
People wave and say “Hello!” from far in the distance and giggle when we say “Hello!” back.
Motos driven by locals as young as 12 zip through the puddle-ridden dirt path carrying a paying passenger.
The village is quiet, having little technology and no running water.
I love it here.
No, I did not leave the Race and accompany my dad on his return trip to Uganda, though a part of me wishes I could have.
I am in Month 10 of the Race in Cambodia.
I am back in my uncomfortable comfort zone.
I don’t think any of my readers know this, but during the week that my squad was in Koh Chang, Thailand, I struggled a lot.
Coming on the Race, I was excited about the potential of working with potential of working with prostitutes and trafficked people in Thailand. I read other Racer’s blogs about it. I read books written by people rescued from traffickers. I joined the END IT movement. I was stoking myself out on East Asia.
But then I arrived in Thailand.
I was bombarded with messages of
“You don’t belong here.”
”Your heart isn’t here.”
”You need to go home.”
”You’re wasting your time being here instead of Uganda or even America.”
”There is a reason you cannot raise the money for this trip.”
And, quite frankly, a lot more of them that I have chosen to forget.
And, for the first time in my life, I didn’t know whose voice it was.
Was it God’s? Was it mine? Was it the enemy’s?
The original messages were a little more subtle than those that I wrote up there. They started out more nudging, like, “You used to think you could never leave the Race because of your team, but you just spend a month apart from most of them and you grew more than ever. Can’t you see that you’ve been preparing to do life without them?”
It was also telling me things that I knew was true already. I knew my heart was in Uganda. I knew I wanted to be there more than I wanted to be in Thailand. I knew all of that already.
So, between the reiterating of the truths and the subtle, slick phrases, I honestly began to think it was God’s voice that I was hearing. I thought he was redirecting me again. But something inside of me was fighting it all and I wasn’t sure why. Going home seemed to solve all my problems, right?
After talking and praying with a beautiful woman I have had the opportunity to spend literally every day of the past nine months with, two squadmates, a former teammate/best friend, and my amazing squad coach- all of whom’s words have extreme wisdom, weight and insight, I decided to earnestly seek God in this. I knew it wasn’t a light or easy decision to make.
For two day, I did almost nothing. I sat at my wooden table at the restaurant overlooking the ocean and cliffs on the island and I prayed. I didn’t eat. I rarely even slept. I most prayed. It was the most intense fast I have ever been a part of.
It was also the clearest I have ever heard God’s voice.
“Grieve”
“Grieve what?”
“Everything that you need to finally let go of. Everything that you finally decide to give to me with open hands.”
It was different than the voices I had heard earlier in the week.
That wasn’t God’s voice telling me to leave.
But this was God’s voice telling me to grieve.
So, I did. I grieved a few small things. Then I hit a big one.
Africa.
I cried a lot about Africa. I cried because I missed Uganda and everything there. I cried because I had to leave Africa again a few days earlier. I cried because I began to seriously doubt that I would ever be able to return to Africa again. I cried, sometimes for hours on end, about Africa.
I released Africa back into God’s hands. I will return, of that He’s assured me, however, the time and place are not for me to get concerned with.
For now, I was asked to pursue God on this trip- the World Race- and I will see it through until the end.
Because my name is Cassie Wilson and, despite the lies the enemy whispers in my ear, I can complete things that I start and I will not fail!
I say all of that to you to give you some insight on where I am right now. Spiritually, of course, as I already told you about my physical location.
I let go.
I said, “I trust you know better than I do.” I took the step of faith that the things and experiences that I could have in East Asia would be perfect according to God’s amazing plan for my life.
And He’s reminded me again that He knows the desires of my heart and He longs to spoil me.
He spoils me in the refreshing passion I had for ministering to the trafficked and prostitutes.
He spoils me in showing me the village where I left my heart in Uganda- Zirobwe- in the middle of Cambodia.
He spoils me by giving me the “Race experience” that I have wanted the entire time: a village in the middle of nowhere, living a life of simplicity like the locals do.
Tonight, as I lay on my deflated air mattress with my clothes sticking to me, my hair causing my neck to sweat, and the mosquitoes buzzing around my tent looking for a place to get in, I am reminded of how much God loves me and has a plan for my life even bigger than I can imagine- and it’s so much better than what I try to plan.
(Isn’t is funny how I view this situation as proof that God loves me, while some of my teammates are probably thinking God much have put them out here just so he can laugh at how out of their element they are and they are not loving it here? God is so cool how he made us all so different! Hah)
I wanted to put my pictures in here, but they are not reading! Sorry! Maybe pictures will happen next time!?
