We’ve been in Cambodia for almost three weeks now! Time is already flying, and it’s only the first month!! It has been stretching, crazy, beautiful, and hard, but so good! To put it all into a blog is a little crazy, but shoot, why not try?!
The last few weeks I have eaten frog, been to a Cambodian zoo, had my feet eaten by fish, danced in some rice fields, explored Angkor Wat, wiped out on a bike, danced at a Cambodian wedding, taken lots of bucket showers, screamed some worship on a rooftop, and learned how to say hello in Khmer. I’ve made friends in markets, friends from New Zealand and Malaysia, and learned to appreciate who these people are and their culture and lifestyle. Life is slower here, and the days are long but the weeks are short.
We have been plastering, painting, sanding, and getting a pre-school all ready to start up in January here in Takeo. We get to teach English at night to kids, and we’ve gotten to take trips to a village and drug rehab center to share what God is doing in our lives! Four girls around our age live at the church with us, and they have chosen to follow Jesus despite what their Buddhist families think. Their hearts for ministry and kids are so stinkin’ big. We get to be hosted by the sweetest family, who are consistently blessing us and feeding us crazy good food!! We have gotten to do so many different types of ministry and it has been so, so cool to see God at work and get to be a part of what He’s doing here!
It’s also been hard at times too. The World Race is different than I expected it to be. I knew it would be hard, but I didn’t quite realize how stretched I would feel. I forgot about homesickness, language barriers, mosquitos, and jetlag. I forgot that leaving everything behind for nine months actually is hard when I face the facts! I figured big, crazy things would happen every day.
That’s probably not what you expected to read, is it?! It’s not what I expected to write either! But I want to let you in on the hard things, not just the good things, because God is in the hard things too.
While homesickness is a real thing the first few weeks, it gets better and better all the time! I’ve learned that smiles and laughter are all in the same language, there’s anti-itch cream for mosquito bites, and jetlag comes in handy when you love watching the sunrise! Fears and discomforts are hard, but man, that’s when I get to let Jesus step in! Big, crazy things do happen, but God is also in so many of the little things too, and I am learning that they are no less valuable.
And when I look at life like that, the hard things really are good for so many reasons. That’s where I get to grow and be pushed, and be more dependent on my savior. Did I do this because it was easy? Nope!! I saw once on some shirt that “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone,” and tell ya what, it sure does! 😉
Lately I’ve been learning that when I am at the end of myself and when I am uncomfortable, that is where God stretches me and molds me and where I get to choose to rely on Him completely. Where I end is where He begins. And that is what is so beautiful! I am just a broken human, but He makes that brokenness so much more beautiful than anything I could ever imagine! He desires so much more for me than I could ever dream of, and I get to choose to trust Him with the big things and the little ones. For that I am soo thankful!
I am thankful for the crazy things, the good things, the hard things, and the beautiful things.
So there you have it: a little bit of everything of what these past few weeks have looked like and what I have been learning!! I am so thankful for them and so excited for what’s to come!!
