Sick. After 111 days on the World Race without getting sick,
I woke up at 1am feeling bad, by 2am I had horrible cramps in my stomach, by
3am I was throwing up and had terrible diarrhea, and around 4:30am I woke up
Matthew because I stood up and almost passed out.
Missionaries are risk takers. Some of the risks missionaries take are a
little larger than others, like crossing the border into a closed country to
proclaim the gospel, or helping free women from the sex-trade, or even street
preaching in Muslim countries where the name of Jesus Christ will get you
killed. Some of the other risks include
things like: having things stolen, discomfort, looking like a fool in front of
30 children because you want to show them Christ but can’t speak Khmer, seeing
things that will make you want to throw up, or getting sick because you eat
whatever you are served as a sign of love and respect, even though there is a
very high probability that the food was not prepared in a completely sanitary
way (refrigeration in third world countries is… uh, non-existent).
of Phnom Penh, near Siem Reap. We spent
the week following around a pastor, his assistant, and our translator as they
walked from house to house boldly proclaiming the gospel to anyone in sight and
handing out gospel tracts (mind you both of those are actually against the law
here). I also taught an English class,
where I was able to build relationships with about 5 or 6 of the 15-20 students
that came every day, and show them the love of Christ, and I don’t know the
Khmer language. I helped my teammates Janna and Katie lead a children’s church,
without a plan, or a translator.
But the real joy of my week was this…
One of the days we went out into the villages with the
Pastor, we entered a house where he began to share Christ and refute the beliefs of Evil-Spirit worship that the family was practicing. Before we left
that house there were 13 or so adults listening to the gospel. We finally left
the house because one of the men wanted to become a Christian, and he wanted us
to pray healing for his daughter who is not developing normally. As we entered the man’s house we noticed that
he had three make-shift altars where he had worshiped spirits and every member
of his family wore bands around their bodies that were symbolic of the demons
that they had asked to “protect” them. The pastor told him he would have to do away 
with all of it.
his wife, and his four children, and all of the idols were thrown into a pile
outside and burned, and we prayed to cast out demons and heal the child. And it was all somewhat exciting.
As we were leaving the man told me that he knew my country
was very nice and he asked me what was going on in my country that I would want
to come here. I told him that the US is
in fact very nice and that we had many nice things in our country, but that the
joys of comfort and home are nothing compared to the joy of being able to
travel the World loving on people and telling them about Jesus Christ.
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of a few things and count them as
rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-that I may
know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings,
becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the
resurrection from the dead.
