It’s month ten.
We are spending the month in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In all honesty, it’s been a challenging month and I’m exhausted.
I wake up every morning to the sounds of several roosters on the street below and the smell of sewage. We’re sleeping on the floor so I lean over to squish a cockroach that’s crawling right beside my sleeping pad. I say a quick prayer in hopes that it hadn’t crawled on me last night. I have dozens of mosquito bites all over my legs. I’m already dripping in sweat because the temperatures climb past one hundred and we don’t have ac.
And I get up and get ready for ministry because the Lord’s strength keeps me going. His mercies are new everyday.
There’s a spiritual darkness that blankets this country. Forty years ago the genocide occurred. As a result, two million people died. A generation is missing. Evil resides.
I stepped out of a taxi on our first day in the country and within two minutes, a little boy was growling at me and a lady was shoving a cricket in my face.
I know that the Lord’s heart is beating for this country. I know this because I catch a glimpse of it everyday.
We’re doing campus evangelism at a local university in the mornings. Basically we have the opportunity to make friends with the students, talk about anything and everything, and also invite them to our English class. Even in a predominantly Buddhist country, I keep running into Christians on the campus. My teammate Alyssa and I were talking to a guy the other day and he was overjoyed to let us know that he was a Christian as well. He said the Lord sent us as an encouragement to him.
My team joins our partnering church to visit the homes of church members. We met a sweet family with a twenty-year-old daughter. Somehow we got on the topic of her accident which happened a few years ago. She went to her room to bring back pictures of her injuries. A few years ago, she was on the back of her boyfriend’s motorbike and a cop pulled them over. He accused them of having drugs (which they did not have) and ordered them to follow him. They obeyed and then were brutally beat by the policeman alongside the road. The girl felt that the Lord was telling her to pretend that she was dead and the man would leave. So she did and was saved because of it. I could barely look at the photos. She had gashes in her head and gaping wounds. Blood was everywhere. She’s not angry at God. She says she heard His voice through the whole thing. He saved her and she’s here today to tell the story. She was rushed to the hospital and was miraculously able to have surgery even though her family didn’t have a penny to pay for it. The Lord provided. Faith exudes from her as she relays the details of the day.
We’re also teaching English classes twice a day and Alyssa is leading a Bible study. Two university students accepted Christ as their Savior last week.
I also have the privilege of visiting an after school program located outside the city. I had to climb a ladder to the classroom and was surprised to see 35 students crammed into a little room. And I mean little. And very hot. The ceiling clears a couple inches above my head. My students don’t speak any English so their teacher translates for me. I play games and develop friendships with the children.
We went to the slums this past week and gathered all of the children near the railroad tracks. We sat down together so that my teammates and I could share Bible stories, play games, and teach them songs. It was the highlight of my week.
This country might have a dark past but the Lord is at work to bring a brighter future. Please pray for Cambodia.
Next week, my squad will be traveling to Vietnam for our final month of the race.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!”
Ephesians 3:20-21
