I am in Cambodia… I just love how that sounds. We are staying at a YWAM base for the month with a group of Norwegians, Americans, Philippinos and Cambodians that all work for the U of N. Three mornings a week my team works at a preschool (pictured above), two mornings a week we are working at a prison/drug rehab and five afternoons a week we go out to a village and teach the women English and play with their children. I’m not gonna lie, ministry this month is hard for me- I was definitely not made to be a teacher. But I love this country, this culture, this food and these people.
We’ve each been assigned our own personal bicycle to get around for the month and we spend about an hour and a half each day biking to and from ministry sites. Cambodia looks exactly how I expected it to- dirt roads with some loose gravel here and there, emptiness, some villages with old rickety bridges over rocky streams and temples everywhere. I love it.
So I’m sitting here, trying to write this blog and figure out how to communicate where we are living, how cute our puppies are, how awesome the community is and how much I love being in a place where I finally feel like I am being submersed into a culture but I’m sorry I can’t get anywhere with it. One conversation keeps playing in my head and drowning out all of my thoughts that I am trying to get out in this blog so I am just going to share it and see what happens. I know I am becoming a broken record with this topic but it is all I can think about…
From sundown to sunup the pulsing sound of the karaoke bars echoes throughout our house. Last night as we were listening to the music we started talking about prostitution and Jessica mentioned an article she read the other day about prostitution in America. This of course led into a conversation about trafficking in America (yes, it happens, a lot… and not just foreign women being trafficked into the country but American women and children being trafficked within and out of the U.S.) Then we started telling the American woman here about the set up in Thailand and comparing it to the bars we pass here on the ride home every night… and then she spoke the words I can’t get out of my head…
“Here the women are called ‘Beer Girls’ because if you buy a beer you get to pick a girl. The girls just sit outside all night waiting to be chosen.”
Wow. The phrase “buy one get one free” is never going to be the same for me.
Sex Slavery is everywhere. It is all over Asia, all over America, all over the world and it’s still consuming my mind, my heart, my thoughts and my dreams.
