Let's take a quiz:
Add 1 point if you take a shower everyday.
Add 1 point if the water you shower with comes out in a clear color.
Add 1 point if you use a toilet everyday.
I think most of you would have 3 points by now. But do you know that the majority of the world probably would get 0 points when they take this quiz.
This month, my team Daughters of Zion (yeah to our new name!) and team Ninja are working at a village called Touch in Kampot province, which is 2 hours from Phom Penh. On a daily basis, we are teaching the kids in the village English classes and going on house visits to meet and talk to the Khmer people.
Using squatty potties is not new for me fortunately, so I'm somewhat used to it, but showering and cleaning in brown water is a new one.
Clean water is scarce in many places in the world, in my old job I did marketing communications for a company that was in the business of taking salt out of the seawater to make it drinkable, because of the global water crisis. It's one thing to market a product that helps in the crisis, but another altogether to live everyday in dirty filthy water and sneaking around 1x a week to a shopping mall in the City and washing my hair in the mall bathroom sink and have locals point and laugh at me.
As I type this, I am recovering from being sick for a day due to who-knows-what. With water like this, I don't necessarily like to wash my hands. So am I better off washing my hands in the brown water, or not washing my hands and keep them dirty?
So, the purpose of this blog is not to complain, even tho' I am looking forward to the day I shower in clear water that's not sticky again, but to say that YOU SHOULD BE THANKFUL! If you are sitting on your computer reading my blog, chances are you have all three of the things I talked about in the beginning of this blog and so much more.
We have about 9 more days to work at this village before heading to Siem Reap for Debrief, the contact we are working with this month is Vuthy, a 30 year old Khmer man who met Jesus after driving a tuk tuk for YWAM teams for 2 years in Phom Penh. Since then, he got a vision of hundreds of young people coming to study, and God led him back to his own village, a home he never wanted to go back to. After only a few years, he led most of his family to Christ and 25 youth and young adults. He now leads a church called Light of Hope, built by World Racers in the past, and I myself and other teammates have shared our testimonies and preached their on sundays.
Please pray for our team, our health (protection from dengue fever and other diseases), and for divine appointments as we visit village houses and before the Khmer people, who by the way have warm smiles and love to tease and have fun and are not above pulling a prank or two once they get to know you.
The brown water we shower in.
