Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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First, I would like to say that it is day number 300 on the Race!

 

Ok, now to the good stuff.  As you may have guessed, I was without internet this month so I will do my best to summarize month 10 for you in Cambodia.  I have decided that I will give you a rundown of the month by giving you a breakdown of our daily schedule since each day was pretty much the same.

 

But first, here is some general info about my month.  This month was one of the most primitive/difficult months regarding our living conditions which were the most challenging part of the month.  It was the hottest month on the Race and there was no escaping it.  We slept on the floor in a church (a fairly nice one room church) in the town.  Our beds consisted of mosquito nets draped over plastic chairs.  We had no running water which meant we had squatty potties and bucket showers (but hey, at least the squatty potties where porcelain!).  We also had no electricity except from 8-11pm which was an adventure in itself.  This meant we only had usage of fans during that time.  Add to the fact that the mosquitos stayed out to attack ALL day long and you have a month that tested all of us.  With that said, I would say it was one of my top three enjoyable months on the Race.



The church we stayed in all month

 

On another note, if you ever wanted to know what it is like to be a celebrity then you should visit this place.  As we would walk down the street every child would shout “hello, hello, hello!â€� until we were out of site.  This wasn’t a one-time occurrence either.  The same kids would do it EVERYDAY.  On many occasions we would have several kids following us to wherever we went which was fun.  Everyday kids would gather around our church and wait for us to come and play with them or give them some attention.  The people here are also super friendly and anytime you looked at them and smiled you were guaranteed a smile back.



High-Fives all around!

       

As for ministry, we taught three English classes a day to the kids in the area.  We also did some house visits but we mainly did the teaching.  Outside of our set ministry some of us made our own ministry for the month by investing and spending time with the neighborhood kids.  Most of their families are Buddhist and discourage them from Christianity but their families were always smiling and happy when they saw us hanging out with their kids.  Hopefully that opens a door for the local pastor to witness to the families further.



Teaching

 

So that’s enough of that.  Here is the basic rundown of the day:

 

8:30-9:00am Breakfast at our contacts house.  We ate outside for all of our meals.

 

9:00-11:30am Time to rest, do laundry (by hand), or go on house visits depending on what pastor had planned.  The house visits were to members of the local church.  We would encourage them as many of them were the only Christian in their family and faced emotional persecution by them almost daily.

 

11:30-12:30pm Teach English class.  This was a blast!  We taught from a curriculum and we had fun helping them learn while also teaching them about things that they have no concept of (ex: snow).  I showed a home video of snow back in Ohio and they were all amazed that something like that existed.  How else could I explain the vocab words in the book like snowboard, skis, and ice skates, lol.

 


My 11:30 kids

 

12:30-1:30pm Eat lunch.  Always delicious!

 

1:30-5:00pm Go to the river (an everyday occurrence and most of the time there were cows chilling in the water with us), play with the neighborhood kids, and rest in my hammock.

 


Walk to the river

 

5:00-7:00pm Teach two more English classes.  Again, super fun.

 

7:00-8:00pm Eat dinner.  Yum!

 

8:00-11:00pm ELECTRICITY time! With fans!  During this time we would spend time as a team and watch some movies, take our bucket showers and charge electronics.  

 

As for our final month of ministry, we will be flying from Cambodia to Malaysia on May 9th.  I do know our town and what we will be doing but because Malaysia is a sensitive Muslim country, I will wait to talk with our contact on the information I can share publicly.  It is an “openâ€� country but for the safety of his ministry we need to be careful what we share.

 

Love you all and I will see you soon!