CAMBODIA
I love this place. I love these people.
[This is a cutie I got to hold for a few minutes in a village one day. She is gorgeous.]
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I love the beautiful almond-eyed babies and children everywhere you look.
I love all of the crazy things I see Cambodians have on their motorcycles while they drive (e.g. dogs, giant bags of vegetables, IVs, etc). You know, the norm.
I love the vast, green tropical landscape dotted with palm trees, rice fields, and houses on stilts.
I love the ministry we worked with this month, His Child International, and how the Lord is changing children’s lives in Cambodia through them.
I love how much fun and crazy the kiddos at the children’s home we helped at this month are all the time.*
I love the way one of the house moms of the children’s home hugs me so tight when she sees me, slaps me on the arm jokingly, and then laughs hysterically for no reason.
I love the way 5 of the Cambodian boys at the children’s home faces lit up when they found out they won the talent show they danced in on our last Friday night at our ministry.
I love the way the kids go crazy when you have a spontaneous dance party and blare Christian rap music.
I love looking in my Bible and seeing the prayer card my ministry host gave me for the 17-year old girl from the children’s home the Lord allowed me to connect with this month.
I love the hour-long drives to the village on Tuesday mornings to teach half-naked village cuties about Jesus.
I love the blank and partially scared stares I get from the village children when I wave to them and say, “Jum reap sua!” (“Hello” in Khmer)
I love the morning walks to our stop to get on the big green bus on Wednesdays and Fridays.
I love the way some of the kids on the big green bus dance like no one is watching when you put on a kid’s worship song.
I love the way you can see children’s personalities shine through even with a language barrier.
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It was a really good month. Ministry for me this month was really refreshing and I grew so much with the Lord.
This month my team and I worked with a ministry called His Child International (www.hischild-international.com) and they exist to bring the Gospel to Cambodia through helping children at risk. Some of their ministries include a children’s home, a youth home for teenage boys, a day school, village ministry, and a bus ministry. My teammate and I, Carolyn, helped primarily with the village and bus ministries where we helped teach English. We lived in a small town a few miles south of Phnom Penh called Takhmao and we really enjoyed it.
Cambodia has experienced so much tragedy through the communist reign and genocide of Khmer Rouge in the 1970s and is STILL recovering its destruction. It was so good to partner with a ministry that seeks to bring wholeness to Cambodia through the Gospel and how that flows into education, an area of society that was wiped out during the Khmer Rouge.
*Our ministry this month has
a policy where we cannot post individual pictures of the children at the children’s center we helped at.
BUT I have linked a video from His Child’s website that shows most of the kiddos we hung out with all month. They are AWESOME! Check it out!
Our next country is THAILAND! [Which is where I’m finishing and posting this blog.]
I also realize I haven’t been super detailed about what the Lord is teaching me and showing me for the past couple months. He has been doing SO much in my heart and sometimes it’s hard to fully communicate all of it. But I will be posting a video soon with an overview of what He’s doing in my heart, how He’s making me more like Him, and what He’s doing in the nations! 🙂
I am still about $4500 away from being fully funded for my Race if you would like to donate! I have to be be fully funded by December 31, 2015. I would be so honored if you considered and prayed about donating. 🙂
THANK YOU again to every person that has helped in any way to make this possible for me. Because as I have said before, YOU are just as much in this journey as I am. Goers can’t go without senders. They are equally important in the Great Commission! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I appreciate you so much.
For His glory among all peoples,
Karleigh
