The beginning of this month started off with team changes, which was really hard. The Worthy Warriors are no longer my current team, they will always be my first team and I love them very much. The new team I am a part of is Tango Charlie Juliet.
Allison is our team leader, Bethany is our treasurer, and then there is Katie, Desiree and Emily. Our ministry was in Battambang (Bottom-bong), the second largest city in Cambodia, and it was called Lighthouse. Lighthouse is a Christian boarding school that allows kids from rural areas that don’t normally get a high school education to live in the city to get an education. Our job at Lighthouse was to teach English, interact with the students, and wake up every morning at 5am to workout.
We taught three English classes, two beginner classes and one advanced class. We had a lot of fun teaching the students how to introduce themselves and got to know them better that way.
Our daily schedule:
4:45am wake up and get ready
5am workout – run and stretch
5:30am free time
11:15am Bible study with students
12pm house lunch
1pm beginner English
2pm free time/hang out with students
6pm beginner English
7pm advanced English
8pm help students with homework/go to bed
We had some free time and we would borrow bikes from the students and bike into town to a christian cafe called Eden, it had American food and great coffee. We went to get wifi and we often saw the other teams that were in Battambang hanging out there too.
When you live with the people you minister to, it’s a lot easier to get to know them and to build relationships with them. We loved each and every student we got to be with, they were a joy and they knew how to make us laugh. We loved waiting for them on the second balcony of our house when they came home from school, we greeted them and they were just as happy to see us.
This month was a little difficult, Christmas away form home is never easy. Our wonderful friend Izzy invited us over for Christmas eve dinner and a sleepover, she is from Canada so she knows how different Cambodia is during Christmas. So we went over for a BBQ and it was delicious, we also watched a movie on a projector on her wall, Home Alone. Izzy even put us all in a bed for the night, it was so much fun and such a treat. In the morning we all woke up and wished each other a Merry Christmas and Izzy made us all breakfast; we had eggs, sausage and homemade bread from her oven! It was a Christmas to remember, she made us feel as at home as she could. She is a wonderful friend.
We grew really close to our house parents too and their son, they took us to the market every other day and we helped them cook lunch for the house. We loved our Cambodian family so much, it was so difficult to leave, many tears were shed. Our host was so good to us and we all loved really well this month. Our host was so upset we were leaving that he didn’t even come to say goodbye, because he would cry.
It’s such a good feeling to know that we made an impact on their lives, but I hope they know how much of an impact they made on our lives.
