This month Team Meraki is living in the Kampong Speu Province of Cambodia. Our primary ministry is teaching English at the school our host family started – Home of Faith, Hope, and Love. The school is open to kids from preschool to high school, but my class is just 6 to 10 year olds. In addition to teaching, we have had the opportunity to lead worship sessions, pray for the village’s elderly, learn how to cook and clean Cambodian style, and live in intimate, intentional community. Adjusting to life here has had its challenges, but I wouldn’t change a single moment.
One of my many favorite moments was a couple weeks ago:
As I sat playing Uno with my team, our host family, and some teachers at our school, I felt a joyful contentment that, frankly, blew my mind.
I was sitting around a table in a village in Cambodia, talking and laughing with a beautifully eclectic group of souls. I had a host sibling on each knee, 7 year old twins, a boy and a girl, each holding half my hand of cards. The whole room was engaged and joyful. Just 30 minutes before, we had all been worshiping Jesus together. As we sang, I couldn’t help but fall silent and just listen to the simultaneous Khmer, Russian, and English lyrics fill the room.
I don’t know exactly what heaven is like, but I think that night was a glimpse of it.
I think it’s the whole of the Kingdom of God praising the Lord, praising love, praying light, praising grace, all together, each in their own tongue. I think it’s the realization of how deeply beautiful that unity and wholeness is. I think it’s laughter. I think it’s relationships, those that bridge the barriers of language or culture or history, and go so deep that our souls are one. I think it’s a joy so all consuming and complete that words can’t explain it.
There have been many moments in my life where I find myself stopping to sit in the beauty and grace of what is before me, knowing that I am witnessing a glimpse of heaven. My glimpse during that Uno game, however, shattered my previous understanding, and even still, my understanding is so small and incomplete. I am so grateful that the Lord has allowed me to witness these pieces of heaven on earth, but I know that pure love and grace and joy and peace are incomprehensibly more than my earthly mind will ever understand.
What overwhelming, all consuming, beautiful, wonderful, perfect love awaits us!
Here are some pics of the month that has shown me a more accurate depiction of heaven:
This is the school where we teach and live: Home of Faith, Hope, & Love
These are some of the children I have the privilege of teaching. I always leave their class filled with more joy than when it began.
One afternoon my teammate Nina and I were invited to visit the elderly in the village and pray over them. Our translator is the man in the back right.
During our visits to the elderly, I was able to witness this beautiful interaction <3
Just a few of the children I love so much. The child in the front is Nida – she lives on the compound with us. The other 2 children are our host parents’ twins, Kevin and Kayleen.
And last, but certainly not least, the amazing group of women walking this journey along side me – Team Meraki (during an off day in Phnom Penh)
