This month, Team & is partnering with HT.
To be honest, I had to look up the website in order to find out exactly what this ministry is about, for the sake of this blog. That may sound kind of ignorant and irresponsible to not know who I’m working with, but once I stepped off the tuk-tuk and onto the property in Phnom Penh a couple weeks ago, I didn’t care what ministry I was working with. Why? Because immediately when we arrived, about a dozen kids greeted our team, asking our names and giving us hugs…
I’ve grown extremely weary some months doing kids ministry, but I was immediately filled with an overwhelming sense of joy and peace in that moment. Joy and peace.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).
Reflecting on my year theme of ‘Hope,’ I’ve realized that hope is now more of a natural thing for me to feel, even in seemingly hopeless situations and surroundings. Being in Cambodia for about two weeks, now–visiting a lot of different cities and villages, seeing intense poverty, flooded/destroyed home, and hearing stories of physically/emotionally devastated people–I have been grateful for the hope I have in Christ’s love–for myself and for the Cambodian people.
One of my favorite things about being a Christian is the establishment of spiritual generations of believers. The reality of having older generations lead and build up younger generations is just so cool to me and it’s something that I think is demonstrated really well. Partnering with them this month, we get to spend much of our time (when we’re not painting/sanding/installing/building something) with the kids and youth in the area. Some are believers and some are not. Either way, by investing in them at a young age, they will have the knowledge and understanding of the gospel so that they can disciple/mentor the generations that come after them, creating spiritual generations of Christ-followers in Cambodia.
There’s a lot more to the stories of these kids and this country, but I’m on a time crunch. To give you an idea about how this month has been schedule-wise, I will let you know that Team & was in Phnom Penh at home base for two nights, left for Prey Veng for a week and a half, came back to Phnom Penh, found out that we’re leaving for Kampot right after lunch, we will probably come back to Phnom Penh in five days, then perhaps head to a couple Muslim communities before leaving on a plane for Malaysia on the 25th…assuming that the opposition party demonstrations that are going on the the 23rd don’t affect our flight plans.
This really has turned out to be one of my favorite months…definitely in the top 3…perhaps I will rank all 11 at the end of the trip.
Lunch time! (FYI: Cambodian food is awesome!)
