Oh Halloween…

Happy Halloween from Cambodia!

I survived my first holiday away from home, the first of many more to come as we rapidly approach this holiday season.

It was hard not to feel homesick yesterday. It was Sunday, our day off, but nothing really was going on. I took a walk, read my Bible, scrubbed an ink stain out of my shorts and hung them to dry, caught up on journaling, shaved my legs next to the pigpen with a bucket of rainwater, finished a novel, and offered my right arm to a child walking down the street if he would find me a Snickers bar. He didn’t speak English…First time that communication barriers were probably a good thing.

I was the woman with crazy eyes who wanted chocolate, or at least something besides rice, and I wanted it bad.

As I lay in my hammock, grumpy over missing home and beginning to dread the approach of Thanksgiving and Christmas, I began to chuckle thinking that exactly a week ago I would have killed for even a grain of rice. Team X-Stream entered a food fast the first week we got to Cambodia, seeking the Lord on a number of requests and desiring to draw closer to Him in prayer. We made it five days, which doesn’t sound like a very long time, but I have to say it was without a doubt the longest 5 days of my entire life.

The heat zapped all of our energy, making the 15 minute walk down to Teen Challenge every day seem like a marathon. We went to bed hungry. We woke up hungry. We had late night conversations about our favorite foods (probably not the best idea).

And all I could think about was how I would probably even eat banana cake if I had been offered it. Let’s just say I don’t handle fasting too well.

During that time of fasting, I learned so much about myself and about God, revelations about how weak I am without Him and how I am so dependent on Him to meet my every need, but how quickly I reverted back to my old ways of discontentment and dissatisfaction. Not a week later I had access to rice, and noodles, and even a fruit smoothie if I wanted one, and I was complaining about wanting a Snickers bar. Typical.

This month God has been doing a work in my heart beyond what I ever dreamed He could do. He is drawing me into His presence, pulling up issue after issue from my past that need to be dealt with, radically revolutionizing my views of Him and who He is as God of the universe and desperate lover of my soul. He is leading my team into deeper community than we’ve ever experienced before, and while that comes with a bit of pain and some stickiness from all of our different issues, it has been something that is holy as we come alongside each other and bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters in Christ, helping each person give those burdens over to the Lord.

During our fast, the Lord gave Ryan (one of my teammates) a verse to share that really carried me through my time of hunger. It’s from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, written during the time of his imprisonment, and it says this: “For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”

I know it’s one of the most quoted verses in the Bible, but for me this month it has taken on a whole new meaning.

I can be content when I haven’t eaten in 5 days.

I can be content when I do eat, even if it’s only rice.

I can be content when I’m showering with a bucket of water that is probably just as dirty as I am.

I can be content sleeping on the ground.

I can be content waking up to pigs and roosters and birds nesting in the rafters every morning.

I can be content spending Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years and Valentines Day and basically every other holiday away from home.

I can be content teaching Music and Art and English at a rehab center for teens (who most of which are actually older than me), even if I feel inadequate and illequipped.

I can be content just praying for the locals rather than sharing the Gospel with them, because no one can speak English.

I can be content without television, without a cell phone, without internet, without any comforts of home.

I can even be content without having my Snickers on Halloween.

Why?

Turns out Jordan & Bonnie, 2 of my teammates, snuck off to Phnom Penh yesterday to get the team a Halloween surprise. After 2 hours in a taxi with 25 Cambodians on the way there, and 2 hours in a Tuk Tuk on the way back, my amazing teammates walked climbed the stairs of the treehouse loaded with 2 pizzas, a bucket of KFC, Cheetos, a DVD of halloween movies, and a bag full of candy.