Well we have arrived at our ministry location in Chom Kar Chan, Kom Pom Speu, Cambodia… Basically we are in a village in the middle of who knows where.
For the past two months we have been living a life of luxury. A lot of things the past two months have reminded me of home. We had beds, running water, electricity whenever we needed it, washing machines, and pretty much all the “necessities” of life. This month, we’re sleeping on the floor, with two people under one mosquito net. The only water is the water you find in a large basin, which gets filled when it rains. Electricity comes on when the generator decides it wants to work, which usually lasts for about five minutes twice a day and internet is really non existent.
In this village, eleven year olds hop on their scooters to go get drinking water when it runs out. Seven year olds take their two-year-old sisters to the pond to clean their poopy butts. Kids don’t have toys; they use sticks and leaves to make up games to entertain them. Dinner is cooked over a fire and kids of all ages are eager to come to classes outside of regular school hours to learn English, some of which take place at night with no light, or power at all.
Living conditions this month are nowhere near what they have been the past two months. Basically we are back in Africa, the Asian version of Africa. We shower with buckets. We use squatty potties. We wash our clothes out of buckets, with the same water we use to shower. We go to sleep under mosquito nets, and can look out the “window” and see the most amazing night skies ever.
Life here is simple. Simplicity at its finest.
You see the true image of joy through the children.
You see true happiness through families who have barely anything, but really everything.
It’s the simple things in life you see here, that you miss in back home in America.
This month is not the life of “luxury” back home that I am used to.
But its simple.
It’s beginning to refocus my mindset to the simple things in life.
What’s your life like?
How simple of overcomplicated it is?
I challenge you to take a look at it… and see if you can find the simple things that we’ve overlooked for so long. The simple things that we’ve taken for granted for so long. The simple thing’s that make life truly joyful.
