Today I felt like a missionary.
Woke up early, community breakfast and
prayer, tuk tuk ride to orphanage, shared a kids bible story. Played
games and sweated. Took a tuk tuk ride to home, lunch, team meeting,
prayer walked local area where many women prostitute themselves, and
poorly tried to start conversation in Khmer with girl. Highlight of my day was going to small
group with my Cambodian friend Pena.
It was on this day that I felt
a bit more like a missionary and my life oddly amusing. I walked
about 2 miles through the busy streets of Phnom Penh to get there. Pena doesn’t speak much more than 20 words in
English but our conversation is fun and like a very strange puzzle to
get small ideas across. She held my hand the whole time there,
partly cultural but mostly I think she feared I’d get run over by all the motos zooming by.
We walked down an alley to a real
Cambodian city neighborhood and up steep Cambodian stairs to a small
one room apartment that could have fit in my mom’s suburban. As
culture, I take off my shoes before entering. There are 4 young Khmer
guys around my age, a 4 month old in Pena’s arms, and Pena’s daughter
Yaya. We began the small group with me stumbling to introduce myself
in Khmer. I tried to catch names but had a hard time pronouncing them. It was humbling for me and amusing for them. We then began with praying out loud together and simple guitar led
worship. I’m grateful they ended with a couple songs I recognized as
we all belted out praises in our native tongues. We read scripture
and shared what God has taught us. I was grateful that someone ended
up being able to translate to some degree by that point for me. Although at one point he started saying something about insects and I was pretty sure that passage never mentioned any creature close to insects.:)
People also shared their struggles…and I mean struggles. One guy
was a new Christian who was unemployed, just got out of drug and
alcohol addiction, had two children, a wife that wants to divorce and
started prostituting herself to earn money. And that’s just a brief
summery. He was afraid to return to an old job because it would mean
no more time to be able to meet with other Christians and he was
afraid he would fall back. The group spent about 30 minutes
encouraging and praying for him. Talk about a group of Christians
what it really meant to rely on the Lord. It was beautiful.
I guess I just sat around thinking this
is what’ it’s all about. This was the body of Christ working together.
There wasn’t judgment, masking of reality, or performance. I was
honored to be a part of it.
As I left I found that my shoes
were missing. Apparently someone had taken them out for a spin around
town. I found it kind of funny. II’m afraid my new friends weren’t as amused as I was. They in turn made me “borrow” shoes as this was not an area to go
barefoot in. I hopped on a moto home and prayed as my new friend and
driver went on the wrong side of the median against the busy traffic.I made it home with new precious memories, different shoes, and slightly elevated blood pressure from the ride.
It was a good day…even if it cost me a pair of shoes.
