So I’ll admit that blogging has been harder than I expected it to be. Not because there is nothing to write about, but because there is so much going on and it is kind of hard to break it all apart and process it. I also am still trying to find a wifi/technology balance, which is a whole other story, but I figured that since we leave for Thailand in less than a week, I better give you guys at least something!
Overall, if I had to describe the month in one word I think it would be something surrounding “adjusting”. We are all trying to adjust to so many things, that it can be very overwhelming at times. Being away from home, living in a new place, with new people, where everything we encounter is different than what we are use to, trying to find a good balance of talking to people at home/not talking to people at home, deciding whether to cling to certain comforts that are available or forcing yourself out of your comfort zone, things like that. It is hard to know how much of certain things is too much/not enough, and you can’t go off the girl next to you, because she knows (or doesn’t know) just as well as you do. We don’t know where we are on the spectrum because we don’t even know what the spectrum is (if that makes any sense). But I think it is something we will figure out along the way, probably through trial and error, and possibly when we have more time to let our new life soak in a little more.
We have stayed quite busy since we got here. We teach english two days a week, which is definitely harder than I thought it would be. I guess I thought we would all be teaching together, and occasionally we do, but I also have my own class. And being that I am not a teacher, I really had no idea what I was suppose to do with them. And I still really don’t, but at least my kids like the extremely ridiculous stories I make up?! We also get to worship God in different villages twice a week, teach a Bible lesson to our English students once a week, and then we go to church (which is all in Khmer btw) and have youth fellowship on Sundays. We like to explore around the town and markets on our day off, so even when we do have down time, we always seem to be doing something.
This past week looked a little different for me, however. I started to not feel well in the beginning of the week, and I quickly went downhill not only physically, but emotionally too. I was sick and halfway around the world with people I hardly even know. I was constantly on the verge of tears, and all I could think about was being at home with my family, especially because they were all together anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new niece.
I was finally in enough pain and looked terrible enough to be convinced to pay the $6 to go to the doctor, but what I thought would be an in and out type of thing, turned into a 24 hour type of thing. Apparently I had acquired a lovely bacterial infection which led to dehydration, which led to my misery. I guess I need to be more cautious about the foods I eat? Maybe not so many tarantulas next time… Just kidding, I only ate one.
But after only a few hours of IV fluids and antibiotics, I began to feel like I had life again. And thankfully I had access to wifi while I was there, so I also got to see pictures of my beautiful new niece, Bella Louise, just a couple hours after she was born.
I left the hospital feeling like an new person. I had a new love for my team who took awesome care of me, a new love for Jesus who took awesome care of me, and I had new and fresh eyes to see Cambodia not so much from my perspective but more from Jesus’ perspective.
I’ve still been feeling pretty tired, but yesterday one of the ESL teachers at the school wanted us to go to her house and pray silently for her family. She didn’t necessarily want them to know we were praying to Jesus, being that they are Buddhist, but her father had been in an accident and hadn’t been able to walk in over a year, her sister was sick, and she said her father had just recently invited some evil spirits into their house. I honestly wasn’t feeling up to going, but I got the sense that God didn’t want me to miss out on something, so I decided to go.
Our host was visiting with the family in Khmer while we were sitting there munching on food and silently praying. We eventually asked the father if he would be okay with us praying for him, and he surprisingly accepted. After our prayers were over, he was speaking in Khmer with our host, repeating words after her. We didn’t really know what was going on, but when they were done she explained he had just accepted Christ into his heart. We all know the power of prayer, but we were NOT expecting that to happen. Needless to say, I’m glad I followed my little hunch about not missing out on something, and my fire for the race actually got a little bigger. It’s like I heard God saying, “There’s more where that came from!”
I cannot believe we are already leaving and heading to Thailand. If this first month is an indicator of how fast the year is going to go by, I’ll be home in no time! Thailand is an all squad month for us, so instead of our teams being all spread out, we will all be together.
I’ve really been working on being more intentional with my praying, so that is my prayer request this week, along with safe travels for us, this beautiful place that is Cambodia, and my new baby niece, Bella! I’ll try to be better about blogging, but we will have to wait and see what the internet situation looks like in Thailand.
Love always!
And I still can’t believe I ate a tarantula!
