Our team visited a small community of people who were very poor, and as usual we all prayed together over them and then I closed the prayer out loud by myself (we take turns doing this), as I was praying my heart broke (I also had my hands on two of the village women), I could barely finish the prayer through the tears, and although I don’t know exactly why God laid that community on me so heavily (no one else felt it as I did), I knew God was allowing me to see some of His heart. At church that Sunday, a little girl sat next to me, she was very dirty and thin and had a bad case of head lice, I put my arm around her and rubbed her arm and stroked her hair the entire time, she shied away from me strongly at first, as if she wasn’t used to the loving touch, I continued and eventually she started looking at me, and then (this is where I died inside :o)) she reached up and took my hand, but continued to stare straight ahead. There was something about this little girl that took my heart-her face, her spirit, something, and I also noticed she had come from the poor community we had visited earlier in the week. After church she left, and I wondered what God was up to.
The next week was intense (I will not go too into depth about details), but the pastor we worked with has 2 brothers who are single…their mother (who cooked for us all week) was in love with all of us and apparently gave them her blessing to “choose” 2 of us to marry…(yes, I told you, you wouldn’t believe it), during that week me and one of my team-mates were “chosen” and sat down with the family to discuss it, it may sound funny, but to them it was serious, and keep in mind these men loved Jesus, so it was really difficult for me to have to tell them exactly why I could not marry their son and about the race, etc. Culturally, it is very common for a son to choose, receive the mothers blessing, and ask the girl to marry them, however it was very difficult for me to have to politely decline while still respecting their culture…God worked it out so that we all came to an understanding :o) On a similar note, the pastors wife also happened to do wedding make-up, hair, and traditional Khmer dress as a job and is the “best in the village”, she asked our team if we would like our make-up done for free and of course we agreed, LITTLE did we know, but we were about to be transformed into Cambodian wedding dress, with me being the BRIDE (I just thought I had a pretty gold dress on, but later learned it was the one the BRIDE wears)! I have to say though, our team got to experience Cambodia like no other, we truly felt immersed in the culture living in this small village, eating the food they eat, etc, later that evening we had a good-bye party with our teenagers and they taught us traditional Khmer dances, everything was going well until the man (his name is Vebol) who wanted to marry me came out in GROOM attire…I believe he felt how AWKWARD we all suddenly felt because after a few pictures, he went and changed. Part of me felt pretty violated as I consider marriage to be one of the most sacred things to my heart and Gods and suddenly I felt like I had been roped into being a Cambodian bride :o) From a different perspective, their family has never met such Godly white women who were on fire for God as we were, so I don’t blame their mother for trying to marry off her sons, and her sons were very sweet men, and the love she and her family had for all of us was REAL, you should have seen the way they looked at us and cried when we left :o( Whew! We have some beautiful pictures though!
Going back to the little girl, it has always been a desire of my heart to adopt a child or children or run an orphanage for that matter, but during my “will you marry my son” interview I learned that the little girl that I loved instantly at church is an orphan, along with her younger sister, her father is dead, and her mother moved far away and married another man and “didn’t want” her daughters anymore (it has been many years), so now they live with their Grandmother in that small community…I started crying immediately when I learned this, and still wondered what God was up to (and still do). The following Sunday I saw the little girl again and (although she speaks no English) asked her to come sit next to me, I learned her name is Sokphorn (pronounced So-pahn), and when I asked my friend to ask her how old she was, she said she didn’t know, but he said around 10, although she looks more like 6 or 7 from lack of nutrition. I had a very special silver bracelet that I brought with me and decided I wanted to give it to her, so I took it from my wrist to hers and she just stared at it without moving her arm at all for about 10 minutes, finally she reached for it and gently touched the little charms on it, my heart melted!!! And then she looked up at me and smiled :o) All I can say about this, is that God is doing SOMETHING in that situation, I don’t know if she is my daughter, but I hope and pray that she is, and that God will bring me back to her one day. Thank you all again for getting me here, I am almost fully funded and that is only through the grace of Jesus Christ. Jesus is REAL, His Spirit is REAL, God is REAL, and He is transforming the world around me everyday. Please keep my baby in your prayers, pray for her health and safety as well as her sister, maybe even for a miracle that her mother may come back for her if that is Gods will, and if so that it will be a healthy and loving environment. Pray also for me to leave all attachments to Cambodia here, for the time being so that I can be in a healthy place as I fly to Australia tomorrow. Love you all so much and thanks for reading and supporting this season of my life :o)
