Scorpions in the shower, pigs mating in the yard, turkeys waking us up at the butt crack of dawn… Cambodia has not been what I expected.
That’s has been OK though.
Despite it being a rough start for me, God is working through this time. Our ministry this month is at House of Joy, a day center located on an island in the middle of a river, about an hour south of Phnom Penh. It is rather hilarious in some ways because we honestly don’t really know where we are… couldn’t point it out on a map or anything. House of Joy provides meals for lunch and dinner for 84 children from the village. Pastor Gideon, who is also the manager of the center, teaches the students several classes during the day. The place is constantly alive with people and is a place of community for these children; who for many, are the only Christians in their entire family.
Our main work here has been to teach English to the children of the village. We teach three classes during the day, the first two are younger children, then at night we teach the high schoolers. I especially like working with the high school kids; they are a lot of fun and really eager to learn. Being that we see them every night, it has been awesome to really get to know them; I only wish that there wasn’t such a language barrier. The high school students have really befriended and opened up to us right away and yet it is hard to get to know them on a deeper level without being able to communicate fluidly. Thankfully God is able to work outside those limits and has allowed some true friendships to develop.
I think the most amazing part of this month has been how God has changed my heart. It was really hard at the beginning to have a positive attitude in the midst of the heat, lack of privacy, and living in what felt like a dust bowl; about two weeks ago, everything changed. All of the things that would have been annoying ended up becoming rather hilarious. Whether it be the piglets getting out of their pen, the chickens being killed for our dinner, the accumulation of dirt on our bodies, or random insects getting inside of our mosquito nets; we have all learned to laugh in the midst of any circumstance. Also during this time our team has bonded, so over all it has really been a positive outcome. As I said, Cambodia was nothing like I expected, it ended up being so much better then I could have imagined.
There’s some joy for ya!
