This month our ministry is working with an organization in a rural village in Cambodia. We spend the mornings going around to the people and just talking with them, sharing about Jesus and praying with them. In the afternoon we teach English lessons to children. We also do a hygiene clinic once a week for children to teach them basic skills such as washing their hands and brushing their teeth and provide them with basic hygiene supplies. I love this month. I love everything about our ministry. I love the village life. We wake up in the morning to the sound of kids outside our door and they stick around the church for most of the day. Most people get around by using bicycles, some have motorcycles. The main road into town is paved but the rest of the roads are dirt. A lot of the homes do not have running water but there are a few wells that have been built by various organizations for the community to use. Most of the homes do not have electricity. Cooking is done on the ground with a wood fire/ I have not seen one mattress in a home but people either have a bamboo mat or a hammock to sleep in. It is definitely a very different life style for these people. Most of the children we see will wear the same clothes for days at a time; the children’s clothes are often dirty and tattered. These people do not have much money. Malnutrition is a common problem for the children in this village.
Near the beginning of the month of our ministry a lot of the team ended up getting sick, myself included. We are not sure what caused the sickness whether it was from something we ate or just being in a new country and environment. Whatever the cause our main contact became concerned. We are working with an organization that oversees numerous churches, we were partnered with one of these churches. We are the first World Race team this church has experienced. The pastor speaks very little English so most of our communication has been through the director of the organization. When we became sick the director became concerned that maybe the conditions we were living in was not sanitary enough or that we were not being fed well. This quickly spiraled and it was decided that it was best for us to move to a different ministry sight.
This was really hard for my team and I. We came into the month expecting to be in this church for a month. We have grown to love not only the pastor and his family but also the children we are teaching and the people in the community we have been working with. We have made some really special connections with people, in particular working with an 18 year old boy who was in a motorcycle accident and lost a leg. We were told Monday evening that we would be leaving early Tuesday morning to go to the new church. This meant that we did not have time to say a proper goodbye to the kids we had been teaching English to, the people in the community we met or even the pastors we had been working with. This was really hard. Here these kids think we will be back to teach English the next day but when they show up we will have just been moved out and gone. When I first found out we would be leaving so quickly I was very angry and upset and felt a great injustice had been done.
This was a good lesson for me. Sometimes things do not go the way we planned. Sometimes things do not turn out the way we want. If I had it my way I would not leave the church we are at. I would stay here for the rest of the month like my expectation was coming into the month. But God knows better than I do. He knew that we would not be at this ministry sight for this whole month. But he was present here before we came and will remain after we leave. Who knows what he has in store for us in the next church we are going to? I don’t want to be so upset leaving the first church that I miss what God wants to do at the next place.
Life is full of new seasons. Sometimes these seasons are expected and planned for but sometimes things come up and surprise us and we are forced into a new season we may not want to be in but are in none the less. We can’t always control our situation but we can control our attitude. This is something our contacts last month brought up to one of my teammates and it is such a good reminder. I want to choose to be thankful for the time I got to spend at this church with these amazing people and look forward to the opportunities that wait for us at our next destination.
Also a huge thank-you to an anonymous donation to my account of $3000! This now puts me at 95% funded and only needing a few hundred more dollars to be completely funded. Thank-you to everyone for your generous support in making this trip possible! I am overwhelmed with gratitude and the provision God has provided for me to do this journey.
