Oh, hi there. It’s me. Yeah, it’s been awhile. Not much internet out here in the Cambodian… jungle? I’m not exactly sure what you would call this, but where we are has a very rustic, rural, rice paddy, palm tree, straw hut, humid, and naked kids running around all tribal kinda feel. It feels like we are in the middle of nowhere, but realistically we are only 45 minutes outside Phnom Penh. The middle of nowhere starts about 20 minutes outside the city when the big city turns almost instantly into a potholed dirt road and multiple storied buildings merge into small clay huts. Cambodia is a nation of contrasts – in Siem Reap we saw the rich, western, tourist part of the country which surrounds Angkor Wat. In Phnom Penh literally blocks apart from each other there are high rises and slums, nice hotels and shacks. And then there is us – we are… I’m not really sure, actually. The name of the village is long and hard to understand or prononce, but I know we are in the Takeo (Tuhcow) Province south of Phnom Penh.
All that to say, we clearly don’t have interent this month unless we drive to the city and go mooch off the wifi at KFC. And honestly, I love not having internet. It gives us a feeling of isolation and it is a great chance for us to focus on ministry and each other rather than the distractions Facebook offers. It’s month 10, it would be very easy to check out and just focus on going home, but that is not what I want. Not having internet or any real contact with the “outside world” has been great. However, our squad leaders came to visit us this week and brought their internet stick with them. Not having written or thought about any blogs to write thinking I wouldn’t be able to post them for awhile, I have been keeping a typed journal of our month. I havne’t done this yet for any month, but I have plenty of down time and thought I would really appreciate having it to read later and reflect back on. So anyways, this blog is basically some experpts from this journal detailing some of the happenings from this month, how they affected me, things I’m learning, etc. I’m just picking a few and sharing them in chronological order – enjoy! I suppose I’ll call this blog “A Cambodian Journal” or something original like that.
4/17/12
After a week in Siem Reap resting and visiting Angkor Wat, Family Force 6 traveled to Phnom Penh, spent one night there and then headed out the next afternoon (today) to our minstry site in Takeo Province, South of PP. We were met by Seth, the Cambodian we will be living and working alongside at the Takeo Children’s Center. There are no kids living at the home aside from Seth and his wife Samole’s three kids, but it is a center for kids in the community to come and learn English and have as a safe haven from other negative influences around them. We also met Ted, an American missionary who is working down here with Seth until Seth is able to handle the ministry on his own. Some first impressions from Day one at our ministry site:
– The children’s home is simple but offers some amenities that I definitely thought we wouldn’t have, such as AC in the guys room. We are sleeping on our air mattresses on the floor, but we have running water, showers, fans, and a pretty comfortable little setup here.
– Samole is cooking all of our meals for us and WOW, she can cook! We had fish and beef dishes tonight, along with vegetables, rice, and mango fruit. It was one of the best dishes I have had yet on the race from a ministry contact.
– Honestly, the whole setup so far reminds me of Ecuador. We drove through the jungle into the middle of nowhere, met our contact (who luckily speaks English as opposed to Ecuador), our ministry is basically doing evangelism and children’s ministry in jungle villages and huts, its hot, and it has the same rural feel as Ecuador. I feel like I am in a much better place to thrive in this sort of setup now as opposed to in month one of the race
– The Cambodian sunset tonight was outstanding, definitely one of the most beautiful I have seen on the race
We only have until the 5th here, so I am excited to give it everything we’ve got. We start ministry tomorrow with a bible study at a home in a village near here. Let’s bring it!
4/18/12
…I started out introducing our team and telling the women a little bit about ourselves. One thing that really bothers me is when someone introduces us by saying “here we are, we are a part of the group called the World Race, here are the countries we’ve been to, here are some things we’ve done, we have one more month left, etc, etc”. To me, that makes the focus all about us and why we are there and why they should care. Realistically, their whole world is the little stretch of dirt road they live on and the surrounding rice paddies. We don’t need to emphasize all the technicalities about why we are there or what organization we are from. For them, in that moment, we came across the world for only one reason: to see them. And that is what I like to emphasize – that we are brothers and sisters in Christ and both can offer each other something, whether it be encouragement, prayer, testimonies, or even just a smile. It doesn’t matter who knows more or who is more qualified or understands more about Christianity. We are all on the same page and all serve the same Lord.
4/19/12
This morning we headed to another village to take part in “children’s club”. Once again, this was pretty much just us showing up and playing games with kids, singing a few songs and doing a quick David and Goliath skit. There was nothing too significant ministry wise, but there were a few cool moments for me. First, I woke up this morning not feeling too well, sore throat and just tired overall from a restless night, and I was definitely fighting against it on my own telling myself to push and not let it slow me down. Finally I was just like, why am I trying to do this on my own? I was standing near Nicole so I just went up to her and told her how I was feeling and asked her to pray for me. She gladly did, and honestly I felt so much better from that point on. It was also just a big step for me to let someone else in where I would normally just try and do it on my own. Later she even thanked me for doing that and let me know how much meant to her, seeing me just be open and vulnerable and let someone else in like that. The Lord has been nudging me to do little things, and being obedient has really helped my team see a side of me and gain confidence that I am not the same person I was in Swaziland. The affirmation that I have been given has also really helped to boost my confidence as well.
4/21/12
Today was our off day and Seth took us in the Tuk Tuk to the Khmer Rouge killing field. I’m not going to go into a ton of the details of the Pol Pot regime and the Khmer Rouge, but this was a time from 1975-1979 that left a dark stain on Cambodia’s history. During this time the regime killed an estimated 2 plus million Cambodians out of the 7 million people in the country at the time, or almost a third of the country. Pol Pot’s radical communist regime killed ruthlessly, forced the people from the cities to the farms to work impossible hours in rice fields with little to no rations, and completely took away any freedoms from the people. There is so much hurt from this time period, and almost an entire generation of Cambodians does not exist due to the genocide.
The killing fields are located outside Phnom Penh and serve as an on location monument to the victims killed. These fields have bones and teeth fragments, tattered remains of clothes, mass graves, and other remnants of a time when the place was used as a death camp for the Khmer Rouge. We were given a headset to listen to an audio tour of the grounds. The tour gave a history, testimonies of survivors, and stories of deaths and atrocities committed there. It was a sobering experience, and the fact that it was almost completely silent with everyone listening to their headphones gave it an even more eerie feel. It is often hard to be in a place like this and really try to think about what actually happened and fight against being desensitized to it all. I left feeling very pensive and just taking it all in. I love history, but sometimes history can feel a little too real when you are seeing it up close and personal.
4/22/12
We had a pretty busy day today on our first Sunday. The center holds a church service for the youth at 8am, which we didn’t have a huge role in other than introducing ourselves. Midway through the service we split up the older and younger kids and had our team share testimonies and heard some of the kids stories. Sharing testimonies is becoming almost routine, so I make it a personal challenge to try and indiviualize mine to meet whoever is listening where they are at. If I only have a few minutes, Ill hit the highlights and tell them about how awesome a personal relationship with God is. If I have a longer time, I ll talk about how I came back to Christ and talk about His forgiveness and grace. The story doesn’t need to be the same everytime, and honestly it shouldn’t be. This is a tool that I am learning to use more effectively this month to reach people.
4/23/12
The last thing scheduled for the day was a youth group meeting with the kids at 4pm at the center. Ted had asked me last minute to share a quick Bible passage with the kids, and I ended up sharing from 1 Corinthians 12:14-20 which talks about in the body there are many parts, etc. I tried to make it humorous, because if you think about it there is a lot of humor in the passage. A hand talking to a foot and saying, why am I not a foot? I talked about how different parts of the physical body have different parts and so does the church. I actually got down on my hands and knees and tried to walk on my hands, failing in the attempt and emphasizing that it is no good for a hand to try and be a foot. The kids responded to this with laughs, and through the translator they were able to understand the Biblical truth as well. This whole ordeal was really out of character for me. Normally I would need lots of time to prepare any sort of lesson for the kids and would be really nervous and uncertain about sharing on the spot like that. The Lord has really been teaching me to just walk by the Spirit and just have confidence in knowing that He speaks to me in the moment and gives me guidance. This was one of those times where just approaching the situation with calm confidence and relying on the Lord to speak through me really worked well.
4/25/12
Today is Nick’s birthday! The girls woke us up this morning at our door singing Nick happy birthday and bringing us both breakfast and coffee in bed (well, our sleeping pads). Nick appreciated it and I certainly didn’t mind getting special treatment on his behalf either! This also meant that I didn’t have to get up and dressed as early, so I just laid in bed until we got up to go to the Seth’s daughter Hanna’s daycare center.
We were told beforehand that we could come and play games and such with the kids, but they didn’t want us talking about God or telling them that we were Christians because the majority of the kids and teachers are Buddhist. We changed around some of our songs and just sang some fun ones that weren’t Christian and then just played games with the kids. We split the kids up and I ended up going outside and playing parachute with the kids. We were all soaked in sweat by the end, but the kids were loving it and they were all so sweet. Towards the end snacktime, Seth came up to me and said, “ok, we will help them shower and then we will leave.” I was like, “oh so you mean we will help them wash their hands after eating?” And he was like, “no, they are actually going to shower.” And right on cue there were 50 naked kids running around and heading outside to bathe. Ok, so they are literally showering. Wow. It was pretty funny and very chaotic. Our girls went outside and helped them bathe and rinse themselves. A bath in the middle of the day at preschool – no big deal, right? As we left there were still naked kids who hadn’t quite located their clothes hanging onto the fence and waving goodbye to us, leaving a lasting, hilarious, impression.
Sunrise at Angkor Wat.
…And us goofing off in front of Angkor Wat after a sunset bike ride to the temples on the Cambodian New Year – the equivalent of being in Times Square on NYE in the states. Epic.
Lots of naked babies. Nick and I have decided to go tribal as well. When in Rome…
Basic hygiene lessons for the kids. For me, this involved washing about 100 kids hair with lice shampoo!
All the men that come to the Bible study at the center.
Nothing quite like getting to ride on the back of a moto to ministry! Yes Mom, I wore a helmet. Here’s proof.
Anyways, those is just a few recollections from this month, and hopefully they were encouraging and shed some light on what this month has been so far for me. We are here until Saturday then heading down to the beach in Sihanoukville to go snorkeling in the coral reefs, and then we head to Malaysia on Tuesday morning. I am looking forward to a weekend to just relax before we go full throttle into month 11. Keep myself and my team in your prayers, and stay in touch!
Cheers,
Steven
