Leaving Thailand was very hard, but I knew God had great things in store for us in Cambodia. This month all the men on our squad would be together for “Manistry” month. So it was only the five women of my team together as well as our squad leader Lisa.
Our team was sent to small village in Kampong Speu about an hour outside of the capitol of Phnom Penh. We worked with an amazing family. The couples’ names are Rah and Noun (pronounced noon) and they have a three year old son named Charah.
We stayed in a concrete house. Most of us set up our tents to protect against mosquitoes and to keep our things contained in one space. Setting up your tent makes you feel like you have your own little room and a place to actually organize your things. Usually it is like an atomic bomb going off when we arrive somewhere with the way our packs explode. We had bucket showers, gravity flush western toilets, and electricity. We had been told we would be living in the slums, but to us it was a great place to stay.
Noun prepared our food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was all very delicious and we could not believe we were eating fried chicken and mashed potatoes in Cambodia. It was obvious they had hosted teams prior to us.
Christianity is very uncommon in Cambodia and loud public gatherings are illegal. However, in the middle of this village lives a quiet, humble, loving, hard working, and gentle man, Rah. Rah is the most kind-hearted and peaceful person I have met on the race. It would be impossible to be angry around him because he has such a strong peaceful presence from the Lord. He grew up in this village and is highly respected by the community. He serves and loves everyone. He has nothing but gives everything.
We stayed in a concrete house but he and his family lived in a small bamboo hut in front of the house. It was a raised floor of bamboo with a palm branch roof. No walls. They had some screens and blankets they would pull down occasionally for make-shift walls but it was mostly open to all the elements of nature.
Our ministry was primarily teaching English. Though with six of us teaching and a limited number of classes we had a lot of free time. We taught English Monday through Friday and taught Bible studies in the evenings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Occasionally to fill up time in the mornings we helped Rah mix and bag the feed for the pigs. His main source of income relies heavily on the pigs. He fattens them up and sells them. Those pigs were huge.
I taught a group of teenagers and then did one-on-ones with people after who could carry on conversation in English and needed someone to practice with. I loved my teenagers but this was one of my favorite times because of the people we met and talked with and it was the most impactful.
I would love to tell about two specific people I met and talked with but my writing I fear would not do them justice. They inspired me to hunger and thirst more for God because of their desire to know God more. Their names are Ronnie and Navy.
Navy is Rah’s sister and she owns a little store on the side of the road. I spent a lot of time doing one on ones there with her to practice English while she looked after the store at the same time. Navy is a believer but her husband is not. They have two sons who are the cutest kids. Navy and I spent a lot of time discussing our lives and scripture. She would ask questions about the Bible, God, and occasionally things about The United States of America.
Ronnie is a seventeen year old young man desiring more and more of God every day. He has strong faith in God and always asks the most intriguing questions. He is so sweet and he dreams big for sure. Never have I encountered someone his age asking the questions he did or with such a longing for God. I saw him one Saturday at Navy’s store. I stopped to say hello and we exchanged the common courtesies. He looked at me and asked, “Would you tell me something about the Lord?” Wow. What an amazing opportunity. We talked about God’s love and forgiveness. Needless to say we sat there for a while. It was one of my favorite moments on the race.
It was a great month for building relationships with people in the community. Despite English classes not taking up a lot of time we had ample opportunity to go out into the community to share and connect with others. Sometimes it was talking with people and other times it was playing with the crowd of kids who were always playing outside.
Not only was it a great month for building relationships in the community but with each other and God. Every morning our team had breakfast and would sit and talk at the table. We shared stories upon stories and talked about various things. That was every meal though. Our times around the table were always great.
We made it a goal for it to be a month of prayer. We wanted to continue the worship and prayer we experienced in Thailand. So we did. Every morning after breakfast we spent time in worship and prayer. We continued asking God to do miracles. It was a beautiful time and such a great way to start our day. On days when we were not mixing pig feed we spent that time journaling, listening to music, and reading our Bibles. It was so peaceful.
It was such a beautiful month and one of my favorites on the race. There were so many beautiful things the month brought. We were in the beautiful countryside of Cambodia surrounded by rice fields, amazing people, and the time we had with each other and the Lord was great. It was a month of peace, humility, and desiring God more.
