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Sorry, I’ve been away for so long.   It has been a combination of things really. To some degree I wasn’t sure what to write about.   Moreover, our rigorous schedule often left me exhausted. So at days end I wanted to sleep or at least my brain did. Lastly, some of that which I felt worthy of sharing I had not yet processed myself.  So I felt a bit uncomfortable sharing it with the world until I myself worked through it… Now that I am a month in with Cambodia behind me, I plan on taking the next few days and sharing some of my Cambodian lessons and experiences.

In terms of a nation, Cambodia was a struggle for me initially. I believe my team was the first up and the last in during our daily ministry. The constant rush of Tuk Tuks (Mopeds attached to taxi carts) to and from with horns blaring mixed with the neighboring school practicing their Chinese New Year drum routine at 4 am for 15 days straight put a strain on my ADHD brain. I remember thinking… “How am I to here God’s voice in this mess?” At times I was left irritable and exhausted. In many ways, I found myself settling into a daily routine. I found myself giving up on trying to hear God’s small, still voice through the clutter. Looking back, I believe I was experiencing an intense microcosm of my life back in the US. 

Life as an American… specifically a “Type A” American… is a bit like the paragraph above. The cluttered busyness of life leaves me often frustrated and exhausted when seeking God’s voice in my life. The constant rushing to and from…the background noise of that which surrounds us… the demands of the daily job… the exhaustion of our personal and professional demands. In this hustle in bustle, we often find refuge in more busyness. At home or abroad, it is the mind numbing experiences of surfing the web or watching TV in which I caught myself taking refuge. Do you know… if you turn the volume of your “IPOD” up loud enough it drowns out reality? Of course it doesn’t, but that is how we are programmed to think isn’t it? The louder it is the more it demands our attention. If this is true, then how does one reprogram the mind to hear a “small, still voice from God?”

Now that I sit in the rural environment of northern Thailand, I will attempt to take the opportunity to share with you over the course of a few blogs what God has shown me thus far in Cambodia. Technology permitting, I also hope to become much more regular on blogging the Thailand experience as it happens. Thank you for waiting until I was ready to unwrap it all. I’ve been asked what God has been doing in my life while in Cambodia. I really didn’t know how to answer that because the routine nature of much of my experience for the first few weeks left me to answer “nothing”.   I think the answer however was…”He was preparing me…for what? I’m not sure.”
 *The perfectionist in me obsessed about being able to pen something without grammatical error.  The worry kept me from writing for quite some time.  I have decided to just spit my words upon the page, because the fear of judgement was keeping me silent.  I ask for grace… these are journal entries nothing more.”