Hi friends, I am back in Thailand. About to leave for South Africa tomorrow. Here’s what life has been like..
My heart grew heavy today, as we left Cambodia.
Cambodia has a special place in my heart for lots of reasons.
The endless amount of love that was poured out over the past month leaves me speechless. I met children who loved and never stopped. I also met children who had never been shown love. In the village, it was super common for kids to be raised in a home that involved drunkenness and aggression. For all you aspiring psychologists, I’m sure you know that when a child is raised in a home like that, it influences how they choose to live their life. All they know from a young age is violence. It broke my heart to see children living like this. Most of them don’t even have hope. For a lot of their lives, they have don’t have any hope of ever getting out of the village. Most of the families in the village have 4-5 children, so its very common that one to none will ever step foot in a university.
My heart hurts so deeply knowing that there are people living a life without hope. Living a life without knowing the treasures in Heaven. Living without knowing that they have an amazing Father that loves them so greatly.
Each of the children I met in Cambodia left a mark on my heart. Their smiles and infectious laughs made my each and every day so filled with joy. There’s just something about a village kid, that steals my heart.
The village we lived by was a super dark place. When we got to the pastors house, some of our team just felt a sudden darkness flood over our hearts. We knew the enemy had a tight grip on this place. Our team did what we only knew to do, to be a light. We reminded ourselves that there is no place where light can’t shine. That statement holds so much truth because once a dark place sees the light, its no longer dark. God has a place in the village and He’s not letting that go to waste.
I know our team showed love and gave hope to kids who needed it. Whether that means cleaning up bloody soccer wounds, serving them rice, or just providing a safe place to come and hangout.
I came into this month thinking it was going to be the hardest month because our ministry was so slow. Don’t get me wrong, it was super hard having so much down time. I thought WAY too much about things. I sat in front of the fans for too many hours. Our team did learn how to create our own ministry which turned out sweet. We created a youth group/Young life club for kids to come and just laugh at us do stupid stuff. I must say it was a hit. Our village kids loved to have dance parties, so most nights we danced till we couldn’t dance no more. It was a pretty sweet time.
The memories and stories from Cambodia will forever have a place in my heart. A lot of the time I can barely put into words on what this last month consisted of.
I can say that it definitely was one for the books.
Thanks for a rockin month
P.S
I’ll be living in Ocean View, South Africa. Its a suburb of Cape Town and near the beach!!!!!!! My team and I will be working with Kingdom Sports Ministry with a focus in playing Soccer. HOW FREAKIN SWEET. The World Race to The World Cup in 3 months, am I right? Please keep our team in your prayers as we will be traveling over the next few days.
Well thanks for all your love and all your awesomeness
hope you ate good on turkey day, I am jealous
love,
vicks
