We're in Cambodia just outside the capital city, Phnom Penh, working with an organization called Rock Foundation. As a side note, Dave could use a little blog-writing encouragement from our faithful readers. Feel free to urge him on! 🙂
I thought I’d have it all down by now, this whole missions thing. I thought that serving would bring great joy, that it wouldn’t matter what I was doing or my surrounding circumstances as long as I was somehow conveying the love of God to those around me. But we’re in the midst of month 9 and I have a bad attitude.
It’s hot in Cambodia. Really hot. As in I literally never stop sweating and my clothes are always damp kind of hot.
And the bugs are bad. We have a hoard of mosquitoes living in our tiny little room (which, by the way, is HOT), as well as ants that bite us and get into all our food. Not to mention the cockroaches.
And our ministry for the month is teaching English. I’m not a natural teacher and I can say without shame that it’s a good thing I wasn’t an education major in college. I become frustrated fairly easily and the language barrier doesn’t help. We’re also not supported by translators who are familiar with the language; we’re often teaching them as well as our young students.
And we have a ton of downtime. Ministry only takes up a few hours of each day, so the remainder of our time is spent sweating inside our tiny insect infested HOT room.
It’s miserable.
But in the midst of my sweaty crabbiness I know there’s a lesson. I know there are probably a myriad of lessons that I can learn if I will only accept them into my cranky brain. I know God can and does use these challenging moments to encourage growth, to nudge us in the right direction of becoming more like Him.
So while I’m drudging through another botched English lesson with 30 students who are restless and don’t know what I’m saying, and I’m repeating myself for the fifth time while wiping the sweat off my face for the twelfth time, I am learning patience. I’m learning to be joyful in the midst of these irritating circumstances because I know that I’m here for a bigger purpose than my own comfort. I’m learning to look at the children I’m teaching with love, even if at the moment I only truly love the ones who are listening and responding to me.
Fortunately, I’m a work in progress and can take the pressure of perfection off myself. I will probably never have the “missionary mindset” down, because part of doing missions is being uncomfortable. But I can learn how to respond joyfully to these circumstances, to be thankful for the little things like fans and mosquito nets, and to praise God for the opportunity to be here interacting with His people.
And I can keep praying that He’ll continue to work on my heart, be it ever so slowly, to make me more like Him.
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed” [or thought or attitude] “do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
Colossians 3:17
