I can remember growing up and hearing people say, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone,” or something like that. Anyways it’s true. You don’t always know what you’ve got until it’s too late, or you realize you could lose it.
This month my squad is in Cambodia. To say that this month started out rough, is an understatement. At one point during our first week here I was questioning as to if I even wanted to be on the race anymore. I think there comes a point on the race where many (I won’t say all, because I don’t know if that’s true or not) racers question whether they want to be on the race or not still. For many they hit that theoretical wall, where they don’t feel like their moving forward anymore, like there’s a block between themselves and God, like they’re just done, done with community, done with growth, done with the race itself. This month wasn’t that wall for me. Or maybe, if I’m being truthful it was.
I say it wasn’t the wall because I saw that wall last month in Thailand, I felt it coming, I saw it, and I could tell it was within finger reaching distance. I remember talking it out with team members and my ASQL, Kent. I remember sitting there thinking that I wasn’t going to hit it, and coming to the conclusion that there are all sorts of walls, but when it comes right down to it that when that theoretical wall comes up on you like it did for me last month that I need to push on, find a way; over, under, around, or just smack right through it and don’t let it stop me. I remember feeling disconnected from God, and not like I was accomplishing anything on my to-do-list. However, I also remember, sitting there in church one Sunday, journaling about walls when God told me to draw out a wall in my journal, draw it with bricks missing, and at the bottom of the page, draw bricks and write in them things that I had built up in my life in a wall around me…things like trust?, and what is faith? Anger? God where are you? Stuff like that, but then in a different color, to write in the new bricks on the wall, to show what God has been showing me and teaching me this year; stuff like: I can trust Him; He Knows Me; He never leaves; He is a good father. And in two simple sentences my wall page journal can be summed up as, “As the Wall of doubt and lies gets torn down, the truth is being built up. Those bricks of lies and doubt may take a life time to tear down, but God will spend that lifetime building me backup.” In a instant on that Sunday at church, God taught me something new about walls.
Above: My PIC of Wall
Last month in Thailand, God taught me a new way to view walls. But the reason I say this month was a wall hitting month, was because this is the first time on the race I’ve ever felt like I wasn’t sure I wanted to be here anymore. That I felt like I couldn’t do this But the truth is I can. Satan tried to make Cambodia a month that my Team wanted to not finish the race. He tried everything in his power to make this month a month no one would forget and to be honest he succeed in that. But not in the way he wanted. Let me tell you the story of how this month started and then I’ll explain my previous statement of he succeeded but not in the way he wanted.
When we left Thailand on the 30th of May, we left our ASQL’s Kayla Dawnn, Jenni and Kent on the side of the road in Thailand. We left them as we headed out as a squad all on our own, with our recently raised up SQL’s, Caitlin, Ashley and Tammy. In a way as we left Thailand we were “growing up” we no longer had the Alumni leaders to look towards for direction, but rather we we were taking responsibility and becoming our own. Like teens becoming young adults. We headed out to Cambodia, to a new adventure, to a new stage of our journey, unsuspecting, innocent and just looking forward to new adventure. After a six hour train ride and and a short bus ride later we crossed the Cambodian border with ease (what we thought was gonna be a hardest crossing turned out to be another average crossing for us; God has truly blessed us with all our border crossing so far). We got on the bus and had about a three hour bus ride to Siem Reap, Cambodia where after about an hour there my team, SheBrews, separated from the rest of our squad and headed to our ministry site. We stayed in Siem Reap for the night before embarking on a 6 hour truck drive to Kampong Chhang, Cambodia where we would be living in the middle of nowhere by ourselves. By the time we got to our site, the four of us in the back were quite sun-burned and the two in the front were hot and exhausted, we ate dinner in town, set up camp and then crashed out for the night. The next day we were to begin ministry. Our ministry for the month was to be manual labor, digging up tree stumps and level the ground out for a youth camp that would be there in September, as well as a few other small projects. Unfortunately, only a few hours after ministry started we knew our entire month would be changed. You see, we sent two people on motor bikes to the market to get groceries with our host, only one came back; the other is in the hospital right now with a broken arm. To make a long story short, the bike accident was the first of many things to occur that week; after our team leader went with the injured team member to Battombong, Cambodia to a much better hospital, our SQL Caitlin came out to join us, and ended up in the hospital quite sick, and then they decided to move our entire team four hours north to Battombong to be a whole team. The night before we left Kampong Chhang, I was accidentally electrocuted (don’t worry I’m fine), but it was like the final straw, and at that point I was ready to go home. The next day we left Kampong Chhang, and 5 hours later our entire team minus the one in the hospital was reunited. We’ve been in Battombong for almost a week now, and while things aren’t perfect, I ended up with Bronchitis, things are better. We’re in a grove now with a new ministry site. We are still doing manual labor, but we also get to hang out with local kids, and we’re in a city and only a block or two away from another team. Things are definitely looking up, and I think we’re all to the point where we’re glad to be here in Cambodia again, doing ministry, and none of us really want to go home until the end of the race now.
I tell you this story because I wanted to explain why Satan tried but failed. He tried to make us hate Cambodia, to make us want to leave it. He tried to divide our team and separate us; the first day after the accident none of the four remaining members of SheBrews talked to each other for 24 hours. He tried to divide us. So like I said earlier, “He tried everything in his power to make this month a month no one would forget and to be honest he succeed in that. But not in the way he wanted.” What I mean by this is that while yes we will always probably remember that really horrible first week here, God has been showing me, that he can redeem a country, a relationship, or just about anything that Satan tries to destroy. He did it for me with Cambodia. A week ago I wanted nothing to do with this place, and now I can’t believe I leave in less than two weeks. I’m an introvert and I LOVE my quiet time, and my alone time; but something God has been teaching me this month is that I also love my community and that our teams on the race are so important. After we all got back together (or the majority of us anyways) one thing we could agree on is we are better together than apart. Our team functions better as a whole, then separate. Satan tried to separate us, he tried to do it with the accident, he tried to make us afraid, to not talk to each other. Your community matters, don’t let Satan keep you separate from you team, whether that’s your team on the race, or your team of people back home. You need them and they need you.
If you has asked me at the beginning of the race if I thought teams and community would be so important to me, I probably would have said no. I would have said, that I’m an individual and I don’t need anybody. But I’ve realized this year, especially this last few weeks, that I love having people on my side, people that I can go and talk to a community in which I’m part of. I have a community back home that I can’t wait to be part of again in five months, but I also have a community here in my Squad that I am so glad I get to be part of now, and that will hopefully be a part of my life for a long time afterwards.
So to summarize here are two things I hope you get from this blog….
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Walls…don’t let them stop you. There are so many different types of walls out there in your life, some you need to tear down and rebuild, some you need to figure out how to go over, under, around, or smack right through. Either way, let God help you figure it out.
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Community Matters….don’t ever give up on your community and don’t let them give up on you. YOU need them, and THEY need you.
One final thought before I go, last month in Thailand, and during the beginning of this month it would have been so easy for me to buy into the idea that God doesn’t care, and that because I’m disconnected so must he. But as my teammate Catherine told me last month, “We may change and disconnect but HE never does.” Just remember that, no matter where you are in life, God is always there for you. Even if you feel like things are never gonna get better, and that you’re in the worst part of life, he’s there for you and he loves you.
Above: SheBrews with Pe-Mann and Fern from Thailand
“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6 ESV)
