The Deepest Love From God Above

   Helloooooooooooooo everyone! Ok so I feel like I start off every blog with an apology which I am starting this one with an apology as well. I probably wrote five blogs this past month, but lost all of them to bad Internet connection. BUMMER! It was super frustrating, but I am back on the attack. So I apologize to everyone. I want to honor your support so without further ado… My blog:
Our month in Cambodia was incredible. It was packed full of God, ministry, and fun! It was very different from last month for sure! My team, Absolute Abandon, was placed in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Phnom Penh is a very interesting place. It is super busy starting from about six in the morning until nine at night. At nine, the city just shuts down. It’s pretty insane that the capital closes down so early. There were some places open but for the most part everybody went to bed early to wake up at four in the morning to play really loud music and/or bang on drums. Don’t even get me started hahahahaha. We stayed at the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base. It was a huge building and most excellent. Freely Given, another World Race team, stayed at the same base which was refreshing and very fun having them around. It was also really cool meeting all the students and staff at the DTS school there and getting to know. They are some cool cats!
  Our ministry was awesome this month! We worked with Kaleb Cambodia, which is run and founded by Ingrid, a German women who has such an enormous heart and awesome vision! Talk about abandoned for the Lord!! she was very encouraging and a great influence in my life. Her organization sponsors many children and families that are in need. They are mostly in the villages where there is no electricity, no running water, and a limited supply of food.  It makes you wonder about the stuff we complain about such as our air conditioning isn’t working or my bed isn’t comfy. Wow right!? They don’t even have beds! During our last days in Phnom Penh, Ingrid took us out to two sponsor families. It was an incredible experience to see how sponsorship works first hand. The joy on the sponsors’ face is something I will never forget. 
  Our main ministry with her was teaching English to five Cambodian girls, who love God, preparing to go to school to become midwives. Another aspect of our ministry was working with street kids at The Bethlehem Night Shelter, which was also founded and run by Ingrid.  Teaching English to those girls was a blast! They had a thirst to learn English not only because the curriculum at the mid wivery school is in English but because they know the opportunities they will have if they do learn it. That says alot about their character and their maturity at such a young age. Ben and I mostly taught the class…well mostly Ben, I assisted.  We got very attached to those girls and will miss them deeply. We did get to see the fruits of that as well. When we first met them they were very self conscious about speaking english out loud but by the end of our time they were speaking out loud and trying to learn more and more. That was very fulfilling for us! They are going to be speaking English better than us soon hahaha. 
The night shelter was also an incredible experience! There were around twenty five or so kids( I never actually counted). I say kids but the age range was from about 5 to 25 or so. The older kids were going to university because it is a requirement to go to school if they want to stay there which I think is an excellent rule! We bonded very tightly with all the boys there. (it was an all boys night shelter) they are a rowdy bunch who loved to cut the rug and actually were extremely gifted in the dancing arena. Some are Christians and some are not so it was great to minister to those who were not believers and to speak encouragement into those that were. All in all it was an awesome time. By the way Cambodians love to play UNO, the card game. Although I do live UNO as well, I might be ok without it for a while hahahahaha. Our main ministries were awesome and God did so much work I believe in the people we spoke to. 
  Now there is a story from this month I want to share with all of you.  God totally blew me away this month in many aspects. I wanted to tell of the extra optional ministry we did.  Freely Given, the other team we were staying with, decided to do extra ministry at C.H.O.I.C.E. Soup kitchen.  Choice is an awesome ministry! They feed about 80 people a day folks!!! AWESOME! it’s run by incredible people! So we would go there and put rice in boxes and soup in a bag to hand out to people. There was also another ministry involved in that that became the most rewarding and most heart breaking part of the month. PRAISE GOD!
  One thing that CHOICE has been doing as well is going to the hospital for the terminally ill and handing out food to the patients and praying over them and just showing them love. I was of course on board with going because I had never experienced anything like that before. We visited it a few times, but the first time was definitely incredible and an eye opener. There weren’t many patients but visited all of them and gave them food. We also sang for the patients and prayed over them. The Holy Spirit was for sure with us in those rooms. There was a woman patients there that we had prayed for. At that point I did not know she was going to have such a great impact on me and my life.
  We visited another few times and God was working in me harder than I had felt before in those rooms. We had visited with the woman each time we were there and she began to have an affect on me. (not to say she and the other patients didn’t in the first place). I felt deeply for her situation. The second to last time we went, I asked God to break my heart and to give me his eyes and to have a certain compassion for the patients. Well, ask and you shall receive! God delivered more than I could bargain for.
  Our group went into the room with the woman patient. (I’m sorry I dont remember her name, it was in Khmer so naturally I forgot the extremely difficult pronunciation and yes I feel guilty about it). I was extremely excited to see her and her us. She was 37 years old but looked around 55 – 60 years old, skin and bones. She was in the final stages of AIDS. She had yellow skin, long black hair, brown eyes, and the most beautiful smile with her gold tooth shimmering in the harsh lights of the room. She was so joyful, yet so weak. She couldn’t eat and hadn’t, to my knowledge, for a week or two . We spoke with her (we had a translator). I was kneeling next to her bed and holding her feeble hands. I was intensly drawn to her eyes. In those moments, I was dead to the world. I felt the deepest love for her that I had ever felt before. God for sure delivered and not only broke my heart but He mangled it for this woman and I praise Him for it. I can’t even describe how I felt looking into her eyes. There was this frightening, deep connection, and just this deep deep live. I know for a fact that it was from God and from God only. There was like this vortex that was meeting between our eyes. I had to look away at times because the feeling was so foreign and extremely overwhelming, but I would always be drawn back in by God’s love for her. 
  I held her hand for almost the entire time we were in the room. Even though she might not have understood what I was saying, I told her I loved her many times. Then we sang her a song while I still kneeled and held her hands. The song was I Exalt Thee (beautiful song) and I had never sung better in my life. I was kind of impressed hehe 😉 then we prayed for her. I prayed so incredibly for healing and serenity and that she might know Jesus soon.  I often times think my prayers aren’t good enough which an insecurity I have to get over because all prayer is powerful! One of my squad mates was praying next to me and said he couldn’t even pray because my prayer was so powerful. That was a surprise and an encouragement! After we finished praying, we spent a little more time with her and then it was time to say goodbye. I began to cry as we were saying goodbye.  It was a tough goodbye.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to get to go back the next time. We said goodbye for a long time and even after the door shut, I was still waving through the window to her form the hallway.  Then, I just started to ball walking down the hallway and walking out of the hospital.  Tears running down my face and snot dribbling out of my nose.  I was shameless because I knew it was God who had broken me. I was just so torn up about saying goodbye to her.  I was in a reflective and broken state for the rest of the day.