I’m sorry for not updating much about Cambodia. We haven’t had the best consistent internet… but if I’m being honest, I haven’t even known what to tell you all about. We’ve learned so much about the Khmer people and seen most of Cambodia as well.
This month my team is serving the World Race as an “Unsung Heroes” team. Basically, we’re scouts this month, searching the country for ministries, organizations, churches and awesome people who are reaching Cambodia for Christ but haven’t gotten a lot of help. We’re networking to find these people in order that we might be able to send future World Racers to help out for a month. We don’t get to dig in and volunteer, but we pave the way for others to come back and have an amazing ministry to partner with in heart and hand.
Since our team has been scouting, it has required us to move around quite a bit. I will update you on all the places we’ve been so far, but I will do so city by city so I won’t miss out on telling more of what we’ve seen.
Starting in Siem Reap, we began with one of the biggest tourist cities in Cambodia. It was a great starting point, seeing Angkor Wat and the markets that line the streets every night. We tried our best to create some consistency- which ended up looking like our team eating at the same Mexican restaurant EVERY night and following it up with a quick walk down the street for some ice cream… 🙂 Creatures of habit trying to find a little piece of home.
Since we ate at the same two places for a week straight, we did have a chance to get to know the servers and sweet children selling bracelets on the streets. We were also able to get close with the men who run the hostel we stayed at. It was a strange place for ministry for us, but God works in mysterious ways.
We were also able to see The Lord move in the way we found ministry contacts. On our first Sunday, my team searched for a local church to attend in hopes of partnering with ministries run by pastors or church members. Our tuk tuk driver spoke little english, and so did not know where we were trying to go. Instead, he simply drove around until he found a few tuk tuk’s with westerners and followed them wherever they were going- it just so happened to be a church! God moment #1. This sweet church was a pentacostal Khmer church which typically is not in english, but it was a special day since several teams from Australia, America and the UK were visiting to help serve the pastor. God moment #2- we could actually understand the message! It was such a blessing to be able to worship with young Khmer people who knew the Spirit of God and worshiped with such passion.
After the service, we stayed to speak with some of the western missionaries in hopes of making contacts. A sweet woman who has been living in Cambodia for 10 years told us of a school run by the most honorable Khmer pastor she has every known. We set up a visit and fell in love with the ministry- He and his wife run and operate a small private christian school for local Khmer students. Though it costs money for children to attend, they work with the income of the parents. Each child is greeted by name every morning, loved on, played with, worked with individually and taught in Khmer and English. He told us more about his weekend village ministries, sending his teaching staff to work with village children in order to begin their education. He and his wife then invited us to stay for lunch- our first real Khmer food with the teachers and staff. Delicious fried frogs, charred fish (the whole fish), chicken bones and loads of rice. God moment #3- how in the world would we have ever found this place with out Him!
We were also able to meet with pastor one of our squad mates had volunteered with in the past. He runs a school in a village-town just outside of Siem Reap. The school is called the Mustard Seed school. It is a refuge during the day for children to come and learn about life, school work and Jesus. The teaching staff has a heart for the young people of Cambodia to learn to love Jesus and rise up to become world changers starting within their own country.
While in Siem Reap, God began to show us a little more what this month would look like. It is easy to travel, easy to find places to eat, and relatively easy to communicate. It is much more difficult to have intentional conversations with people or do anything to make a difference- we signed up for missions but felt like tourists. God began to show us what it looks like to dig into ministry wherever we are- a lesson He is still teaching us now. We don’t have a specific organization we’re working with or a defined agenda for each day, but we do have a purpose- to show God’s love to His children around the world. Bar girls, children selling bracelets and flowers, tuk tuk drivers, street vendors, servers and waiters, people we pass along the street and even tourists. Though we’re constantly being haggled and ripped off for everything, we have a choice- to walk away frustrated and annoyed, or dig roots into the lives of people we’re around and be a blessing.
Being a blessing is much more difficult most of the time, but God is teaching us a lot about His love for His beloved & misguided children (ourselves included).
