In Cambodia, God Taught Me About Joy

Month 7 has come to a close. I can feel the twilight hours of this trip coming soon, but for now, it’s still the heat of the day (and DANG is it hot!).

As you may have read in blogs prior, this particular month I struggled to stay present amidst the various quirks of our living conditions. I struggled to connect emotionally to the ministry I was assigned to, even despite my best efforts to stay focused and positive. Many times, I felt confused, frustrated, dry, burnt out, and wondering how I would get through the rest of the Race.

At the beginning of the month, in the midst of my hardships, I felt the Lord telling me to count it all as pure joy. And yet, tried as I did to muster up joy in the midst of my pain, I didn’t really feel like I “got it”. I was still willing to end the month saying God was teaching me about joy, when in reality, I didn’t truly feel it. Fleeting moments of simple joy, mere seconds, then infiltrated by thoughts of discomfort or homesickness or dissatisfaction. Even when I knew I was experiencing a golden moment, my heart still wasn’t satisfied.

And yet, in Cambodia, God taught me about joy. But not in the way I expected.

Because the Lord wasn’t trying to tell me just to have joy. The Lord was trying to teach me something new about joy. Something I didn’t realize until the very end.

In my first week and a half of teaching at Shalom International School, I attempted to seek the Lord for strength to endure the heaviness and fatigue I felt. Throughout the day, I would try and check in with Him, asking Him to help me find joy in the hardships. And once the day had finished, I would sometimes look back on through the little things during the day that brought me joy. I chose to go play soccer with the neighborhood kids after my teaching, even though I didn’t really feel like it. I attempted to keep myself present with the students and really take time to spend with each of them. I wanted to give everything I had to this ministry, hoping that nobody would notice me gritting my teeth. Because I wanted this month to matter, even if I didn’t feel it.

But as the week went on, and the temperature got hotter, my desire to fight for joy started to wain. We had a six-day break coming up due to the Khmer New Year, which meant that classes were not in session, and our team would head into Phnom Penh for some much needed R&R. To be honest, those last couple of days I was counting the minutes until I’d get to be in that hostel with A/C and a pool. Our last day of teaching before the break, the teachers threw a giant Khmer New Year party for the students, with food, dancing, games, and lots of rambunctious kids throwing baby powder at each other. As joyful a celebration as it was, my team was fighting to keep our energy up as our bodies were starting to fall apart due to sickness and fatigue.

So then we got our break. Six glorious days of sleeping, swimming, eating, reading, and taking time to breathe. Those first couple of days, I barely left the hostel. For the first time since the beginning of the World Race, I had six days off with zero plans or obligations. I spent good long periods of time with the Lord, knowing that my quiet times had been kind of short during our ministry days. And through that time of refreshment with the Lord, I realized what my problem was this month.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t find joy. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the ministry. It wasn’t even that the heat made everything seemingly impossible.

I was trying to escape.

In the midst of my hardest moments in that prior week and a half, I had really been trying to find an escape before I tried to find joy. Whatever that looked like – social media, Youtube videos, Skyping or texting friends back home, TV shows, food, venting with others, daydreaming about life back home – I took any and every opportunity to check out from the hardest moments. I was far too stubborn to even consider going home, so I knew I just had to grin and bear it through this month. After all, every month before had been my favorite month, so I assumed it was about time that I get a month where I could say “ehh, it wasn’t my favorite”. And pretty quickly, I was okay to decide that Cambodia would be that month.

But as I contemplated this on my last days of vacation at the fancy hostel, I decided that I didn’t want to have that mindset going back into teaching. I wanted to be present, willing to push through the hot days and the moments where I wanted to retreat and hide. I knew that we had only just a couple more days left before we would get another weekend break again, and my team had already been talking about going back to the hostel for that Saturday and Sunday. Initially, I was all for doing this, knowing that this month was hard and I needed to take care of myself. But the more I thought about this, the more unsettled I felt.

“What’s wrong with going back to the hostel next weekend? It’s so hot in the village. There’s nothing to do there anyway, since the students and teachers are gone. And besides, they’re your off days, and you need to rest! What would you really gain staying back?”

But as I began to process these things, the Lord started moving on my heart. Again, in wanting to go back to the hostel, I was choosing to escape from my problems. I was making the decision to whitewash my life in Cambodia, realizing my entitlement had me thinking that air conditioning and a pool were things I “needed”.

I realized that I didn’t come on the Race to escape from hardship but to sit in it. I came on the Race to understand the people I serve, instead of just looking in from behind a window. I came to be a light in the community I served in, and to make an influence wherever I was, even if I wasn’t on the clock doing “ministry”.

So I stayed behind. Most of my team went into the city (for their own reasons – no judgment on them) that weekend, while I and two teammates stayed back at the hot little school in the village. I didn’t know what God wanted me to do there those next two days, and to be honest, I really wasn’t too excited. I figured there would be nothing to do, and I would soon wish I had escaped with my other teammates to a place more comfortable and rejuvenating. But still, God had me stay back.

And doing so was one of the best decisions I could have made.

This whole month in Cambodia, I was struggling to find a heart for the ministry and the people that I was serving. It was weird, especially since I thought the kids were so cute and charming, and the teachers were so friendly and welcoming. It was especially weird, seeing how many of my teammates were falling in love with Cambodia when I believed I would likely never be willingly coming back to this country again. But God brought redemption. At the very last minute.

That Saturday morning, I slept in a bit, ate breakfast, read my Bible, and took a walk to the market, passing by people left and right who waved and beamed as I waved back at them. Later that day, my teammates and I decided to pull the hose out and have a water party to cool off in the middle of the 110 degree heat index. As we were spraying each other and goofing around, the children from across the street came over and decided to play with us. For an hour, we splashed each other, filled water balloons, dumped buckets of water on each other, and laughed riotously. We finished our water party, and started cooking dinner as the most gorgeous sunset was painted across the sky. The next morning, I visited a small Cambodian house church, and saw how the Christian church was starting to grow in this small village. Later that day, I took a walk down the street, and inadvertently ended up at the house of one of my students. His parents saw me and immediately invited me to sit down with them, and I sat and smiled and laughed with them as both of us knew we couldn’t communicate very well. As I walked home, I passed a field with a bunch of kids, and I decided to go play with them for a little bit. For an hour, I played with each kid, ran races with them, taught them songs, played soccer, picked up little kids, gave lots of high fives, danced around, made animal noises, chased them, and laughed a lot. And once I decided to head home, I waved goodbye, and watched as dozens of kids were jumping up and down waving goodbye, beaming with joy.

And I felt it too, bubbling up inside me like an overflowing well.

Joy.

The most beautiful moments of this month happened on the two days I didn’t have ministry. Two days I could have easily spent at a nice hostel in Phnom Penh, sitting by the pool and sleeping in an air-conditioned room. Two days that could have easily been thrown away in a month that I wished to run away from. But in choosing to stay and press into the discomfort of my situation, God redeemed the entire month of hardship, showing me a greater joy and love than I could have ever imagined I’d feel here in Cambodia.

At the end of a tumultuous month, with lots of spiritual attacks and hurdles to jump, the Lord helped me find a love for the beautiful people of Cambodia. He gave me the eyes to see what these people experienced every day, and a heart to join in with their lives instead of just look at it from a safe distance.

And above all, He helped me find joy. For most of the month, I attempted to find joy in the tangible things around me, without truly trying to find my joy in the Lord. I didn’t understand why God wasn’t allowing me to experience true joy until God asked me to persevere through the pain. 

Because in the end, God wanted me to learn that perseverance was worth it for the greater joy that was brought in the end.  

Now, I can say I loved my month in Cambodia. I loved Shalom International School and all of the incredible teachers who serve there. I loved that little village and all of the warm, smiling people. I loved the heart that God has for the Khmer people, and I loved what God is doing in their lives. I loved all the little quirks about our living situation, and all of the moments that were so ridiculous they were laughable. I loved all of the sweet moments I had with each beautiful child, whether that was while I was teaching or simply playing games and being silly. I loved the beauty of God’s creation, and every beautiful thing He showed us in Cambodia.

And I think that’s why the sunsets in Cambodia were the best. Because even when the day was hot, and humid, and sometimes hard and full of struggles, the completion of the day produced a greater radiance and beauty that far eclipsed anything that has come before it.

And for that, I can now say it in truth.

The pain, the confusion, the heat, the homesickness, the questions, the hurting, and the weariness.

For His joy, it was all worth it.