If you were to ask me to sum up our month in Cambodia so far I would tell you two things.
- We teach English every day, all day. It is so fun. Our hosts has made connections in their community with schools and churches and has been given the opportunity to teach English and, within the Churches, share the Gospel with children and youth. We are teaching all ages. We’re teaching teachers, we’re teaching high schoolers, we’re teaching elementary age students, and some of our team mates are teaching ages 6-60 in an evening class. It’s incredible.
- The Lord is showing up every day, all day. It is so beautiful. Since we got here, every day is filled with moment after moment of the Lord revealing his beauty, loving us very specifically (ask my team mate AB about the watermelon), and blessing us endlessly.
One night the Lord revealed something so profound and so simple to me. Our host’s son, Omnor, is 3 years old. The first day, he was a little unsure about 8 noisy foreigners coming into his new house to stay for a month. We have quickly become friends though. He loves welcoming us home after a day of ministry or greeting us when he comes to visit us at the schools. He sometimes just greets us after he hasn’t done it in a few hours, even if we’re all at home together.
“Hello friends, I am here!” is the Omnor catch phrase.
That same night I was praying and thanked the Lord for how much he has revealed his presence to me this month. I have craved for a long time to be able to see and feel his presence outside of this box that I subconsciously created and, piece by piece, he has been taking apart that box. I prayed these words “Thank you for showing up just to say ‘I am here!’”
That’s when it hit me like a ton a bricks. He’s literally been speaking audibly to me through a 3 year old.
When I go for a run in the morning and get home as Omnor is getting out of bed, he says “Hello Sequoi, I am here!”
While we’re teaching English to the teachers of the local public school and Omnor arrives on the moto with his dad, he says “I am here!”
When we get home to each lunch, spend time together as a team and rest in the afternoons, he welcomes us home by saying “Hello, friends! I am here!”
As I sit outside at a picnic table at the public school and tutor three other teachers, Omnor arrives again on the moto with his dad and he says “Hello, Sequoi, I am here!”
When Omnor and his dad stop by at our evening lessons with children and youth at a nearby church, he peeks in through the door says “I am here!”
And while my team mates and I are riding home in the back of a little white truck and Omnor passes us on the moto with his mom, dad, and sister he says “Hello, friends! I am here!”
On our morning runs, in the sunrise over the river and the greetings from neighbors, the Lord reminds us that he is there.
In a public school classroom as we teach a group of adults that get to pour into a few hundred primary school students each day, the Lord tells us that he is there.
In the couple hours of down time in the afternoon, where we get to have a meal together and rest, the Lord makes sure we know he is there.
While I am practicing English vocabulary and grammar with three funny and kind teachers in the afternoon, the Lord lets me know that he is there.
As we laugh at my bad pronunciation of Khmer words and play English games in the evening with our students, the Lord is sure to remind us that he is there, even when we’re exhausted from the day.
And as we ride home in that little white truck and laugh about our day and share the good and hard parts about it, the Lord isn’t done telling us “I am right here, too, my child.”
I can’t get over it. I can’t get over how loving and consistent the Father is. To reveal himself in this way to us since we got here is unbelievable. And all I can do is praise Him for it.
Sending my love from Cambodia,
Sequoi
