BIG NEWS! I am only $1,543 from being fully funded!! God is SO good and I am so blessed by all the generosity and love from all of you, my church and family. I am so close!
To answer a few of your questions this post describes the ministry we are doing here in Cambodia!
This month we get the privilege of serving in ministry at Lighthouse Battambang!
Their mission is:
To provide a network of support and a secure living area for each of our students selected from the poor, rural areas here in Cambodia; with available mentors to help each student develop both social competence and the individual dreams and desires of each student.
Our host and founder of Lighthouse is named Lukas, and an amazing man. With his thick Swiss-german accent, huge smile, and straightforward manner of speaking, our whole team really loved having him as our host in Cambodia. If you would like to know more about the ministry check out their website: http://www.lighthousebattambang.com/en/news/vision-mission/
Also, like their brand new facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lighthousebattambang/
Our average day starts at 5am for a very early workout with the students.
After some showers, breakfast, and quiet time, we get started on some construction ministry. We just finished building a roof for the stage at the community center.
Next the students gather with us as we lead them through an hour long devotional that is currently going through Exodus. Teaching with a translator has been a bit challenging for me personally, but man does it force me to have simple statements that clearly describe what I mean (definitely not the easiest thing to do for me)
After that all of Lighthouse gathers together for our afternoon family meal. This is personally one of my favorite times of the day here. I can simply glance along the table waiting for one of the students to make eye contact, it is immediately followed by some spontaneous giggles and laughter. The meals mostly consist of a pile of rice with a bowl of soup, fish or very hot peppers we scoop onto the rice.
Some of my favorite meals are celebrating some of the birthdays of the students. They bring out a small cake singing the same happy birthday song we do in America, but my favorite part is where people stand and give good wishes to the birthday boy/girl.
After our meal we wash dishes and then head off to teach conversational english to the students. Most of them know a lot of the alphabet and how to read in english. So the hardest part is growing their ability to speak a very different sounding language. These Khmer students are some amazing people, in whom I see so much love and hope in their eyes.
After English class we are typically done with the standard day, then we have the freedom to grow closer as a team, to grow closer to Christ, worship, or whatever that day calls for. This is one of the most essential parts of our ministry, or as I call it “inner-stry.” Like I said in my previous post, I need to be filled by God to be of use. That goes for me and my team. We use this time to allow iron to sharpen iron, give feedback and grow as a family. While on occasion this can honestly be painful, tiring, or just something you don’t feel like doing, it is where some exponential growth occurs as a disciple of Christ.
My team, my family, my tribe, TeamTeam Valor!
On Friday evenings we get to have family night! Battambong had a Water Festival this last week where they have the provincial boat race before the national one. The guys and gals split up into three groups and we got to check it out. I had so much fun experiencing this with the students. We looked at all the pop-up shops with cheap Thai made clothing. (LIke 2 name brand shirts for $2.50) We got to ride their somewhat sketchy ferris wheel and eat all sorts of food, from amazing to strange. This was some much needed change in pace after a long week for me.
Last night was our second family night where we played Duck Duck Goose, musical chairs, and had another dance party! I really love living life with these people!
We also got an adventure day! Adventure days are when we can check out the area we are serving in, eat crazy foods, and do awesome things. For our first one we got to visit our host’s family at a village down a slow moving, SUPER muddy river. The canoe-like boats were very shallow and did not have a low center of gravity, but by the grace of God, we made it! As ants crawled all over my legs biting them the whole time, and I knew if I flinched then we would sink, I only wish I was exaggerating about that. This was a pretty awesome trust exercise with God and the one paddling haha.
This week had been so amazing and filled with so many blessings. I am seeing in a new light what ministry looks like. It’s not a lightswitch I turn “on” when we go to evangelize and shut “off” to go rest. It is living everyday life with people and building Christ-centered relationships with them. It can get hard and painful at times, but that is how iron sharpens iron. In the end you are sharper and more powerful than before. This ministry has been a beautiful depiction of Acts 2 life. Leaving Cambodia to Thailand in about a week is going to be a very difficult goodbye, but I know God has not called me to stay for now. So we will move along, to a new ministry, new faces, and new country, but we will be still living the same life of ministry. Serving one another in love just as Christ calls us to.
Yours in Christ,
Andy
