Hey everyone!! Sorry it’s taken this long to post a blog! This month has been crazy busy so far! Let me tell you about what this month looks like for us! It’s hot and the cockroaches here are unbelievably huge. It stays in the high 90’s and low 100’s and the humidity is probably close to 100% every day. Now, being from good ol South Mississippi, this feels just like home for me (as well as the roach situation), however, I am not enjoying having to work outside in it haha We’re the first World Race team that our host has hosted so it’s kind of a new hit/miss kind of thing for everyone. They’ve been absolutely wonderful to us though!
Charles is Korean but grew up in the states. He moved here about a year ago when he married his sweet wife Thien Ai who is Vietnamese and they have the cutest little 3 month old, Jedlinh. (That’s been a real treat getting to play with a baby this month =) ) Ai started a Christian school about 10 years ago for children of Vietnamese refugees who fled to Cambodia when the war was going on. Our first day here, we got to go to the school for the day and observe the teachers and see how they run things. Most of the teachers are also Vietnamese and are all Christians so that’s been so incredible being in an environment where everything is centered around Christ. Two of our girls teach English every day at the school and the remaining 5 of us do odd end manual labor jobs as well as going into some of the local Vietnamese villages and evangelizing. There are a few other events we’ve partook in. One of the days last week, a medical team came in and set up at the school to see/treat some of the locals. While they were doing that, during the kids normal classes, we gave them volleyball lessons, guitar lessons, and did arts and crafts with them! Another day, we held a Compassion Day at the school for the students. This day was so incredible to be a part of! Last month, compassion was a huge focal point for the kids and teaching them what it means to have compassion, so seeing it also being taught this month was just so cool! For compassion day, there were several different teams the kids got to choose. One group went around the community and picked up trash, another team did a prayer walk through the community, another team (the team I was with) went into a village and passed out some food to people that don’t have much money, and the last group stayed and made crafts that were passed out to locals afterward. Once we all arrived back, each team was given a SE Asian country and got to make the flag for the country and learn facts about it and then prayed over the country! It was so awesome to see them doing this! Originally, our route was taking us to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam but last min they switched Vietnam and Thailand and we are thoroughly enjoying seeing how it was all God in that! Getting to work with Vietnamese refugees and the girls that are teaching English are able to use the teaching materials that our host in Vietnam uses! It’s so awesome that God is providing the opportunity for us to pour in to more Vietnamese people
The days are really long here and with the heat it’s hard to sleep at night (aside from the 4 fans we finally gave in and bought) but it’s been very fulfilling and the Lord is doing great things! The Cambodians are celebrating the Khmer New Year this weekend so everything is closed. Therefore, we had a few days off and decided as a team that we needed to get a way and spend some quality time together and have rest with the Lord for Easter so one of my teammate’s parents so graciously paid for us to stay a few nights in a bungalow at the beach! (Shout out to Mikayla’s parents!) This is potentially our last month together as a team so we wanted to spend our last days together well! We’ll head back to Phnom Penh Tuesday morning and will resume ministry on Wednesday when everything opens back up!
In about a week and a half, we head to Siem Riep where we’ll meet up with the rest of our squad. Our squad, along with 2 other squads, were chosen to participate in something called The Awakening where we get to all come together for a few days and have breakout sessions and worship together. A lot of leadership from Adventures In Missions will fly out and hosts all over Cambodia that are partnered with AIM will also be there so it’s a way for us to pour into them and a chance for the Lord to refill their tanks! After that, we have our squad debrief where there will be a lot of changes made! People will be chosen to be raised up squad leaders (right now we have 3 squad leaders with us that have already done the race but they will be leaving us at the end of next month to go home when we fly to Europe), new team leaders will be picked, new treasurers will be picked, and teams will be switched up. It makes me sad knowing that this team will no longer be together as we’ve made a lot of memories together. We started this journey together and walked through hardships so having to split up will be tough but I’m also excited to see where God places me next and to see how much I’ll grow from the new team.
So yeah, that’s what this month looks like for us! It will definitely be one of our more challenging months but almost a month with so much growth coming from it. I’m realizing more and more that each time we move to a different country and start a new ministry, it’s hard for me to adjust. Each time we leave a place, a little piece of my heart is broken, leaving pain but I know that God is there to pick up those shattered pieces for me.
(Heads Up Seven Up was a hit. ha)
-Leah
